Human Rights Education, Postcolonial Scholarship, and Action for Social Justice

Abstract

In our global age, educational researchers and practitioners need tools that can be applied in a range of contexts and scales: local, national, and international. This article argues that human rights education (HRE) is a site of struggle in which human rights and democracy need to be constantly renewed. It contextualizes HRE within a critical, reflective postcolonial framework that nonetheless recognizes modernist principles of universal rights. It focuses on 2 concepts—universality and recognition—to develop a theory of HRE that meets the needs of multicultural, multi-faith, yet secular societies that are characterized by asymmetrical power relations and anti-democratic political movements. An evolving theory of HRE needs to embrace the ethics of recognition by extending this concept beyond that expounded in human rights instruments and building on learners’ experiences. Individual narratives are starting points for new collective narratives to enable the strengthening of human rights and social justice.

Keywords:

• cosmopolitanism
• extremism
• human rights education
• narrative
• nationalism
• recognition
• universality

Notes

1. ¹The Greek authorities have since acted in arresting Golden Dawn leaders (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24391656 ; accessed October 11, 2013).

2. ²An opinion poll carried out in 2011 found that 25% of Norwegians believed there were too many Muslims in the country, but the figure dropped to 16% in Oslo, where half of all Muslims live (see NKR, 2011).

3. ³Norway is not an EU member-state but implements many EU polices, including movement of labor, and has signed the Schengen agreement allowing free movement across Schengen member-states.

4. ⁴For further discussion see Osler and Lybaek (2014). For the full judgement of the UNCHR, see http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/6187ce3dc0091758c1256f7000526973?Opendocument

5. ⁵Article 2 Protocol 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights relates to the right to education and the state’s duty to ensure it is in conformity with parents’ religious and philosophical convictions.

6. ⁶Holocaust education is sometimes used synonymously with HRE, and clearly, a study of the Holocaust does create a space when it is not only possible to study education about rights but also education for human rights, implying social change. Yet it is also possible to teach about the Holocaust as a denial of the rights of one or more specific groups of people without necessarily considering education for rights, or addressing the universality of rights, or indeed addressing education through or for human rights.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Audrey Osler

AUDREY OSLER is a Professor of Education at Buskerud and Vestfold University College, 3045 Drammen, Norway, and Professor Emerita in Citizenship and Human Rights Education at University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. She can be contacted at [email protected].