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.

Rights after 9/11

2020 ◽  
pp. 287-318
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter highlights the significant role of the human rights movement after September 11, 2001. It points out how Al-Qaeda made no claim to respect rights after 9/11, making them insusceptible to the human rights movement's main weapon: embarrassment. It also details how the United States played a crucial role in the promotion of human rights worldwide during and after the Cold War. The chapter analyzes the consequence of the decision to make prevention the defining concern of U.S. government policy in responding to the threat of terrorism for human rights. It looks at the consequences of the primacy given to prevention that removed one of the restraints on the use of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

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.

Between the Global and the Local: Human Rights Discourse and Engagement in Two New York City High Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. GARNETT RUSSELL
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
High Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Education ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Rights Issues

While there has been a rise in human rights education at the global level, little attention has been paid to how it is integrated into schools in the United States. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in two diverse high schools across an academic year, S. Garnett Russell investigates the extent to which human rights education influences students' knowledge and attitudes about human rights and how students engage with and translate global human rights into the local context. Although the majority of students in the study showed a superficial understanding or sense of distance around global human rights issues, Russell finds that students were better able to “vernacularize” universal notions of rights into their own local context, particularly around issues linked to police brutality and racial discrimination. Findings from the study point to the importance of human rights education, particularly for marginalized students.

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