In this special edited volume, scholars with diverse backgrounds and conceptual frameworks explore how economic, political, social and ideological forces impact on school curricula over time and place. In providing regional and global perspectives on curricular policies, practices and reforms, the authors move beyond the conventional notion that school contents reflect principally national priorities and subject-based interests.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of selected research concerning global and comparative trends in dominant discourses on human rights education. Using diverse paradigms, ranging from critical theory to historical-comparative research, the book examines major human rights education reforms and policy issues in a global culture with a focus on the ambivalent and problematic relationship between human rights education discourses, ideology and the state. Further, it discusses democracy, national identity, and social justice, which are among the most critical and significant factors defining and contextualising the processes surrounding nation-building, identity politics and human rights education globally, and also critiques current human rights education practices and policy reforms, illustrating the shifts in the relationship between the state and human rights education policy. Written by authors from diverse backgrounds and regions, the book examines current developments in research concerning human rights education, and citizenship education globally. As such it enables readers to gain a more holistic understanding of the nexus between nation-state, national identity and human rights education both locally and globally. It also provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly insights into international concerns in the field of human rights education in the context of global culture.

This book examines dominant discourses in multiculturalism and cultural identity globally. It critiques dominant discourses and debates pertaining to multiculturalism and cultural identity, set against the current backdrop of growing social stratification and unequal access to quality education. It addresses current discourses concerning globalisation, ideologies and the state, as well as approaches to constructing national, ethnic and religious identities in the global culture. It explores the ambivalent and problematic connections between the state, globalisation, and the construction of cultural identity. The book also explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable to research on the state, globalisation, multiculturalism and identity politics. Drawing on diverse paradigms, ranging from critical theory to globalisation, the book, by focusing on globalisation, ideology and cultural identity, critically examines recent research dealing with cultural diversity and its impact of identity politics. Given the need for a multiple perspective approach, the authors, who have diverse backgrounds and hail from different countries and regions, offer a wealth of insights, contributing to a more holistic understanding of the nexus between multiculturalism and national identity. With contributions from key scholars worldwide, the book should be required reading for a broad spectrum of users, including policy-makers, academics, graduate students, education policy researchers, administrators, and practitioners.

Around the world there are a myriad of NGOs using human rights education (HRE) as a tool of community empowerment with the firm belief that it will help people improve their lives. One way of understanding these processes is that they translate universal human rights speak using messages and symbols which make them relevant to people’s daily lives and culturally resonant. However, an alternative more radical perspective is that these processes should engage individuals in modes of critical inquiry into the ways that that existing power structures maintain the status quo and control not only how we understand and speak about social inequality and injustice, but also act on it. This book is a critical inquiry into the production, distribution and consumption of HRE and how the discourse is constructed historically, socially and politically through global institutions and local NGO practice. The book begins with the premise that HRE is composed of theories of human rights and education, both of which are complex and multifaceted. However, the book demonstrates how over time a dominant discourse of HRE, constructed by the United Nations institutional framework, has come to prominence and the ways it is reproduced and reinforced through the practice of intermediary NGOs engaged in HRE activities with community groups. Drawing on socio-legal scholarship it offers a new theoretical and political framework for addressing how human rights, pedagogy, knowledge and power can be analysed between the global and local by connecting the critical, but well-trodden, theories of human rights to insights on critical pedagogy. It uses critical discourse analysis and ethnographic research to investigate the practice of NGOs engaged in HRE using contextual evidence and findings from fieldwork with NGOs and communities in Tanzania.

Human Rights Education for the Twenty-First Century is a comprehensive resource for training, education, and raising awareness in a wide variety of settings, both formal and informal. A diverse group of contributors—experienced activists, education experts, and representatives of several international governmental organizations—provides a rich potpourri of ideas and real-world approaches to initiating, planning, and implementing programs for teaching people about their human rights and fundamental freedoms. This volume has been developed for a global audience of educators, scholars in many disciplines, nongovernmental organizations, and foundation officers.

In tracing the origins of the modern human-rights movement, historians typically point to two periods: the 1940s, in which decade the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly; and the 1970s, during which numerous human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), most notably Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières, came into existence. It was also in the 1970s, Sarita Cargas observes, when the first classes in international human rights began to be taught in law schools and university political science departments in the United States. Cargas argues that the time has come for human rights to be acknowledged as an academic discipline. She notes that human rights has proven to be a relevant field to scholars and students in political science and international relations and law for over half a century. It has become of interest to anthropology, history, sociology, and religious studies, as well as a requirement even in social work and education programs. However, despite its interdisciplinary nature, Cargas demonstrates that human rights meets the criteria that define an academic discipline in that it possesses a canon of literature, a shared set of concerns, a community of scholars, and a methodology. In an analysis of human rights curricula in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Cargas identifies an informal consensus on the epistemological foundations of human rights, including familiarity with human rights law; knowledge of major actors including the United Nations, governments, NGOS, and multinational corporations; and, most crucially, awareness and advocacy of the rights and freedoms detailed in the articles of the UDHR. The second half of the book offers practical recommendations for creating a human rights major or designing courses at the university level in the United States.

This book, the seventeenth instalment in the 24-volume series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, explores the interrelationship between ideology, the state and human rights education reforms, setting it in a global context. The book examines major human rights education reforms and policy issues in a global culture. It focuses on the ambivalent and problematic relationship between the state, globalisation and human rights education discourses. Using a number of diverse paradigms, ranging from critical theory to historical-comparative research, the authors examine the reasons for, and the outcomes of human rights education reforms and policy. The authors discuss discourses surrounding the major dimensions affecting the human rights education, namely national identity, democracy, and ideology. These dimensions are among the most critical and significant dimensions defining and contextualising the processes surrounding the nation-building, identity politics and human rights education globally. With this as its focus, the chapters represent hand-picked scholarly research on major discourses in the field of human rights education reforms. The book draws upon recent studies in the areas of globalisation, equality, and the role of the state in human rights education reforms. Furthermore, the perception of globalisation as dynamic and multi-faceted processes clearly necessitates a multiple-perspective approach in the study of human rights education. This book provides that perspective commendably. It also critiques current human rights education practices and policy reforms. It illustrates the way shifts in the relationship between the state and human rights education policy. In the book, the authors, who come from diverse backgrounds and regions, attempt insightfully to provide a worldview of current developments in research concerning human rights education, and citizenship education globally. The book contributes, in a very scholarly way, to a more holistic understanding of the nexus between nation-state, human rights education both locally and globally.