Modes of discourse about education, peace and human rights in the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation

Abstract

How do culturally, politically, and economically different actors define education in the UNESCO 1974 Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms? This exploration of the document aims to increase understanding of the work of organizations such as UNESCO, as well as stimulating new attention to the area of education for international understanding, peace, and human rights. The text of the Recommendation is analysed discursively, and five repertoires are identified: instruction, principled, factual, stand-taking, and adjusting, as well as a wider discourse of rationality. Repertoires construct positions for the speaker, here the General Conference of UNESCO, and for those to whom the Recommendation is addressed (member states). The adjusting discourse, in which member states are given opportunities to define alternative modes of implementation, is especially important. Identifying the modes of discourse used in the document helps to explain implicit aspects of the normative texts drafted by UNESCO and by international organizations generally. This analysis also provides a basis for reflection on the interaction between international organizations, education policy makers, and educators in this area.

Fostering young people’s support for participatory human rights through their developmental niches.

“…It is the only document originating in a UN agency where there has been international consensus about the inclusion of human rights in global or international education 1 . After more than 35 years of inattention on the part of the international educational community, in 2010, a dissertation at the University of Jyvalkyla (Finland) presented a discourse analysis of the 1974 Recommendation (Savolainen, 2010; Savolainen & Torney‐Purta, in press). This discourse analysis examined the ways that culturally, politically, and economically different actors (including the governments of member states) define this area.…”

Inertial constraints to educational change: The case of human rights education in Iceland

“…The role of education in realising human rights has been promoted by both the United Nations and the Council of Europe through various moral and legal frameworks. The UNESCO Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in 1974 (United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 1974) is a landmark legal document specifically directed at peace and human rights in education (Savolainen & Torney-Purta, 2011). The recommendation is currently being revised to ensure education policies are guided by a global perspective and commitment to international solidarity to better prepare learners to shape more just, sustainable, healthy and peaceful futures (UNESCO, n.d.).…”