Human rights education or human rights in education : a conceptual analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to conduct a concept analysis and conceptual historical analysis as well as to develop a conceptual cartography of the concept of Human Rights Education (HRE) with reference to human rights in education. HRE has evolved into a burgeoning pedagogical formation that sources its currency from the perceived consensus on human rights universals. However, the proliferation of HRE is paradoxically not matched by a sustained and meaningful theoretical analysis of HRE though it has far-reaching implications for educational systems worldwide. This study provides a comprehensive theoretical analysis of HRE by examining the meanings that organise and construct the conceptual structure of HRE. The origins of the concept of HRE and its changing meanings are traced over time and paradigmatically analysed across a variety of theoretical orientations. This study also shows that HRE is a concept that is subjected to an unexplored and unexplained conceptual eclecticism that hampers its pedagogical potential as a counter-measure to human rights violations and human suffering. Amongst all the conceptual possibilities that could have been developed as an analytical interplay between the conceptual cartography, models, approaches and typologies of HRE, this study demonstrates that the dominant conceptual structure of HRE has grown into a declarationist, conservative, positivistic, uncritical, compliance-driven framework that is in the main informed by a political literacy approach. Consequently, this study develops alternative conceptual principles buttressed by a non-declarationist conception of HRE that stands in a critical and anti-deterministic relationship with human rights universals.