Interdisciplinarity in Human Rights Education
14-15 June 2027 OsloMet University, Oslo, Norway
Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
The International Association for Human Rights Education (IAHRE) was established in 2023 at the 15th International Conference for Education and Democratic Citizenship (ICEDC) hosted by Sutherland School of Law at University College Dublin, Ireland. IAHRE exists to support the development of human rights education research, scholarship and practice. It has been awarded charitable status in recognition of its efforts to promote the public good. IAHRE’s scholarly journal is the award-winning Human Rights Education Review (HRER) founded in 2018 and published by Taylor & Francis.
The IAHRE Conference is a meeting place for scholars, researchers, graduate students, education policymakers, and civil society activists from across Europe and internationally. It builds on the work of the WERA International Research Network on Human Rights Education, coordinated by Professors Audrey Osler and Hugh Starkey. It provides a unique opportunity to present and discuss current research and policy relating to human rights education and questions of human rights within education. There is an expectation that presenters accepted for IAHRE 2027 will submit their final revised conference papers to Human Rights Education Review shortly after the conference.
Call for papers
We invite papers for the 2027 IAHRE Conference Interdisciplinarity in Human Rights Education. IAHRE 2027 aims to build on the vast array of disciplines that contribute to human rights education, and we welcome scholars from sociology, education, law, history, politics, geography and other relevant disciplines, as well as those specialising in regional studies. Papers should review and critically reflect on human rights education policy and practice, child rights education and the wider area of education and human rights. We are interested in research that addresses HRE across formal education, from early years through to higher education, as well as community-focused and community-led initiatives designed to enhance and strengthen human rights understanding. Papers reflecting the work of those aiming to enhance human rights understanding in professional education, in diverse fields, including teacher education, medicine, nursing and social care also welcome.
Colleagues working in NGOs and international organisations who have campaign case studies are likewise invited. We welcome contributions from researchers at all stages of their careers.
At IAHRE 2027 we aim to build upon the contributions at IAHRE 2026 Re-imagining Human Rights Education in a Turbulent World that recognised how human rights education is taking place in an increasingly unstable world with growing authoritarianism and challenges to human rights and democratic values in all regions and where climate change, disinformation, terrorism, war and conflict, hate speech and xenophobia confront us in the starkest terms. Given these challenges we remain mindful of both the challenges and the opportunities that educators in varied contexts face.
Human rights education (HRE) supports UN Sustainable Development Goal 4. HRE has a vital role in maintaining hope and enabling people of all ages to reimagine a positive future. Children and young people experience barriers to democratic participation since they are not only excluded from formal political mechanisms and decision-making processes but have been the subject of government-led social media bans that threaten access to communication and information.
Any vision of a sustainable future necessarily includes ‘sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’ (SDG 4.7). IAHRE 2027 invites contributions that build on and extend the focus of past conferences and on the fast-expanding HRE literature, both in HRER and other journals and books. IAHRE 2027 includes but is not limited to papers addressing:
- Human rights curricula
- Education for peace
- Global citizenship education
- Climate, environment and sustainable development
- Migration, citizenship and rights
- Children’s digital worlds
- Human rights, intercultural and language learning
- Worldviews and religion
- Decolonising learning
- Professional education and training
- Children’s rights and child friendly schools
This call for papers invites both individual papers and proposals for symposia.
Individual paper requirements
Prepare an abstract of no more than 300 words, including paper title, your name(s), institutional affiliation(s) and contact email(s). Please indicate whether you would prefer to give an oral or a poster presentation. Abstracts should be sent, no later than Monday 19 October 2026 to: Professor Hugh Starkey h.starkey@ucl.ac.uk.
More information
HRE USA is a project of the Center for Transformative Action.
