Meeting the Challenge of Populism to Children’s Rights: The Value of Human Rights Education

This article analyses the rise of the new right-wing, nationalistic, xenophobic, and authoritarian populism as a challenge to children’s human rights. Informed by human needs theory, it situates the new populism in the context of globalization, economic grievances, and cultural resentment and backlash against out-groups. Fuelling the rise in support for populism has been growing existential insecurity combined with a lack of effective education on human rights. The outcome, as shown in countries where populism has come into power, has been a threat and an attack on the human rights of children, as described in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. An important means of meeting the challenge of populism, we contend, is comprehensive and robust human rights education in schools, underpinned by education on children’s rights. As called for by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, children’s rights education needs to be integrated into school curricula, policies, practices, teaching materials, and teacher training. Models of human rights education in schools are available and studies have shown positive results in promoting knowledge, understanding, and support for human rights. As described by the United Nations, through providing education about, through, and for human rights, the ultimate goal—yet to be realized—is to advance a culture of human rights. Such a culture would serve as a counter to populism.

Interdisciplinarity and Punishment in the Academy: Reflecting upon Researching and Teaching Human Rights in University Settings

This article reflects upon the experience of researching and teaching human rights, and related areas, in a number of university settings. It is argued, on the one hand, that interdisciplinarity is necessary, present and considered valuable in academic human rights scholarship. On the other hand, the article argues that disciplinary power is exercised in the academy with the effect of limiting the degree to which interdisciplinary research and teaching can take place in practice. As a consequence, interdisciplinary academics (and students) are punished. Both intellectual horizons and material opportunities are potentially constricted. Reflecting upon this potential, the article considers whether it is practically possible to reduce or avoid the disciplining and punishment of this kind of teaching and research in universities and concludes by making the case for a postdisciplinary reimagining of human rights in the academy.