Re-Imagining human rights education as a model for citizenship education

• In Event: Human rights close to home: human rights education for civic action

Proposal

This presentation explores a model of human rights education (HRE) as a framework for citizenship education (CE) as a basis for the Human Rights Close to Home initiative. CE has been a contentious field since early public educators set out to prepare young people for life in a democratic society. Moreover, following the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, there has been a renewed interest in CE (see Kennedy, July 13, 2021; S.879, 2021). However, policies, schools, and curriculum have traditionally promoted a nationalist ideology of citizenship that creates conforming, obedient citizens at the exclusion of others and the denial of the pluralistic lives of young people (see Chappell, 2010; Kahn & Middaugh, 2007; Loewen, 2007; Osler, 2011; Westheimer, 2007; 2019). Emerging from these unprecedented times, we have the opportunity to reexamine existing frameworks with the purpose of centering human rights at the heart of CE. In addition to renewed interests in CE, Mitoma and Marcus (2020) note the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted worsening human rights violations, “particularly around the rise of authoritarianism, erosion of democracy, increase in hate crimes and racism, and deepening economic inequality” (p. 127). This context provides an opportunity for the re-imagining of HRE as a model for CE. In preparing young people to address these human rights issues, educators can equip young people to be better able to participate in and build upon a diverse democratic society in which human rights are at the center. Specifically, when HRE is imagined and implemented as a model for CE, HRE allows young people to:
a. Learn about, develop, and practice activist strategies that challenge dominant ideologies, systems, and hierarchies of power for social transformation.
b. Examine interconnectedness of political, social, economic and cultural domains and develop an understanding of collective fortunes.
c. Bring awareness to students’ roles, positions, power, and agency at the local, national, regional, and global levels (McGregor, Sirota, & Mitoma, 2022).
Human rights is a difficult historical subject (Mitoma, 2017) often covering controversial topics present in today’s society. By bringing attention to controversial topics and difficult histories with the intent of taking action to address human rights issues, young people are expected to use thinking and processing skills to identify human rights issues, develop plans of action, and take action to address the identified human rights issue. This student-centered orientation provides more democratic instruction to take place as students are making the decisions as to what issues will be tackled as well as what final product will be submitted. Moreover, this student-centered approach to tackling human rights issues allows young people to define issues relevant to their lives. It is in this context that Human Rights Close to Home is based.

Authors

• Ian McGregor, Universtiy of Connecticut

• Sara M Harvel, University of Connecticut