One Million Bones: Measuring the Effect of Human Rights Participation in the Social Work Classroom

Abstract

This article describes the integration of human rights content and a national arts-activism initiative—One Million Bones—into a bachelor’s-level macro practice class as a human rights teaching strategy. Two previously validated scales, the Human Rights Exposure (HRX) in Social Work and the Human Rights Engagement (HRE) in Social Work (McPherson & Abell, 2012) were used to evaluate student increases in HRX and HRE. Students in the intervention class increased their HRX by 36% by semester’s end and showed significantly higher levels of HRE and HRX than students in a comparison classroom. This project is the first to evaluate a human rights teaching intervention in social work, and it intends to contribute to the literature on human rights in social work education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane McPherson

Jane McPherson is a doctoral candidate and Leah P. Cheatham is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University.

Leah P. Cheatham

Jane McPherson is a doctoral candidate and Leah P. Cheatham is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University.