Language use in the teaching of human rights

Ann Quennerstedt,Bulent Tarman

doi:10.1080/2331186x.2019.1683932

Abstract

This research seeks to increase the knowledge about the role of language in the teaching of human rights. The specific interest is to examine how language use extends and specifies the human rights ...

Highlights

In this era of changing political landscapes in which human rights and democracy are under attack from ethno-nationalist and anti-democratic forces, the role of education to equip citizens with resistance capacity is of vital importance
The UN calls upon nations to incorporate Human Rights Education (HRE) in formal schooling, and many nations assign in their national curricula responsibility to education to ensure that children and young people develop knowledge about human rights and that they come to understand and embrace human rights values and attitudes (Phillips, 2016; Quennerstedt, 2015; Robinson, 2017)
An evaluation of the effects of the World Programme (UN, 2010) showed that HRE has been brought into a number of national curricula, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the progression of the concrete teaching of human rights

Summary

Introduction

In this era of changing political landscapes in which human rights and democracy are under attack from ethno-nationalist and anti-democratic forces, the role of education to equip citizens with resistance capacity is of vital importance. Among the international incentives supporting and calling for the expansion of Human Rights Education (HRE) the UN may be said to be the most central actor through its World Programme for Human Rights Education and the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011). The UN calls upon nations to incorporate HRE in formal schooling, and many nations assign in their national curricula responsibility to education to ensure that children and young people develop knowledge about human rights and that they come to understand and embrace human rights values and attitudes (Phillips, 2016; Quennerstedt, 2015; Robinson, 2017). An evaluation of the effects of the World Programme (UN, 2010) showed that HRE has been brought into a number of national curricula, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the progression of the concrete teaching of human rights. This paper seeks to make a contribution by examining language use as a significant factor in the teaching of human rights, based on observational data from the ongoing teaching of human rights in six Swedish classrooms

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Discussion

Conclusion