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Webinar: Human Rights Education’s Curriculum Problem

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 pm EST
Where: Zoom
Cost: FREE

Presenter: Walter C. Parker, University of Washington, Seattle, USA 

Description: Does human rights education have a social justice mission? And if so, how much does knowledge matter in realising justice through education? In this session, Walter Parker articulates what he identifies as human rights education’s curriculum problem in schools and suggests strategies to solve it.  Employing a theoretical perspective from the critical sociology of education, he suggests the main problem is HRE’s lack of an episteme—a disciplinary structure created in specialist communities—and, related to this, the flight of scholars from the field of curriculum practice, redefining it away from subject matter. Parker asserts that the HRE curriculum remains scattered, ill-defined, and too variable to be robust. HRE advocacy is important but insufficient. He argues that a more robust HRE in schools will require a curriculum that teachers can adapt to local needs, constraints, and students. Knowledge matters. In this session he identifies a key challenge for researchers and policymakers: without knowledge work of this sort, it is difficult to claim that HRE has a social justice mission. Walter Parker’s full paper can be read here

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This event is part of a the 2021 Research Webinar Seminar Series that runs from January-June 2021. Details of upcoming seminars can be found here.

We are grateful for the generous support of our members, individual donors, and The Puffin Foundation Ltd
The core values of HRE USA and its partner organizations include transparency and critical thinking skills. We believe that human rights--and human rights education--belong to everyone, and that the full realization of human rights means that access to human rights education materials must never be conditioned upon the subscription to any particular religious faith, ideology, political affiliation, or membership in any particular organization and that any organizational connections should be openly acknowledged.