Early Years Critical Literacies and Rights

Abstract

Critical literacies as a field carries immense potential to provide students tools to build a better, more caring, and just world. This is especially true for students at the earliest years of education as they create the foundations for active citizenship in society. When these tools are connected to discourses that focus on equal treatment of all humans anywhere in the world, there is hope that future generations will actively resist long-standing systems of mistreatment. This literature review seeks to bring together two bodies of work and ponder at how they might work in relation to one another. This literature is then analyzed in relation to the physical location in which they take place to open understandings of how geopolitics, history, and culture impact what can and should be done. Critical literacies and discourses around human rights create complex intersections that share more in common than what might appear at surface level. Educators and educational policies should work to better understand these intersections to support the holistic development of any student.