Using Critical Literacy to Promote Human Rights and Civic Engagement

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Dunkerly-Bean ◽  
Thomas Bean
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Critical Literacy

scholarly journals Does Pocahontas Count? Sites of Engaged Process for Critical Literacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Chelsey Hauge
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Media Literacy ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Critical Media Literacy ◽  
Final Project ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
The Rich

This paper details my involvement as director of a media literacy program that brought together American And Nicaraguan youth to produce media about social issues. Grounded in civic engagement, youth leadership and media literacy, the program provided youth with media equipment and a series of workshops on digital literacy. Youth decided for their final project to re-create the colonial narrative Pocahontas. To me, this signaled a failure of critical media literacy programming to guide young people to tell critical stories. On further examination, I came to relate to this occurrence in a deeper way, wondering how they came to tell this story and discovering something rich and creative underneath the final product. In this paper, I explore the production process for this video, pushing at the boundaries of what constitutes both media literacy and civic engagement, and asking questions about how we understand what constitutes critical media literacy. Instead, I propose that when we focus on the product as what evidences critical literacy or civic engagement, we lose sight of the method. In this case, method was the home of powerful processes of literacy engagement around issues of class and race that were obscured by the use of the colonial narrative. This paper explores this tension, in order to both examine the challenges around producing a final product inextricably tied to colonial patterns of gender inequality and to give voice to the rich practices of critical literacy that the production process initiated.

Critically Literate Citizenship: Moments and Movements in Second Grade

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haeny S. Yoon
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Second Graders ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
K 12

With renewed emphasis on civic education in K–12 schools, educators and politicians call for young people to engage in civic action. Worth considering are the kinds of ideas taken up, the performances deemed critical enough, and actions recognized in schools as civic engagement. Drawing from a case study of second graders in New York City (NYC), I move away from hypervisible expressions of civic participation to show how children take up critical literacy and civic action through everyday, ordinary moments. Beyond public displays of social action, how do we build up critically literate citizens who question, disrupt, and engage civically in their daily lives? Highlighted throughout this article are children’s questions, inquiries, and tensions around diverse identities and practices (e.g., religion, race, gender, politics). In centering children’s political agendas, I argue that the production of civic engagement is lived out in the curricular, conversational, and playful moments leading up to social movements.

A Declaration of Interdependence

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-41
Author(s):  
Sharon D. Welch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mccarthy Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
Reconstruction Period

Our context is one of growing threats, resilient critique, and deeply rooted alternative forms of inclusive and expansive social life. We are now experiencing a rise of authoritarianism in the United States that is as dangerous as the anti-Communism of the McCarthy era of the 1950s, potentially as deadly as the eradication of basic political and human rights for African Americans after the Reconstruction period following the civil war. We are also witnessing a resurgence in authoritarianism not seen in Europe since the rise of fascism in the 1930s. What is missing in much of the literature on authoritarianism is a recognition that what fuels interdependent creativity and expansive civic engagement is not emancipated individualism but openness to the new grounded in the solidity of the same. The ‘same’ is generative connections between adults and youth, and community practices of resilience, acknowledging and learning from both mistakes and successes. This book is meant to enable readers to take on this challenge with honesty and creativity, aware of the particularity of our experiences as members of different racial and social groups, and as members of different economic classes. First, we must be honest, acknowledging the scale of racist exploitation and its ongoing impact. Will we learn from the past and present structures of white exploitation and violence? Will we learn how to check these practices in the present?

scholarly journals Escaping Social Injustices: Changemaking Escape Rooms for Human Rights in the Literature Classroom

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-140
Author(s):  
Emily Andrea Sendin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Literature Classroom ◽  
Project Participants ◽  
Human Rights Violation ◽  
Do So

Escape rooms have been used in STEM classrooms, but there is little evidence of successful implementation of escape rooms in humanities courses in higher learning. This paper examines the experience of adapting escape rooms for the education setting in literature. To do so, two new components in the learning process were incorporated: (a) students are required to create their own escape rooms, thus increasing the stakes and the level of ownership; they are not only responsible for their own learning, but they also need to teach others; and, (b) students are required to explore a human rights violation or social injustices in their escape rooms, making civic engagement an end goal of the project. Participants in their escape room come out of the experience learning something about social change and being called to action.

scholarly journals Harakî Salafism in Norway: ‘The Saved Sect’ Hugs the Infidels

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrika Mårtensson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The article is a study of the Norwegian Salafi organization Islam Net, which aims at defining Islam Net in terms of recent research on European Salafism and assessing its capacity for public civic engagement. With reference to de Certeau’s concept of discourse, and Habermas’ concepts of democratic legitimacy and religion in the public sphere, it is found that Islam Net’s capacity for civic engagement is severely restricted by its non-acceptance of human rights-based values, since this non-acceptance justifies for public institutions to deny the organization presence and refuse dialogue with Islam Net. From Habermas’ viewpoint this is a potential democratic deficiency, since it may weaken the legitimacy of democracy among Islam Net’s members.

scholarly journals ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКИЙ СУД ІЗ ПРАВ ЛЮДИНИ ЯК ЗАСІБ ЗАХИСТУ ПРАВ ЛЮДИНИ В УКРАЇНІ

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 276-284
Author(s):  
В. О. Тімашов
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Adequate Response ◽  
High Standards

У статті розглянуто питання щодо застосування в Україні Конвенції про захист прав людини й основоположних свобод як складової національного законодавства. Визначено елементи конституційного права людини й громадянина на звернення за захистом своїх прав і свобод до Європейського суду з прав людини, а також проведено аналіз практики звернення громадян України за захистом своїх прав і свобод до Європейського суду з прав людини.   Before Ukraine as an independent, social, legal state with a European Convention on Hu­man Rights direction of development occurs a number of important economic and social issues. The most relevant are the high standards of spiritual, moral, intellectual, education and legal culture in the public society. Raise public awareness and living standards, civic engagement and public thinking every person in matters of human rights and fulfill their social responsibili­ties, adequate response authorities of human rights violations to create sufficient prerequisites for achieving a successful state.

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