Inclusion of ‘generations of human rights’ in social science textbooks

Abstract

The ‘Generations of Human Rights’ (GHR) classified ‘rights’ in terms of the interests they protect and to law and legislation related to Human Rights (HR) policies. First GHR are civil and political rights, the second GHR are socio-economic and cultural rights, and the third GHR are collective and solidarity rights. This article examines the inclusion of the GHR through conceptual content analysis from current primary and secondary school social science textbooks in India. The results of the study show that GHR are explicitly and implicitly included more at secondary than primary school level. The political science and history textbooks at the secondary level generally indicate a higher instance of implicit and explicit inclusion of GHR. The null inclusion (completely missing) of GHR is more at the primary school level. In addition, while the first GHR are more explicitly included, the second GHR shows weak explicit inclusion and the third GHR is the weakest although there are many opportunities to include third GHR in social science textbooks.