Human Rights and Education

In this course, we will consider human rights as an educational enterprise, and education as a human rights practice. In addition to codifying the human right to education in Article 26, the Universal Declaration gives priority to “teaching and education” as a primary mechanism for ensuring respect, recognition, and observance of human rights. While human rights are more typically understood through legal and political discourse, this course focuses on education as both the site of and a strategy in struggles for just, equitable, and dignified communities.  This course examines both the right to education and the emergent field of human rights education, and provides students the opportunity to analyze human rights as a form of public pedagogy aimed at fostering particular kinds of subjects and communities. Using historical and contemporary examples, the course explores various educational strategies designed to promote human rights in different contexts and among different learners, and evaluates educational institutions as potential sites of human rights promotion and violation.