Human Rights Education and Public Policy in the United States: Mapping the Road Ahead

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 537-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Stone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Education ◽  
The Road

scholarly journals Mainstreaming Human Rights Education: What’s Radical About That?

2016 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Rosemary Ann Blanchard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Education ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Educational Structure ◽  
Linguistic Rights ◽  
Public Scrutiny

One of the most radical ways of teaching about universal human rights and international humanitarian law would be to teach about these fundamental internationally-recognized standards for humane interpersonal conduct to every child who enters school in the United States.  American illiteracy about human rights and humanitarian law standards contributes to the climate in which the United States preaches human rights to it's perceived opponents while refusing to apply universally recognized hr and ihl principles to itself. From the failure to incorporate into the American educational structure the cultural and linguistic rights of Indigenous peoples and ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to the refusal to submit to the same standards of international humanitarian law which apply to all combatants, U.S. political and military leaders have been able to rely on the unfamiliarity of most Americans with the fundamental principles of human rights and international humanitarian law to insulate them from effective public scrutiny and meaningful challenge. This article describes efforts to mainstream human rights education at all levels of public education so it becomes a part of the educational experience of every child and, thus, part of the background of every adult. The risks of having HRE co-opted are dwarfed by the risks of having HRE sidelined.

scholarly journals Introduction: Radical Teaching About Human Rights Part II

2016 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Michael Bennett ◽  
Susan O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Education ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Rights Discourse

In our introduction to the first of these two issues of Radical Teacher devoted to “Radical Teaching About Human Rights,” we cautioned that all forms of Human Rights Education (HRE) are not radical.  The problem, we pointed out, with rights discourse is that it can mask the politics of how rights are defined, whose rights are recognized, and how they are enforced.  This problem becomes evident when HRE is bound up with a neoliberal, or worse than neoliberal, perspective that points fingers at others and rallies troops for supposedly humanitarian interventions while eliding the role of the United States as an imperializing settler colonial state.  Fortunately, we have once again received several essays that seem to us to be aware of this danger and provide admirable examples of radical teaching about human rights.

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