Attitude of the Students, Teachers and Educational Administrators for Incorporating Human Rights Education in Secondary School Curriculum

Abstract

After the World War-II, human rights education has become an increasingly visible feature of the educational policies, debates and foundations at international level. Steps have been taken by various nations to incorporate human rights education in their school curriculum. In India, a few studies have been conducted in the context of incorporating human rights education in school curriculum in general and in secondary school curriculum in particular. In the present study, an attempt was made to study the attitude of the students, teachers and educational administrators for incorporating human rights education in secondary school curriculum. The study mainly focused to compare the attitude of the students, teachers and educational administrators for incorporating human rights education in secondary school curriculum, and to identify certain basic content areas of human rights education that may/should have a place in secondary school curriculum. The study was considered under descriptive survey-cum-content analysis research. The participants of the study included 640 students, 256 teachers and 88 educational administrators under secondary schools of Bihar, India. A self-developed attitude scale titled ‘Attitude scale for studying the attitude for incorporating human rights education in secondary school curriculum’ was used for collecting data from participants for the study. Both the quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis were employed for analyzing the collected data of the study. The study mainly revealed that among the entire sample studied, the students possessed better attitude than teachers and educational administrators for incorporating human rights education in secondary school curriculum. Further, the study helped to identify certain basic content areas of human rights education that may/should have a place in secondary school curriculum.