Thinking without banisters: Toward a compassionate inquiry into human rights education

Abstract

In this essay I chart a range of difficulties for the field of human rights education, a field that has traditionally been preoccupied with universal principles. These difficulties arise in conjunction with three critiques of the view of morality implicit in this version of human rights education: Levinas's ''interhuman'' realm of ethical responsibility, the vicissitudes and resistances to learning elucidated by psychoanalysis, and the complex nature of the faculty of judgment as described by Hannah Arendt. Although perhaps philosophically irreconcilable, these three critiques combine to suggest the potential for human rights education to become an education that attends to the ethical responsibility that occurs apart from the rational aims of knowledge. Rather than merely an instrumentalized, moralized method for ''securing'' the future, this latter approach provides an important location for what Arendt called ''thinking without a banister.''

The Effect of Constructivist Instruction on Prospective Teachers’ Attitudes toward Human Rights Education

“…Regarding how to teach democracy and human rights, Tibbits (1996) and Kepenekçi-Karaman (2000) point out that knowledge of human rights can be taught in various interdisciplinary courses, such as history, civics, literature, religion, or ethics/moral education. However, several specific methods have been identified as most effective by scholars of human rights education; these include using active involvement and student-centered learning (Koschmann, Myers, Feltovich, & Barrows, 1993, cited in Shuttleworth, 2008Reardon, 1995;Shiman & Fernekes, 1999;Şahin-Yanpar, 2001;Watkins, Carnell, Lodge, Wagner, & Whalley, 2000, cited in Shuttleworth, 2008, lecturing to large groups (Burgess & Taylor, 2004, cited in Shuttleworth, 2008Mclntyre-Birkner & Birkner, 2004), utilizing student role-playing (e.g., Flowers & Shiman, 1997;Burgess & Taylor, 2004, cited in Shuttleworth, 2008, teaching and learning with case studies and daily life events (Sliwinski, 2005; United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1993), using audio-visual materials (Praveen, 2007, cited in Shuttleworth, 2008, building teams for discussions (D'Andrea-O 'Brien, & Buono, 1996), and encouraging student community service to help the students to gain first-hand human rights experiences (Burridge, Hinett, Paliwala, & Varnava, 2002). Above all, Carter and Osler (2000) state that it is only through education, both experiential and cognitive, that human rights will be achieved and maintained.…”

Foucault and Human Rights: Seeking the Renewal of Human Rights Education

“…The declarationalist approach is usually grounded in a perceived consensus on human rights as universals and refrains from reflection on how human rights and their critiques are integrated into HRE efforts. Also, Sliwinski () explains that the preferred curriculum strategy often follows a standard formula, beginning with the basic article of the UDHR, followed by specific case studies of oppression—usually about distant places and different peoples. The problem with this formula is that it ‘offers a largely normative approach in which the steady re‐articulation of this curricular strategy is combined with a justification of human rights education as a universal method for interpreting specific cultural violence’ (pp.…”

Studying Global Human Rights Education. Theoretical and Empirical Approaches

“…Based on a consideration of the definitions given by the United Nations, governmental bodies, NGOs and educationalists, an array of different pedagogical and theoretical approaches to HRE are discussed (Bajaj 2011a;Cao, Fei 2014;Dembour 2010;Flowers 2003;Fritzsche 2004;Lenhart, Savolainen 2002;Lohrenscheit 2002;Magendzo 2005;Meintjes 1997;Misgeld, Magendzo 1997;Osler, Vincent 2002;Osler, Zhu 2011;Sen 2004;Shuji 2012;Sliwinski 2005;Starkey 2012). …”