Teaching Human Rights in Primary Schools

Overcoming the Barriers to Effective Practice

Alison E. C. Struthers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351782821
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

Teaching Human Rights in Primary Schools delves into the important issue of Human Rights Education (HRE) implementation, exploring the nature and extent of HRE in education policy and practice in English primary schooling, and seeking to understand the reasons for deficiencies in practice in this area. HRE enables people not only to identify rights violations in their own lives, but also equips them with the knowledge, values and skills required to accept, defend and promote human rights more broadly. An awareness of human rights is therefore crucial, no matter what a person's age, and as such it is vital that information about human rights is included within formal education.

Beginning with an overview of the relevant international obligations and agreements related to HRE, Struthers then demonstrates that these are ostensibly not currently being met in either policy or practice in England. The book then draws upon current literature and empirical research with teachers to explore and analyse the barriers to HRE implementation. While the book uses the specific context of English primary education, it makes broad interdisciplinary recommendations concerning how the provision of HRE could be improved, which will be relevant to other countries instituting programmes of HRE or values and citizenship education.

Interdisciplinary in nature and addressing HRE at both the international and domestic levels, this book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in both education and law. It will be of particular interest to those engaged in the study of human rights, children's rights and education law, as well as those interested in curriculum policy and development, teaching methodologies and the sociology of education. It should also be essential reading for teacher educators, teachers and policymakers.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The importance and challenges of HRE

Children don’t know if they’re being abused, because that’s their family life … but when we’re feeding that information that it’s your right to be treated well, I’m hoping that children are less likely to be abused … I get really upset about it, because … my family went through it. My husband did it to me and my boys, and you just don’t think you dare say to anybody, because nobody will believe you … [S]o … [we have to keep] … planting the seed, … [and] telling … them ‘this is your right to be treated well’ … [W]e had a year 6 child who left us last year, and she was able to say something … All of a sudden she just … said ‘so if somebody is doing X, this isn’t right, is it?’ and I said ‘no, it’s not love, so what are you going to do about it? You have a choice and we’ll support you.’

(Interview 16)

It seemed appropriate to open this introductory chapter with this frank and personal account of the experiences of one of the teachers who participated in the research project at the heart of this book. It can be easy to get lost in detailed academic discussion about the importance of teaching children about their human rights, but nowhere are these arguments more compelling than in the testimony of those who have experienced the power of human rights education (HRE) to transform the lives of young people. For this teacher, the question becomes not whether HRE should be taught, but why anyone would deny that children ought to learn about human rights when recognition of the existence of those rights may be the only way by which they will come to identify rights violations in their own lives.

Human rights should not, therefore, be viewed as an abstract, global and aspirational framework, but as a concept relevant to all people, at all stages of their lives. This is, however, only likely to be possible where HRE is practised. HRE seeks to guarantee that, through teaching and learning that equips learners with the tools to understand, promote and defend human rights, these rights will be secured for current and future generations. It allows people to identify rights violations in their own lives, while also equipping them with the knowledge, values and skills required to accept and defend human rights more broadly. It further enables people to appreciate that human rights are not applicable only to those suffering in distant war-ravaged or hunger-ridden countries, but are equal and inalienable standards that belong to everyone, simply by virtue of being human.

In light of current global threats, including rising ethno-nationalism, Islamophobia and various forms of extremism from different factions, HRE becomes increasingly significant for counteracting divisive global narratives and for building a universal culture in which human rights values and principles are central, including freedom, equality, dignity and justice. And because prejudices can be fixed at a very young age, many of the international instruments relevant to HRE mandate its inclusion across formal education, including primary and even pre-school level. Arguably only through challenging any such biases at a young age and by equipping children with the tools necessary for promoting and defending human rights will the next generation stand a chance of being able to dispel the widespread negative societal attitudes towards, and misconceptions of, human rights prevalent today.

While the advantages of holistic HRE provision at primary level will be discussed throughout this book in various contexts, the fact that this is an international legal obligation across formal education means that the underlying premise of this research – that HRE should be taught in primary classrooms – is both valid and significant. And because the empirical elements of the project at the heart of the book took place in England, the analysis and discussion is particularly relevant to this context. This does not mean, however, that it is not also valuable beyond this setting, for many of the current barriers to holistic HRE practice in England are comparable in other countries. Analysis of these barriers, and suggestions for how they could be alleviated or overcome, is therefore of use beyond the English context.

This book assumes as its starting position that because the UK has accepted a number of key international legal obligations concerning HRE, holistic education in this area should be included in classroom and school practice at each educational level, including primary education. It begins by investigating what the international requirements for HRE actually entail, and then seeks to determine whether they are reflected in the English policy landscape. With a scarcity of relevant policy, consideration then turns to the primary quantitative and qualitative empirical research conducted with teachers across England to gain a better understanding of what is happening in practice. It is only through such empirical investigation that it becomes possible to gauge whether the requirements of HRE are in fact being delivered through teaching practice in primary schools despite the apparent lack of relevant policy. If this is not happening, however, it is important to determine why not, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the current barriers to HRE at this level. While much of the existing academic and policy-oriented work in the field implies that the absence of concrete and consistent state policy regarding HRE is the sole, or certainly the principal, reason for the widespread insufficiencies in its implementation,¹ this book will suggest that there are deeper and more complex factors at play.

Why is HRE important for primary learners?

Throughout this book, arguments are made both by teachers and academic commentators against providing HRE to primary school learners. Some of these claims relate to their age and deemed maturity, some to the nature of the subject matter, and some to the appropriateness in practice of certain concepts considered necessary for effective HRE. Much of the relevant scholarship does, however, emphasise the importance of HRE, and this section therefore provides a brief overview of some of the common arguments in support of its provision. While not universally accepted, they nevertheless lend weight to the suggestion that states should be offering holistic HRE that accords with the requirements of the international legal framework.

Recognition of human rights as universal standards

At a fundamental level, HRE is considered to be the means through which learners come to recognise and understand that human rights are equal, inalienable standards belonging to everyone simply by virtue of their common humanity, and that they extend beyond basic rights of life and liberty to encompass a multitude of economic, social, cultural and political rights. According to Audrey Osler, human rights emphasise ‘our common humanity and are essentially cosmopolitan, promoting solidarity with our fellow human beings, regardless of such factors as race, nationality, or religion’.² While global cultural contexts vary significantly, the universal human rights regime endeavours to create a world of diversity where all human beings have an equal entitlement to the ‘rewards and privileges of their social, economic, political, and cultural context’.³

Without HRE, people are likely to have little or no awareness that they have fundamental rights and, as noted by K.-Peter Fritzsche, what use is it to have human rights if they are neither known nor understood?⁴ Throughout this book, teachers make reference to the need for young people to know their rights for safeguarding purposes. How will children know if their rights are being violated if they have no knowledge of these rights in the first place? If ever there was a compelling reason for ensuring that young people are well-versed in their human rights entitlements, their protection from abuse or neglect is surely it. HRE is thus vital for ‘raising awareness, understanding and acceptance of universal human rights standards and principles, as well as guarantees at the international, regional and national levels for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms’.⁵

HRE is also deemed to serve as an organising framework that prevents learners studying subjects, such as poverty, hunger and war, without reference to broader principles. As Margaret Stimmann Branson and Judith Torney-Purta observe, learners can often come away from the study of such issues with the impression that it is the job of developed countries to come to the aid of less developed ones ‘in a spirit of charity, rather than realising that the right to freedom from hunger is a basic human right to which every human being is entitled’.⁶ Christine Monaghan et al. further note that this tendency is particularly common in models of global citizenship education.⁷ HRE, by contrast, draws upon a common language of humanity to provide a set of principles intended to unite all people, with the human rights framework providing clarity beyond the complex, changing, and often inadequate laws of nation states.⁸

Recognition of the importance of human dignity

The importance and centrality of the concept of dignity within human rights discourse is also considered to provide a compelling case for HRE. According to Hugh Starkey, dignity represents a defining feature of human beings, with recognition as a member of the human family denoting ‘acknowledgement of an equal right to dignity shared with all other human beings’.⁹ For Starkey, while dignity is inherent, it becomes actualised through the exercise of human rights. Recognition of equal human dignity is therefore vital to the human rights endeavour, and it is perhaps unsurprising that dignity lies at the heart of many human rights instruments, including the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.¹⁰ It has been suggested that because dignity is undefined in these documents, it remains something of an elusive concept. This is not necessarily problematic, however, for it can be acceptable that ‘different groups, particularly different cultures, might agree that there is such a thing as the dignity of the person, and largely agree on the rights that follow from it, but differ in their understanding of quite what that “dignity” is’.¹¹

Human rights are therefore deemed to convey to their bearers that they are dignified beings worthy of respect, thus in turn ideally empowering them to act as equal and valued citizens who are confident and secure enough to promote and defend their rights and the rights of others.¹² Only through relevant education, including rights-respecting experiences in the formal learning environment, will learners gain an awareness of their rights. HRE is thus an important guarantee of dignity for young learners. In turn, the provision of HRE may empower them to promote and defend human dignity more broadly, with Ali A. Abdi and Lynette Shultz noting that ‘the potential for human rights as a common vision of human dignity to be the catalyst for change is significant’.¹³

Learning to be a good citizen

R. Brian Howe and Katherine Covell observe that through HRE, young learners come to recognise and understand the values, virtues, and practices of effective citizenship. Not only do they acquire knowledge of their fundamental rights, but they are also likely to develop the skills, attitudes, and values required to promote and defend the rights of others and to participate effectively in a democratic society.¹⁴ HRE can therefore be said to contribute towards the advancement of active citizenship, yet it goes beyond the narrow remit of traditional citizenship education, which often has a focus on national civil rights. According to Lynn Davies, citizenship education tends to ‘prioritise the historical, political and economic realities of a specific country, while HRE puts similar knowledge, values and skills in an international context’.¹⁵ Learning about human rights rather than simply national civil rights enables learners to recognise that they are already worthy citizens as opposed to citizens-in-waiting, or vulnerable ‘not-yets’.¹⁶ HRE can thus be viewed as ‘an important pathway to citizenship and to citizenship education as a vehicle for the development of the values and practices of global citizenship’.¹⁷

Contributing to the building of a universal culture of human rights

HRE is furthermore deemed to be significant for equipping learners with the tools for contributing to the building and promotion of a universal culture of human rights based upon values such as freedom, equality, dignity and justice. Paul G. Lauren emphasises that

never before in history has there been what is now described as such a ‘universal culture of human rights’ in which the rights of so many men, women, and children are given so much attention in so many diverse places … and in which the in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: The importance and challenges of HRE
• 2. Global HRE obligations relevant to primary education
• 3. From the global to the local: HRE in primary education policy in England
• 4. Education about human rights: The controversial nature of human rights in the classroom
• 5. Education through human rights: Practice within boundaries
• 6. Education for human rights: Inadequacies in truly effective learner empowerment
• 7. Conclusion: Overcoming the barriers to educating about, through and for human rights in primary schools
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index