Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms: Pedagogy, Principles and Practice 9781350062818, 9781350062849, 9781350062825

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Case Studies
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Part One Definitions and Developments
1 The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Some Implications for Education
2 Defining Children’s Rights Education
3 Implementing Children’s Rights Education
Part Two Ideology and Interpretations
4 Children’s Rights Education, Ideology and the Teacher as Change Agent
5 Transformational Education and Pedagogy as Politics
6 Experiential Education through Democracy and Cooperation
Part Three Pedagogy and Practice
7 The Rights-Respecting Classroom
8 Developing a Children’s Rights Culture in the School
9 Children as Citizens
10 Conclusion: Towards a Pedagogy for CRE
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms

Also available from Bloomsbury Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence by John Tillson Education as a Human Right: Principles for a Universal Entitlement to Learning by Tristan McCowan Educating for Peace and Human Rights: An Introduction by Maria Hantzopoulos and Monisha Bajaj England’s Citizenship Education Experiment: State, School and Student Perspectives by Lee Jerome Identity, Culture and Belonging: Educating Young Children for a Changing World by Tony Eaude Rethinking Children’s Rights: Attitudes in Contemporary Society, by Phil Jones and Sue Welch Schooling for Social Change: The Rise and Impact of Human Rights Education in India by Monisha Bajaj

Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms Pedagogy, Principles and Practice Lee Jerome and Hugh Starkey

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 This paperback edition published 2023 Copyright © Lee Jerome and Hugh Starkey, 2021 Lee Jerome and Hugh Starkey have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Charlotte James Cover image: © monkeybusinessimages / iStock All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jerome, Lee, author. | Starkey, Hugh, author. Title: Children’s rights education in diverse classrooms : pedagogy, principles, and practice / Lee Jerome and Hugh Starkey. Description: New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020047684 | ISBN 9781350062818 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350062832 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Right to education. | Educational equalization. | Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989 November 20) Classification: LCC LC213 .J47 2021 | DDC 379.2/6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047684 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-6281-8 PB: 978-1-3502-1683-9 ePDF: 978-1-3500-6282-5 eBook: 978-1-3500-6283-2 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India Online resources to accompany this book are available at bloomsbury.pub/childrens-rights-education-in-diverse-classrooms To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Case Studies vi List of Illustrations vii Preface viii Acknowledgements xi List of Abbreviations xiv Part I  Definitions and Developments 1 2 3

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Some Implications for Education Defining Children’s Rights Education Implementing Children’s Rights Education

3 17 43

Part II  Ideology and Interpretations 4 5 6

Children’s Rights Education, Ideology and the Teacher as Change Agent Transformational Education and Pedagogy as Politics Experiential Education through Democracy and Cooperation

73 95 121

Part III   Pedagogy and Practice 7 8 9 10

The Rights-Respecting Classroom Developing a Children’s Rights Culture in the School Children as Citizens Conclusion: Towards a Pedagogy for CRE

Bibliography Index

147 185 215 239 253 283

Case Studies 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Limits on selection and censorship Developing an educational response to the Rohingya refugee crisis Defining successful CRE Poverty as a rights issue The Landless Movement, Brazil Reconciling LGBT+ rights and the right to religious freedom Young reporters for the environment Comparing CRE curricula Choosing a class reader for diverse narratives Community organizing, Dan’s story Hendon School’s mental health SOS Stamp Out Stigma campaign

37 47 53 102 110 125 133 155 164 223 228

Illustrations Figures 1 Human rights education in the UN 2 Top-down and bottom-up perspectives on the journey from convention to classroom 3 Questionnaire – does your school environment give everyone a chance to enjoy their rights? 4 A Deweyan experiential learning cycle

45 58 212 217

Table 1 Summary of three positions in relation to CRE

75

Preface This book starts from a simple question: what implications follow for teaching in schools if our starting point is that children are rights holders and teachers are duty bearers? In exploring that question we have produced a book directly aimed at adult practitioners in schools as well as all those whose domestic responsibilities and professional roles bring them into contact with education provision. We mostly address teachers directly and adopt the perspective of a teacher, but the ideas are relevant to any adult working in, or with, schools. Our focus emerges from the fact that we are both teachers, currently in universities but previously in schools, and that we still work closely with schoolteachers. The book is also intended to make a contribution to the literature on human rights education (HRE) by articulating a vision of what a more focused children’s rights education (CRE) might look like. We are not really offering one as an alternative for the other, but we use the term ‘CRE’ to prompt us to remain quite tightly focused on the children in the classroom as rights holders and rights defenders themselves. CRE is simply one way to look at HRE, with a student-centred focus. Several years ago, one of our universities started a programme with UNICEF UK, Save the Children and Amnesty International UK to adopt a human rights framework for our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes. This was based on UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Award which requires that students learn some specific knowledge about human rights as well as infusing the principles of rights-based practices through the whole programme. That was an enriching experience which worked for most of the student teachers but made some feel uncomfortable. This led us to think about some of the different ways people engage with this agenda, and also to think about the issue of teacher’s agency in working with, or rejecting, human rights principles as relevant to their own professional lives. This minority felt that we were foisting an external political agenda on to them, while the majority saw precisely how a commitment to human rights aligned with their work with children. At that time, we could not find a book that pulled together the elements we wanted those students to encounter, and so this book has been partly written with those colleagues in mind. But it is not just an introductory textbook, it also seeks to say something new about how CRE articulates with some powerful existing traditions of

Preface

ix

pedagogic thinking and practice. We do not offer CRE as another thing to add to a busy curriculum or to shoehorn into an already hectic day. We do not see it as an extra burden for the already heavy-laden shoulders of teachers. Rather we want to suggest how CRE can help teachers articulate a vision of the teacher they want to be, the relationships they want to have with children and the kinds of education they value. The book is organized into three sections and readers will make their own decisions about what the best starting point is for them. First we set out an introduction and overview of the field, providing an introduction to human rights, children’s rights and HRE (Chapters 1 and 2). In that introductory section we also provide a survey of how HRE has been implemented and highlight some of what has been learned from evaluations of these practices (Chapter  3). In the second section we start to think more critically about the active role of the teacher as an agent of CRE, or as an obstacle to it (Chapter 4). We argue that the increasingly neoliberal system within with teachers work reflects values and practices which are in tension with (or opposition to) children’s rights, and that trying to be neutral or apolitical in the name of teacher professionalism simply means teachers will perpetuate those problems. We frame the challenges to teachers and explore the work of three particularly relevant educationalists as rich sources of ideas and inspiration to think through those challenges to find useful solutions (Chapters 5 and 6). In constructing this section, we have been particularly keen to build on but move beyond the work of legal scholars aimed at teachers. Instead we consider existing ideas about pedagogy that can be revisited to construct a pedagogy for CRE. We discuss the work of Freire, Dewey and Freinet and identify aspects of their thought and practice that seem particularly relevant to CRE teachers. In the third section we turn to more practical matters, considering CRE in the classroom (Chapter  7), across the school (Chapter 8) and in the community (Chapter 9). Because we recognize that the possibilities for CRE practices will differ across the world, we do not offer a list of activities or teaching methods that should be used, rather we try to illustrate some principles to inform planning and practice, and alert the reader to some pitfalls they should try to avoid. Our conclusion (Chapter 10) is really a distillation of some of the key assumptions underpinning the book and might be read as an introduction just as easily as a conclusion. Throughout we have tried to offer insights that are applicable to practice while avoiding a prescriptive list of practices, and one device we have adopted to help with that is to feature a range of case studies, where we feel principles needed some concrete illustration. Not all of these case studies have been conceived of as CRE or HRE projects by

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those involved, but they represent the kinds of educational practices we feel are perfectly compatible with a CRE approach. This book starts from the premise that all children have inalienable rights and that those rights apply when they are in school. If those rights are to have any meaning at all, then we must be able to articulate what they mean in practice and whose responsibility it is to ensure they are met. One obvious answer is that teachers bear some significant responsibility, but there are of course many other duty bearers with related responsibilities, including parents, school managers, governors, local government officials, inspectors, policymakers, health providers, social workers and elected representatives. Children need to know that they have rights, what rights they have and what this means. They also have the right to experience an education that respects their rights, that is to say, rights affect not just what is taught but how it is taught. This is not a political position, it is a statement of fact if you are reading this in one of the 194 countries that are signatory states to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and we would argue it is a moral imperative in the other three countries. Teachers in many countries are under increasing pressure to perform in certain ways, adopt research-informed practices framed as learning ‘what works’ and guiding children to politically determined outcomes. CRE offers a humanistic framework of values and practices to support teachers to exercise their professional judgement about what will work best for their children in their communities. CRE offers a valuable resource for teachers who are unsatisfied with the narrow vision of education for individual employability to meet the needs of the economy and who are motivated by the broader vision of education to nurture the humanity of the children in their care and contribute to the health of their communities. Teachers have the privilege to be some of the most important adults in children’s lives; this book explores some of the positive ways in which they can make the most of that position.

Acknowledgements Lee would like to thank colleagues with whom he has developed some of this work over the years. In particular, the PGCE team at London Metropolitan University adopted children’s rights as an organizing principle for our courses, which generated many rich discussions, teaching and curriculum experiments, and serious evaluations. Supported by Jonathan Hart from UNICEF UK and others from Save the Children and Amnesty International UK, we became one of the first university-based teacher education programmes in the UK to identify ourselves as a Rights Respecting Initial Teacher Education (RRITE) programme. Specifically I would like to thank Alan Benson, Marcus Bhargava, Victoria Brook, David Cross, Greg Dryer, Andrew McCallum and Rebecca Smith for their powerful reminder that teacher collegiality can be a force for change in its own right. The Centre for Children’s Rights at Queen’s University Belfast was also incredibly important for me to develop my thinking, especially as programme leader for the MSc Children’s Rights. I  learned a lot from my colleague Lesley Emerson, who has produced some of the most inspirational educational work I have encountered in any topic or context, and I am grateful to Laura Lundy for the opportunity to join her team. The broad structure for this book emerged through my teaching a module on CRE Pedagogy in that master’s programme. I would also like to acknowledge colleagues at ACT and the Five Nations for the opportunities to be involved in research and curriculum development programmes related to human rights and children’s use of human rights concepts in the classroom. Thanks go to Liz Moorse, Zoe Baker, Helen Blachford, Bryden Joy, Ben Miskell, Hans Svennevig and others for working with me as researcher and advisor. I would also like to thank Deepa Shah for some great conversations about how human rights activism articulates with citizenship education. Hugh recognizes that ideas and insights that are finally committed to paper in a book like this are the distillation of conversations and challenges with students and colleagues. Audrey Osler has provided hugely appreciated support and encouragement as well as a continuous challenge to lazy and conventional thinking over the course of numerous joint teaching assignments, research projects, books, articles, reports, and conference panels. We have also attempted

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to provide some institutional infrastructure for HRE and CRE including the Centre for Citizenship Studies in Education at the University of Leicester, the International Conference on Education and Democratic Citizenship (ICEDC) at UCL Institute of Education and the Human Rights Education Review (HRER) based at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Research and writing require teaching opportunities that generate enthusiasm and require familiarity with a range of literature. I am grateful to UCL Institute of Education for the opportunities provided for teaching the undergraduate course Education Values and Society, the online MA Citizenship Education and most recently the module Education and Identities: Citizenship, Rights, Narratives where colleagues Jeremy Hayward and Arthur Chapman provide supporting input. Of my doctoral students, special mention goes to Mai Abu Moghli for her highly original thesis on The Struggle to Reclaim Human Rights Education and for her subsequent key managerial role in our developing the radical Active Citizenship strand of the UCL Global Citizenship Programme which gave some two hundred students the opportunity to learn campaigning skills and become human rights defenders. Other former students whose work we cite are Bassel Akar, Rania Al-Nakib, Sam Mejias and Helen Trivers. I have also enjoyed working with colleagues Rachel Rosen and Kirrily Pels on the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights MA programme and have greatly valued conversations with Ann Phoenix of the Thomas Coram Research Unit. HRE and CRE are, by definition, international and global movements. I  have been hugely privileged to have been invited by James Banks, University of Washington, Seattle, to contribute to panels, symposia and publications whereby I  have also got to meet and greatly enjoy the company of scholars whose work we draw on in this volume including Carole Hahn and Walter Parker. The late and very much lamented director of IOE, Geoff Whitty, provided resources that led to scholarly partnerships that resulted in the programme taught with UW Madison, OISE Toronto and GSE Melbourne: Transnational Perspectives in Democracy, Democratic Education and Human Rights in an Era of Globalization. The original team included Michael Apple, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Diana Hess, Julie McLeod and Johanna Wyn. I  have also valued partnerships with Beijing Normal University, China, that have included teaching opportunities in Beijing and a series of conferences in Beijing and London. Special thanks to Chuanbao Tan and Ke Lin of the Centre for Citizenship and Moral Education for unfailing hospitality and providing opportunities to discuss children’s rights and human rights education with their students and colleagues.

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xiii

We have both been working in this field for a while and so have drawn on some existing material at various places in this book. Chapter 3 reworks and expands a literature review published in Jerome, L., Emerson, L., Lundy, L. and Orr, K. (2015), Teaching and Learning about Child Rights: A Study of Implementation in 26 Countries. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast. Chapter 4 builds on material published initially in Jerome, L. (2018), ‘Hypocrites or Heroes? Thinking about the Role of the Teacher in Human Rights Education’. Human Rights Education Review, 1(2), 46–64; and in Jerome, L.  (2016), ‘Interpreting Children’s Rights Education: Three Perspectives and Three Roles for Teachers’. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 15(2), 143–56. Chapter  6 includes material from Osler, A., and Starkey, H. ([1996] 2018), Teacher Education and Human Rights (Routledge Revivals edn). Abingdon: Routledge (Chapter 9). Chapter 7 includes some material reworked from Jerome, L., and McCallum, A. (2012), ‘Promoting a Rights-Based Perspective in Initial Teacher Education’, in M.  Shuayb (ed.), Rethinking Education for Social Cohesion, 171–87, London: Palgrave Macmillan; and Jerome, L.  (2018), ‘What Do Citizens Need to Know? An Analysis of Knowledge in Citizenship Curricula in the UK and Ireland’. Compare, 48(4), 483–99. The questionnaire at the end of Chapter  8 is revised from:  Osler, A., and Starkey, H. (1998), ‘Children’s Rights and Citizenship: Some Implications for the Management of Schools’. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 6, 313–33. Chapter  9 draws on some work that first appeared in Bhargava, M., and Jerome, L. (2020), ‘Training Teachers for and through Citizenship: Learning from Citizenship Experiences’. Societies, 10, 36; and Jerome, L. (2012), ‘Service Learning and Active Citizenship Education in England’. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 7(1), 59–70. Finally, we would like to thank Bassel Akar, Marcus Bhargava, Hans Svennevig, Helen Trivers and Edward Waller for finding time to comment on draft chapters during lockdown, when other demands were pressing. Their comments have not only helped us to improve the book but also alerted us to some areas where we could, and perhaps should, have said more and to which we hope to return in the future.

Abbreviations ASPnet BBC BEMIS BLM BYC CAMHS CAT

UNESCO Associated Schools Network British Broadcasting Corporation Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland Black Lives Matter British Youth Council Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984 CCG Clinical Commissioning Group CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979 CESCR Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights CFS Child Friendly School CHRCE Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education (Dublin) Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 CPS Crown Prosecution Service (England) CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 CRE Children’s Rights Education CRPD Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 DfE Department for Education (England) DfES Department for Education and Skills (England) DIHR Danish Institute for Human Rights EDC Education for Democratic Citizenship EDC/HRE Education for Democratic Citizenship/Human Rights Education ESD education for sustainable development EU European  Union EUAFR European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights GEM Girls’ Education Movement (South Africa) GERM global education reform movement HRC Human Rights Council HRCRT Education for Human Rights, Conflict Resolution and Tolerance HRE human rights education

Abbreviations

HRFS IAF ICCPR ICEM

ICERD ICESCR ICPPED ICRMW IHRE IIHR LAWRS LGBT+ NCCA NGO NLT NUT OCCE OECD Ofcom OHCHR PDHRE PSHE REAP RRSA RTE SDGs SOS UDHR

xv

human rights–friendly school (Amnesty) Industrial Areas Foundation (Saul Alinsky) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 Institut coopératif de l’École moderne – pédagogie Freinet (Cooperative Institute for the Modern School – Freinet movement) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 1965 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance 2006 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families 1990 Institute of Human Rights Education (India) Inter-American Institute of Human Rights Latin American Women’s Rights Service Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual + queer or questioning National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (England) non-governmental organization National Literacy Trust National Union of Teachers (England) Office Central pour la Coopération à l’École (Central Office for Cooperation at School, Freinet movement) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Office of Communications (UK broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries regulator) United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights People’s Decade for Human Rights Education personal, social, health and economic education Rights Education Action Programme (Amnesty) Rights Respecting Schools Award Right to Education Initiative (Katarina Tomaševski) Sustainable Development Goals Stamp Out Stigma Campaign Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

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UK UN UNCRC UNDHRET UNESCO

Abbreviations

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United Nations United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNHCHR UN High Commissioner for Human Rights UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund UNICEF PFP UNICEF Private Fundraising and Partnerships UNICEF UK UK Committee for UNICEF UNRWA UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East WHO World Health Organization WPHRE World Programme for Human Rights Education

Part One

Definitions and Developments

2

1

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Some Implications for Education

Introduction Grange Hill, the name of a fictional comprehensive school in North London, England, was a long-running British (BBC) television series (1978–2008) scripted by Phil Redmond. Its gritty realism, in contrast to previous idealized representations of schools and indeed the subsequent fantastical world of Harry Potter, was enhanced by being filmed initially at the real Kingsbury High School. Drawing on plot lines featuring daily interactions in the social world of the 11-year-old characters, initially including bullying, protest, interactions with teachers, learning difficulties but then expanding to include, among other sensitive but highly relevant topics, knife crime, racism, rape and drug addiction, it appealed to generations of viewers in England. A teacher well known to us reveals that, as an early career professional, he would rush home from school on Wednesdays to be sure to catch each episode of Grange Hill as it was broadcast. It was, he claims, the most effective form of professional development he had experienced. What he was learning, assisted by original camera work that reproduced the perspective of an 11-year-old student, was that schools are social worlds where much of the interest and the learning occurs through interactions between the students themselves and where teachers, however well-meaning and competent, may impinge only marginally on the main preoccupations of children’s lives. Our book attempts to reproduce, metaphorically, the camera angle that remains at the head height of an 11-year-old. Our commitment to children’s rights in education is also a commitment to explore the implications of foregrounding the real-life experiences of children as we think about education.

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Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms

Our shorthand for this is children as citizens. This is the lens through which we will examine interactions in what we have called diverse classrooms, by which we mean spaces for learning where each person present is recognized as having unique and different experiences and understandings to share, irrespective of any visible differences. The title of our book places it within the burgeoning literature on children’s rights and education. By children’s rights we, along with other scholars in the field, are referring to those rights formally set out in the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). We anticipate that many readers of this volume are already familiar with the CRC, but we feel that it is worth spelling out our understandings of its background, its content and its significance. The rationale for children’s rights education (CRE) alongside a broader commitment to human rights education (HRE) has not changed for decades. Ministers of education from across Europe unanimously agreed on the need to teach and learn about human rights and reaffirm democratic values in the face of: ‘intolerance, acts of violence and terrorism; the re-emergence of the public expression of racist and xenophobic attitudes; the disillusionment of many young people in Europe, who are affected by the economic recession and aware of the continuing poverty and inequality in the world’ (Council of Europe 1985:  1). This text from a Recommendation remains a dramatic agenda. The political and educational consensus represented by this text has perhaps fragmented along with a broader withdrawal from commitments to international institutions. This makes it ever more important that we counteract this isolationist tendency by educating coming generations and helping them to understand those inspiring principles that underpin struggles for social justice anywhere in the world. It is a commitment to the universal principles of human rights that binds people of all ages, identities and backgrounds in a joint worldwide determination that Black Lives Matter. The particular struggles are local, but the issues of justice and injustice are global. While the foundations of HRE are now firmly established, we feel that the time has come to thoroughly explore the more recent development of CRE.

Human Rights We start from the position that the UN CRC is one of around two hundred texts that make up the body of international law associated with human rights (Morsink 1999). To understand children’s rights and give them a context, we need



The UNCRC and Implications for Education

5

to understand the basic principles of human rights. Human rights are defined in declarations, resolutions, covenants, conventions, guidelines and laws, almost all of which refer to the foundational text that is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Following the end of the Second World War, a period when in the words of its preamble ‘disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind’ the UDHR set out in a declaration, namely a statement of agreed principles, a vision of how to achieve ‘freedom justice and peace in the world’. This attempt, by the newly constituted UN, to define the conditions required to protect the world from future wars was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on 10 December 1948. The proposal was that governments respect and individuals claim entitlements to human rights, not based on these having been granted by governments but stemming from a universally accepted commitment to all human beings whatever their citizenship status having an equal right to respect of their dignity and human rights. This is expressed in the UDHR as ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. The concept of human rights as respecting the ‘inherent dignity’ of all human beings formalized a concern that historically, and indeed to this day, some governments, through their discourses and then their actions, dehumanize sections of the populations under their control as a precursor to eliminating them from society by mass incarceration or murder. The Holocaust was very much in the minds of the drafters of the UDHR, but there have since then been many examples of what in the 1990s became known as ethnic cleansing. A  commitment to human rights aims primarily to prevent such atrocities, through the building of a culture in which such discrimination and violence are unthinkable. Extreme instances of the abuse of human rights start with a process of dehumanizing individuals and groups of people. Political discourses, disseminated by the media, include name-calling of groups of people using comparisons such as insects (cockroach, parasite), rodents (rats), agents of infection (cancer) or threatening natural forces (tide, swamp). This is intended to remove sympathy for them having rights. The use of such denigration is not confined to war zones. Such language has been used in mainstream media in the UK and is virtually unchecked on social media. A commitment to human rights, however, as defined in the UDHR, is an obligation to recognize that the rights of individuals are ‘inalienable’, in other words cannot be removed. Governments, the police and organized movements including militias and criminal gangs may disrespect the rights of individuals

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Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms

and groups, including the fundamental right to life. In response, communities anywhere can react and call for justice. By invoking human rights, they exercise the strongest possible moral claim. This moral claim is articulated powerfully by organizations such as Amnesty International that, based on rigorous research, ask individual members to contact authorities across national boundaries to demand justice for prisoners of conscience. In a worst-case scenario, human rights defenders attempt to generate moral, political, legal and even military support for victims of dehumanizing policies and practices. Such support may be from individuals, organizations or other governments acting alone or in concert, for instance through the Security Council of the UN. The UDHR is also based on a utopian or hopeful vision, described in the preamble as ‘the highest aspiration of the common people’. The vision is of ‘a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want’. These four freedoms underpin the thirty articles of the UDHR. Most of the articles defend and promote freedoms, but none of the freedoms are absolute. All are to be exercised in a way that does not interfere with the equally important freedoms of others. Examples of articles, summarized here, that protect freedom of speech and belief include the following: 12. 18. 19. 20. 21. 26. 27.

Respect for privacy Freedom of thought, conscience and religion Freedom of opinion and expression Freedom of peaceful assembly Right to democratic process and participation Right to education and human rights education Right to participate in cultural life and to intellectual property

The rights to freedom from want are intended to provide for the basic needs of human beings to ensure that they can live in dignity. Examples of these rights are as follows: 22. 23. 24. 25.

Right to social security and economic, social and cultural rights Right to work and fair pay Right to rest and leisure Right to adequate healthy standard of living

At the time of the Cold War (1948–91) states with liberal democratic constitutions tended to privilege political freedoms such as freedom of speech and belief, while socialist or communist countries focused on freedom from want or economic, social and cultural rights. This ideological use of human rights discourse



The UNCRC and Implications for Education

7

perfused much diplomatic rhetoric and denied one of the premises of human rights, namely, that they are indivisible. In other words, given that rights are not absolute it is important to adopt a holistic perspective, recognizing potential and actual tensions between rights. All rights in the UDHR have been accepted as universal standards, so none of them should have precedence. There is a long list of rights associated with freedom from fear. This reflects the natural anxieties of individuals faced with hugely powerful state forces including the police and the judiciary. These rights include the following: 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 9. 10. 11. 14. 17. 28. 29. 30.

Right to life No slavery No torture Recognition as a person before the law Equal protection by law No arbitrary arrest, detention, exile Fair, public trial Presumed innocence and no retroactive laws Right to asylum Right to own property Security – national and international promotion and protection of rights Duties and no right to undermine UN principles No government or group may destroy these rights and freedoms

The UDHR is one of three texts that make up the International Bill of Human Rights that came into force in 1976. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are the other instruments that complement the UDHR and establish a formal legal basis that commits governments to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.

Human Rights for Women Since the eighteenth century women have launched manifestos, written scholarly treatises and organized locally, nationally and internationally to exert political pressure to have their equal human rights recognized. At the time of the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791) and this was followed by Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). In the United States, the Seneca Falls

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Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms

Convention of July 1848 launched a campaign for equal rights for women that is sometimes referred to as the start of first-wave feminism. Building on campaigns and achievements of the nineteenth century, women continued to organize and struggle in the twentieth. Although they successfully achieved the right to vote in many countries in the early twentieth century, women in large parts of the world were subject to colonial rule with very restricted formal democracy. The 160 signatories of the Charter of the UN in 1945 included only four women (China, the United States, Brazil and Dominican Republic) but they succeeded at the inaugural meeting of the UN General Assembly in London in 1946 in setting up a Commission on the Status of Women. One of the first tasks of the new Commission was to contribute to the drafting of the UDHR (UN General Assembly 1948), reducing if not eliminating gendered language and formally asserting women’s equal rights to dignity, freedoms and security by ensuring that the phrase ‘the equal rights of men and women’ was included in the text of the UDHR (Adami 2018). During the Cold War (1948–91), women across the world continued to organize for universal international recognition that legal, structural, political, economic and cultural obstacles prevented their equal enjoyment of rights. Following a 1967 Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 1975 was declared as the International Women’s Year. This was followed by the (1976–85) UN Decade for Women:  Equality, Development and Peace during which period the 1979 General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). International legal principles such as CEDAW influence national and local laws and indeed mentalities. From a twenty-first-century perspective it is hard to remember that women were denied the vote in France, Italy and Japan for most of the first half of the twentieth century. Legislation and international commitments both reflect and affect social, political and cultural habits and norms, though the law is only ever a backstop since equality is achieved essentially by changes in what is culturally acceptable. As an example of changes in mentality and cultural norms, the right to smoke in pubs, restaurants, school staffrooms, cinemas and planes seemed unassailable in living memory. Although backed by law, smokefree environments are essentially protected by citizens recognizing the potential impact of their actions on others. Social and cultural change is the major source of protection from a noxious environment, in this case, as it can also be for the protection of the rights of women and children.



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Human Rights for Children Writing enthusiastically and optimistically in 1900, the Swedish philosopher and educator Ellen Key argued, ‘The next century will be the century of the child, just as much as this century has been the woman’s century. When the child gets his rights, morality will be perfected’ (in Cabanes 2014: 267). Ellen Key identifies the nineteenth century with the emancipation of women, although in fact very few women had democratic rights by 1900 and there was rarely any legislation to ensure their equal status. Moreover in 1900 there were very many categories of people in the world who were not emancipated. Key was writing at a time when European imperialism was at its peak, condemning women and men and their children to subordinate status following the forcible appropriation of their lands. Key’s point was that once women’s struggle for equality had achieved unstoppable momentum attention could be focused on the emancipation of children who appeared and may still appear to be stuck in a feudal time warp when everyone else has moved to democracy (Alderson 1999). While freedom from discrimination is guaranteed under UDHR Article 2 ‘without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status’, there is no reference to age. It goes without saying that children are human beings and so are entitled to all the rights in the UDHR. UDHR, although historically they have had difficulty in being recognized as holders of rights (Alderson 1999). However, in the School Strike for Climate movement started by Greta Thunberg in 2018, children and young people under the age of 18 engaged in worldwide political activity that has started to match the effectiveness of those campaigns for political equality and social equality that their mothers and grandmothers fought for (Thunberg 2019). Historically, whereas women at least had access to some political processes and freedoms to organize in their struggles for equality, children have been more severely disadvantaged. There are still virtually no structures where children and young people can self-organize to achieve emancipation or other political aims. As a consequence, struggles for children’s rights have usually been led by adults. One major figure in the movement to ensure children have their human rights is Eglantyne Jebb, founder of the international organization Save the Children. Working with orphan children in continental Europe after the First World War she campaigned for children to be given special protection and the provision of appropriate services in a context where civil society had limited

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capacity and national governments rarely accepted responsibility for children perceived as foreign. This issue of displaced children required an international response and so Jebb drafted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child that she published in 1923. It was adopted by the League of Nations the following year (Kerber-Ganse 2015). This 1923 Declaration of the Rights of the Child was aimed at governments and those working with children since its five articles stipulate what children are to receive including ‘the means requisite for normal development’ (namely, in paraphrase); food, health care, provision for special needs, rehabilitation and shelter; priority in emergencies; access to non-exploitative work; an upbringing encouraging a contribution to society. The International Union for Child Welfare presented a slightly expanded version of the Declaration to the UN in 1948. It added a specific clause on non-discrimination ‘by race, nationality or creed’ and an assertion of ‘due respect for the family as an entity’. Over the next decade a coalition of organizations worked to draft a further expanded Declaration of the Rights of the Child now consisting of ten articles. This was adopted by the UN General Assembly on the eleventh anniversary of the UDHR, namely 10 December 1959. The 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child references the UDHR. It reinforces the principles of non-discrimination, though again not extending consideration to age. It adds the right to a name and a nationality. Most of the text added to the 1923 and 1948 versions focuses on the right to education and to rest and leisure. It is prescriptive of the agenda for education and upbringing, namely that educators and parents should determine the best interests of the child and ensure upbringing ‘in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood’. The gendered language reflects the norms of the age, which have since been successfully challenged.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: The 3 Ps Over the thirty years following the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child a global working group of governmental and non-governmental officials and experts with some input from young people negotiated the monumental advance represented by the CRC of 1989. Whereas a Declaration expresses agreement on intentions, a Convention binds its signatories to a commitment to implementation since it is considered a solemn treaty in international law. In other words, once ratified, governments have obligations to respect, protect



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and fulfil the rights as set out. They have to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and they receive periodic inspection visits followed by a publicly available report. The CRC proved to be a highly popular treaty with virtually every country in the world ratifying it by the early 1990s. In other words, it is a powerful human rights instrument that sets a universal norm. Stretching to fifty-four articles, some of which are technical and procedural, the CRC attempts to provide a comprehensive framework and agreed standards for children. Article 1 provides the definition that ‘a child means every human being below the age of 18  years’. The scope of the Convention is defined in Article 2 which requires all governments to ensure that ‘each child within their jurisdiction’ can access their rights without discrimination ‘irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status’. In other words, among other commitments, governments are obligated to protect all children irrespective of the citizenship status of the parents. Article 3 articulates the principle that ‘the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’. A  primary consideration does not rule out other considerations, including the wishes of parents, but the child’s best interests must be central to any decision. The spirit of the CRC means that children themselves should be given the opportunity to express and determine their own best interests. The articles of the CRC are frequently conceptualized as promoting for children the so-called 3 Ps of provision, protection and participation. This shorthand formulation was suggested by the head of Save the Children, Sweden, Thomas Hammarberg, who went on to have a distinguished career with the Council of Europe (Hammarberg 1990, 1998; Quennerstedt 2010). Provision means that children need to be provided with shelter, health care, education and other requisites for a healthy life. Protection means that they must be shielded from harm through laws and infrastructure. Both terms may imply that children will be the passive recipients of care and services, focusing on their vulnerability and implies that they are especially fragile. Commitments to provision and protection are made on the basis that all human beings are vulnerable. We die in the absence of regular food and drink and perhaps also in the presence of harmful organisms. Consequently, we require social and economic systems that enable us to have access to wholesome food, clean water and medical care. We also need education to enable us to understand the vital importance of these things and the legal and contractual frameworks that

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attempt to guarantee provision of food, shelter, goods and services as well as protection from fear of our neighbours or the authorities. The great innovation of the CRC was the introduction of the principle of participation. This is set out in Article 12 which engages governments and authorities to ‘assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’. Once children have the right to express themselves and influence decisions that concern them, they may be said to have agency, that is, a sense that they may be able to engage with the structures around them and have some control over their own lives.

UNCRC Policy, Pedagogy, Principles and Practice The CRC provides a set of principles and standards as well as an agenda for action that informs the way we conceptualize schools and the tasks of teachers. As well as focusing on provision, protection and participation the CRC sets universal standards that provide principles for developing policy and practice, particularly around pedagogy. Pedagogy is about the ways in which we organize learning opportunities. Our book is intended to help teachers implement rights to provision, protection and participation and apply the CRC standards or principles with respect to policy, practice and pedagogy. Article 29 of the CRC provides detailed guidance on the standards expected of those responsible for education. It is framed as addressing the aims and overarching purposes of education and this informs the curriculum. The intention and expectation are that these universal standards are reflected in every aspect of education services, including schools. We will look in detail at this article in Chapter 2. Schools are based on the acceptance of the rule of law. National laws provide the framework within which education is conducted. Schools have rules, regulations and routines usually determined locally. On a wider scale there is a framework of European and international law that regulates trade and other issues requiring international agreement. National and local education policies may be influenced by bodies such as the Committee of Ministers of Education of the forty-seven member Council of Europe and the European Union’s Directorate of Education and Culture. At a global level, education policy is also developed by UNESCO and policies on children’s rights by UNICEF.



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People who live in law-based societies are citizens. They respect the rights of others on the understanding that reciprocity is required for the society to flourish. Relationships between citizens are based on solidarity. Citizens support the rights of people they do not necessarily know personally to access provision of essentials and protection from harm. The status of citizen implies equality in relationship to rules and laws. While governments tend to limit their use of the word citizenship to adults with a right to nationality, there are historical, sociological and political uses of the concept of citizenship that are based on people identifying themselves as having rights and struggling against tyranny. One of the key concepts underpinning this book is that children, on this definition, are citizens (Osler and Starkey 2005).

Citizens in Schools Across the world teachers work in environments with common features. If we think of a classroom, we may imagine a teacher, possibly a teaching assistant, two or three dozen learners and a space, possibly with walls and a door. In the space may be tables, chairs, a carpet perhaps, books for reading, books for writing in, computers maybe, a focal point such as a whiteboard or blackboard or TV monitor. Such a classroom, usually within a school and with more or fewer of these resources, can be found almost anywhere in the world. This book is aimed at those who recognize or identify with the teacher in the bare sketch above. Parents, administrators, inspectors and education researchers will have contact with and wish to support those who help to organize children’s learning. Teachers, trainee teachers and teaching assistants can be anxious about this heavy responsibility. The language for expressing relationships in schools is important. It is common to use language that makes a strong distinction between our status as adults and the status ascribed to the learners as children or young people or pupils. These labels imply a deficit. Children may be considered childish and irresponsible. Young people are considered distinct from just people. Their youth implies immaturity. Pupils are, by definition, under the control of adults. All adults, including teachers, have been children. We know how irritating it is to have to interrupt something we are absorbed in because forces beyond our control have determined that it is time for a different activity. We remember incidents of disappointment, humiliation, misunderstandings, unfairness, even bullying as well as enjoyment of learning, friendships and the excitement of discovery. As teachers our task is to create a relationship with the students such

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that we promote what a UNESCO report refers to as learning to live together (Delors 1996). Although there is an important distinction between teacher as organizer and facilitator of learning and the students, learners or young people for whom the school primarily exists, too great an emphasis on the power and prerogatives of the teacher can be a source of tension in a classroom. Youth is a time for testing limits, and every teacher will experience challenges to authority and attempts to subvert teacher intentions. Despite attempts by schools to promote an appearance of homogeneity through uniforms or dress regulations, classrooms across the world are places of diversity. The identities of those, teachers and learners, living together in classrooms are widely varied. Only a few features of identity such as gender or skin colour are likely to be immediately visible and even these can be misread. It requires an effort of getting to know individuals to discern other factors that may have relevance for their motivation and capacity to work with others and to learn. Such influences may include family culture including religion and political engagement, disability, languages spoken or understood, class, experience of internal or international migration, sexual orientation, having siblings, position in the family, family recomposition, interest in music, arts, sport. Citizenship is a feeling, a status and a practice (Osler and Starkey 2005). It is a feeling of belonging to a community. Classrooms and schools are communities, and these school communities are situated in and must relate to other communities such as neighbourhood, village, town or city, nation and the wider world. Where schools recognize that, as rights holders, children are entitled to the status of citizenship the pedagogical relationship is one of mutual respect and solidarity. In authoritarian states, often based on single-party government and sometimes dubiously elected rulers, education aims to ensure adherence to the national regime and coercive compliance with officially sanctioned decrees, laws and expectations. In countries aspiring to be democratic, education allows for freedom of thought, conscience and religion and provides a degree of choice. In such societies, diversity and mobility result in what has been referred to as societies of strangers. What holds these societies together is a system of laws and contracts that all members are expected to adhere to, and which are designed to protect individuals from harm and exploitation by the powerful.

Concerns about Children’s Rights Women were (and in places still are) denied their rights because of fears that they would use their power to undermine the rights and privileges of men.



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Similarly, teachers and parents may express concern that children’s rights undermine parental or teacher authority. However, teacher authority is not the same as authoritarianism. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has noted with concern that ‘continuing authoritarianism, discrimination, disrespect and violence [which] characterize the reality of many schools and classrooms’ (Committee on the Rights of the Child 2009:  para. 105). This is a judgement on the situation worldwide, and authoritarianism can be found in any country. The word describes a situation of coercion based on a considerable imbalance of power and arbitrary decisions rather than reason and due process. However, there is considerable evidence that schools that develop their behaviour policies to be consistent with the principles of the CRC can have equal or better levels of success compared to more authoritarian models. Moreover, the quality of life for teachers and all members of the school community is enhanced. Our argument is that schools and classrooms deny children their rights when organized on lines that grant little freedom of expression, including creative expression and little freedom of choice. The mental health of school-aged young people has become a growing concern across the world, with high levels of suicide within the most pressured systems such as South Korea. Learners deserve adult support and solidarity when they are trapped in competitive examination systems that allow them little room for agency. Arguments against adopting CRC standards include suggestions that these are based on a ‘Western’ model of education that fails to respect indigenous or traditional cultures. As we have mentioned this is an unfair criticism since the CRC has been accepted and adopted voluntarily by almost all member states of the UN. The CRC does not impose any model but provides standards that should inform policy and pedagogy. Our book provides examples of ways in which this is implemented in various contexts. In summary, we conceive of schools as communities of citizens. Citizens coexist within a rule-based society where all members have equal entitlement to respect, dignity and rights. Within societies of citizens people take on different roles and exercise authority delegated to them. While children within a school community have rights, these are naturally constrained by the fact that all other children and adults have the same rights. Procedures must be agreed as to who has a right to expression at any given time. It is not unreasonable to expect respectful silence when the whole school or the whole class is being addressed. Children’s rights are not absolute. As well as being constrained by awareness of the rights of others, they are also constrained by considerations of time, manner and place. What is normal and expected behaviour in the school playground or yard such as running, shouting, general exuberance is likely to be out of place

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within the school building. We would of course expect adults to be respectful and avoid shouting in any case. In this chapter we have sought to introduce and contextualize the CRC and to start to highlight some of the implications for schools. In the next chapter we will look in more detail at the content and implications of the CRC for education and in subsequent chapters we explore and exemplify educational approaches inspired by understandings of children as citizens.

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Defining Children’s Rights Education

This chapter considers the development and consolidation of children’s right to education, the type of education to which they are entitled and their rights within education. It explores the established tradition of human rights education (HRE) by considering some of the United Nations (UN)’s work in this area and some of the educational literature that has emerged to support this. The chapter also considers what, if anything, is distinctive in the newer idea of children’s rights education (CRE). In justifying this terminology, we will draw attention to the need to recognize children as holders of rights and teachers as duty bearers. CRE helps to maintain a focus on a lived dimension to rights education in which individuals claim their rights while respecting the equal rights of others. The chapter ends with a consideration of the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment 1 as an important vision of CRE pedagogy and highlights a number of challenges or tensions that confront advocates of CRE as they think about the practicalities of implementing this vision.

Common Standards In the previous chapter we introduced human rights as common standards for the whole world. Human rights stem from a utopian or hopeful vision of a free, just and peaceful world. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) takes as its premise that this vision of an ideal and harmonious world could exist only if everybody understands and respects the minimum standards of entitlement and expectation set out in the preamble and articles of the UDHR (1948). Schools and other places of formal education have a key role to play in transmitting and fostering understandings of human rights. Although understandings will be influenced by context, the core principles of equality of rights and equality of entitlement to dignity and respect should be constant.

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To achieve this, HRE aims to ensure that teachers, parents and students anywhere in the world will be aware of and understand that human rights stem from an international consensus, expressed originally in the UN Charter and repeated and developed in the UDHR. This seminal milestone Declaration offers a vision of ‘freedom, justice and peace in the world’ that can be realized, by ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. We examined some of the implications of this in Chapter  1. What we will develop here is the fact that children are ‘members of the human family’ and that consequently they are entitled equally with other, older, family members to respect of their dignity and recognition that their rights are not conditional. Human beings, in a human rights perspective, do not have to earn their rights. They do not have to behave well in order to be entitled to them. They do not have to show maturity or common sense. That said, the benefits of human rights, such as equality, health, education, shelter, protection from harm, are rarely fully realized without a struggle. In other words, a human rights perspective is a political perspective since it provides a language and a set of concepts and examples that enable us to recognize instances where rights are denied. Naming injustices is a first step to addressing their causes. The political dimension to HRE and the promotion of children’s rights perhaps require some explanation since the education of teachers may frequently overlook such considerations. However, interactions between adults, be they teachers, parents or those in other professional roles, and children or young people have a power dimension where the adults hold most of the power. Negotiating such interactions is thus a small p political process. Realizing the power of adults to enforce certain forms of behaviour, children often meekly conform to these expectations in order to avoid conflict, stress and even punishment. However, children are also adept at using a variety of tactics to resist. These may include crying, particularly the youngest children, hiding, running away, sulking, wheedling, refusing, going slow, lying, cheating, dissimulating or mocking. Such tactics are used in attempts to exert agency, that is, to be able to affect what they consider to be an unfair or intolerable situation. While teachers might be tempted to see these as simply ‘naughtiness’ we also need to recognize such acts of omission, withdrawal or disobedience also have their parallels in adults’ citizenship actions. Bending the rules, reinterpreting them or simply ignoring them strategically are time-honoured expressions of political action, and in authoritarian contexts acts of ‘constructive noncompliance’ may be the only forms of citizenship available to people (Tsai 2015). This simply reinforces our



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point that all forms of teaching have a political dimension, and that teachers can benefit from reading the situation in this way. References to human rights and children’s rights can help to avoid the most severe confrontations. While human rights acknowledge conflicts of interest as their reason for being, reference to them can be the basis of conversations and negotiations where both sides are treated with dignity and respect and where both sides recognize the justice of arrangements or outcomes. For example, procedures that respect dignity in a school context include speaking to others civilly at all times, pronouncing names correctly and ensuring adequate opportunities to use (clean) bathroom and toilet facilities.

Democracy and Citizenship Given the inevitable small p political dimension to rights education, it is appropriate to use some political concepts to describe and analyse interactions. Democracy and citizenship are related terms that have been widely defined and explored in relation to education. Alongside these are the adjective democratic, meaning in accord with the principles of democracy, and citizen, namely, a person claiming citizenship and acting as a citizen. The eminent American philosopher and educationalist John Dewey (1859– 1952) published his hugely influential Democracy and Education in 1916. We will examine his legacy in detail in Chapter  6. Dewey argued that although democracy is often associated with a form of government, it is also a principle that can be applied more widely and particularly to education. This principle is essentially that everyone involved is entitled to give an opinion and that a community is enriched when different views are expressed and confronted. As he put it, ‘A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience’ (Dewey [1916] 2002, c­ hapter  7). In other words, democracy is a way of life that recognizes and values the perceptions and the experiences of everyone within a given community. A school is a community. While Dewey provides the philosophical justification for children’s views to be sought and valued as an essential element of the educational process, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) gives legal and moral status to this form of democratic education. Human rights and children’s rights are asserted independently of any particular form of government. Indeed, in contexts where rights are suppressed, they may become more salient as rallying points for resistance. That said,

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neither the Universal Declaration nor the CRC is prescriptive as to forms of government, although there is a minimum expectation in Article 21 UDHR of ‘periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures’. Article 29 UDHR and Article 15 UNCRC reference a ‘democratic society’. We can take this to mean that all people have a right to live in societies where freedoms to receive information, express opinions and participate are guaranteed. Although in many countries these freedoms are curtailed by governments or by social or religious conventions, the struggle to achieve the right to make a difference or exercise agency is supported by the existence of human rights instruments. We noted in Chapter  1 that the CRC broke new ground in emphasizing children’s rights to participation. Another eminent educationalist, Basil Bernstein (1924–2000), theorized participation not only as a right that includes discussion and discourse but also as a practice that expects outcomes. It is a right that has political implications since Bernstein defines it as a right to ‘participate in procedures whereby order is constructed, maintained and changed’ (Bernstein 2000:  20). This definition is clearly highly relevant in a school context. Procedures in schools that are intended to construct and maintain order include rules, discipline, timetables, exams and tests, parental contracts, homework, rewards and punishments, pastoral systems, hierarchies and the curriculum. Participation in Bernstein’s conceptualization also includes the right to challenge and attempt to change any of these procedures. To do this in the spirit of democracy and children’s human rights would require the challenge to be formulated as countering an injustice or a denial of rights. Learning to formulate challenges in terms of children’s rights involves gaining a detailed knowledge of the rights in the CRC and probably engaging with examples of where these have been used successfully to challenge injustices. However, initially this is likely also to involve exploring the ways in which one rights claim may be in tension with another. So, for example, a claim for a longer mid-morning school break on the grounds of right to rest and leisure has to be considered in the context of the right to education and the obligation to use time in school to best effect. As we noted in Chapter  1, citizenship has been defined as a feeling, a status and a practice (Osler and Starkey 2005). Citizens are people who claim citizenship. It is a feeling of belonging to a community whether neighbourhood, school, city or region, nation, humanity. Citizenship is also a status as member of the community and as a bearer of rights. Members of the community recognize



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the right of others to belong and to participate on equal terms in the political and cultural life of the community. Citizenship is also a practice of participating, as Bernstein suggests, in procedures for the construction and maintenance of order. Citizens have agency. In other words, they feel that they have some level of influence and control over their lives and the structures within which they operate. Participation provides the opportunity to change or influence structures. The CRC is based on the premise that children are citizens. This is not explicit in the wording of the Convention, but the concept of citizen is useful to explain the relationship of children, individually and collectively, to the social structures they encounter in the world around them, including schools. Children as citizens are released from the ascribed identity of pupil and even child. If children’s citizenship is their most salient characteristic, their age, their capacities, their backgrounds take second place to their entitlement to be considered as rights holders on equal terms with all other members of the community, including the adults. Human rights were developed because human beings are essentially vulnerable. They depend on others to help to protect them from life-threatening disease and hunger and to provide them with food, shelter, education and protection. In drawing attention to the status of children as entitled to human rights, the CRC challenges perceptions of children that define them as not adult, as not capable, as therefore not fully human. In fact, by ensuring that even the youngest children have entitlement to rights the CRC acts as a reminder that vulnerability is not a reason for denying rights but rather for asserting them (Fineman 2016). A legitimate but constraining focus on protection for children can lead to ‘overprotective or paternalistic’ approaches which conflict with what we are advocating, namely, considering children ‘as competent agents regardless of their age’ (Stoeckelin and Bonvin 2014: 65). Teacher professionalism recognizes that children’s agency will change over the course of their development. In other words, children’s rights need to be transformed into real rights or capabilities by means of an interplay between an individual child’s personal skills and the available social opportunities. Teachers consequently need to address both the development of children’s personal skills and also situations in relation to opportunities for participation. A child-centred approach recognizing children as citizens and rights holders involves ‘building their capacities to participate, promoting capable agents and enhancing critical, creative and caring thinking for active citizenship’ (Hart, Biggeri and Babic 2014: 263). This presents one of the central purposes, and key challenges, of CRE.

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CRE and HRE We have noted and defined the essentially political agenda of CRE and HRE since both are concerned with promoting a way of looking at the world that asserts the equal rights and equal dignity of all human beings. Both forms of education are intended to ensure the promotion of this understanding that all human beings, because of their essential vulnerability, are entitled to provision, protection and participation. Such an understanding may challenge ideologies such as nationalism and prejudices such as racism, sexism and homophobia. A rights-based approach to education is intended to legitimize such challenges and provide understandings of the power and limitations of the law and the key role of the structures of international solidarity, including the UN. This aspect of HRE moves the agenda firmly into more overt political territory, given that discrimination, minority rights and demands for recognition are so often points of political contestation throughout the world. CRE has developed alongside and as a complement to the more general movement of HRE. However, while HRE has developed across the world to include numerous recommendations and a UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET), as well as two academic journals, CRE has not developed as a named entity to anything like the same extent. There have nonetheless been attempts to define and characterize CRE that we will explore later in this chapter (Howe and Covell 2005; Covell, Howe and McNeil 2010; Reynaert, Bouverne-De Bie and Vandevelde 2010; Jerome 2016). That said, CRE requires a basic understanding of human rights. The text of the UN CRC situates it in the context of developing a culture of human rights across the world. Its preamble makes explicit that the initiative for a special Convention for children is founded on the broader commitments to human rights made by the international community from the end of the Second World War. The CRC is set in the context of ‘the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations’. The UN Charter, signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, sets out the legal basis for the creation of the UN. The legal basis is designed to facilitate the achievement of the moral purpose of the United Nations Organization, namely, freedom, justice and peace in the world. This moral purpose also underpins the CRC. Recognition of children’s equal human rights implies that these (inalienable) rights are not conditional on them behaving well or undertaking duties and responsibilities. Human rights principles include fair treatment and due process.



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As an example, those accused of crimes are entitled to be treated with dignity. The denial of any due process was one of the reasons why the murder by police of George Floyd in 2020 is so shocking. In parallel, children’s rights do not depend on them reaching a certain age or stage of maturity or behaving well or being deserving. That said, the exercise of rights is constrained by recognition that everyone has the same rights. In other words, there needs to be negotiation over the ways in which rights are exercised. One way of thinking about this is that rights are not absolute but rather can be claimed and put into effect only in contexts that also give other parties opportunities to exercise their rights. As an example, the right to education for all members of a school or class is likely to require some restraint on exercising freedom of expression. Conventions such as not interrupting others who are speaking or waiting with hand up until one is chosen to speak have been introduced as one way of organizing learning in ways that maximize opportunities for all. These conventions are not set in stone and can be modified as better practices are imagined and developed. Meanwhile, rules associated with these behaviours are perfectly compatible with a rightsbased approach. The Preamble to the CRC further references the UDHR as a reminder that the rights and freedoms ‘set forth therein’ are the entitlement of everyone ‘without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status’. Although this is a substantial list of grounds on which discrimination may occur, subsequent social and political movements and struggles have achieved a consensus at the UN that these and other characteristics including disability and sexuality should also be protected. To date, the UN has put forward to the governments of member states a succession of conventions, binding as treaty obligations in international law, that amplify the commitments and intentions of the UDHR. These outlaw discrimination on grounds of race, gender, nationality of workers and disability. Two further conventions attempt to ban torture and forced disappearance. The list of supplementary human rights conventions in chronological order is as follows: • International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1965 • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1966 • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 1966

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• [The two covenants of 1966 together with the UDHR are known as and constitute the International Bill of Rights.] • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 1979 • Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) 1984 • Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 • International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW) 1990 • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) 2006 • International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) 2006 The articles of the UDHR and the CRC closely define and delimit human and children’s rights. In other words, there is a specific body of texts that set out the internationally, and in principle universally, accepted rights. These rights can be interpreted, but they are intended to be indivisible, that is, not subject to picking and choosing. There is no basis for prioritizing one right over another unless subject to the judgement of a court or tribunal. Particular rights cannot in principle be deleted or withheld without undermining the whole basis of human rights and international law.

The Development of HRE The human rights project, namely, to promote a world of freedom, justice and peace, has from the outset been closely associated with education. The Preamble to the UDHR proposes that ‘every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms’. Struggles for freedoms and justice are the more powerful when framed as entitlements under the internationally agreed common standards of human rights. From the outset, educators have recognized that teaching and education that aims to develop a culture of human rights has three dimensions now codified by the UN in an easily memorable formula as education about human rights, education through human rights, education for human rights (UN General Assembly 2011). This refers to the content (about), the context (through) and the purpose (for) that we illustrate in this chapter and throughout the book.



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The historical development of HRE has found powerful support in the attention it receives at the UN. Following successful independence struggles, many framed in terms of demanding human rights, the process of decolonization was largely completed by the mid-1960s. There was consequently a dramatic expansion of the number of member states of the UN from 77 pre-1960 to 114 by 1968, a nearly 50 per cent increase that changed the character and balance of power. In this context of the aspirations of newly independent nations, the UN General Assembly declared 1968, the twentieth anniversary of the UDHR, as the International Year for Human Rights. As a contribution to the International Year, the UN agency for education, UNESCO, produced guidelines in the form of detailed suggestions for teaching about human rights (Kidd 1968). HRE was framed in this publication as having three dimensions, namely, the history of human rights struggles (purpose or education for human rights); knowledge of human rights instruments (content or education about human rights); and living out and practicing human rights in school and the wider community (context or education through human rights). This characterization of HRE is still widely accepted as a basis for policy. Learning through the experience of living in a rights-respecting culture is central to HRE. It is particularly important in CRE as it is about expectations of how community members interact. This consideration is crucial for creating an effective learning environment. As well as the knowledge required for what we might call human rights literacy, the school context should model a society based on human rights, as the early UNESCO guidance explained: The principles of human rights should be reflected in the organization and conduct of school life, in classroom methods, in relations between teachers and pupils and among teachers themselves, as well as in their contribution to the welfare of the wider community outside the school. (Kidd 1968: 19)

In fact, as the UNESCO guidance also noted, schools are places where issues of freedom, justice and dignity are constantly in play: Every hour of every school day teachers deal with matters which concern human rights-order and justice, the maintenance of individual dignity, regard for truth and objectivity, mutual respect. (Kidd 1968: 19)

This observation remains true today and we conclude that the 1968 UNESCO guidance remains highly relevant to those of us developing CRE. Intergovernmental organizations such as UNESCO work to influence the governments of their member states. They do this by drawing up resolutions,

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recommendations and occasionally legally binding conventions or covenants that express the agreed position of all members. The fact that recommendations represent a consensus position gives them an authority that may influence the policies of Ministries of Education. Although intergovernmental policy statements and recommendations are agreed through formal diplomatic channels, the drafting process usually involves external experts, independent of governments. In fact, such experts are often drawn from universities and they may well be participants in non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Human rights NGOs such as Amnesty International and development NGOs such as Oxfam have been highly influential in helping to frame policy. They also help to pressure governments to enact appropriate policies and they disseminate guidance and specially created learning materials through their networks. Whereas the 1968 UNESCO guidance was written by a named staff member and aimed at influencing educators and education authorities, the first major recommendation on HRE aimed at governments and drafted on their behalf was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1974. Its long title Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, co-operation and peace and education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms is indicative of diplomatic compromises at a time of international confrontations between the so-called capitalist bloc of the United States and its allies, the communist bloc including the Soviet Union and China, and the so-called third world bloc of newly independent countries emerging from struggles for freedom from colonization. The Vietnam War between the capitalist United States and the communist, third world Vietnamese was still in progress. The 1974 Recommendation situates HRE both in terms of freedoms, which is the prominent discourse of the capitalist bloc, and as a contribution to peace, a discourse privileged by diplomats from the communist bloc. The Recommendation also stresses the role of education in addressing colonialism and apartheid which were high on the agenda of third world bloc members. The preamble to the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation recognizes the limited impact of previous guidance and expresses disappointment that ‘there is still a wide disparity between proclaimed ideals, declared intentions and the actual situation’. Consequently, the Recommendation specifies that governments should ensure that relevant ministries across formal and informal education take account of and implement its guidance. As the title indicates, HRE is an essential part of what UNESCO calls ‘Education for International Understanding’. The word ‘international’ clearly implies a diplomatic perspective of individuals being closely associated with their nationality. This may, however, if poorly



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implemented, strengthen nationalist feelings and be counterproductive. We advocate an approach to HRE and CRE that is based on a cosmopolitan rather than an international perspective. We argue that individuals should have the freedom to determine the extent to which a national identity is salient for them. We consider that a children’s rights approach can legitimately resist the expectation of individuals being encouraged or coerced into nationalism (Nussbaum and Cohen 1996; Osler and Starkey 2003, [1996] 2018a, 2018b). The 1974 UNESCO Recommendation includes a strongly worded section on peace where signatory governments ‘stress the inadmissibility of recourse to war for purposes of expansion, aggression and domination, or to the use of force and violence for purposes of repression’. It also has a strongly anti-colonial stance, wishing to promote ‘activities in the struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism in all their forms and manifestations, and against all forms and varieties of racialism, fascism, and apartheid as well as other ideologies which breed national and racial hatred’. The Recommendation advocates that such anti-war and antiracist struggles should also inform the school context in the development of a culture of human rights. Thus, governments are expected to ‘ensure that the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination become an integral part of the developing personality of each child, adolescent, young person or adult by applying these principles in the daily conduct of education’. This should lead to students’ active engagement with human rights where their schools and teachers ‘prepare them to exercise their rights and freedoms while recognizing and respecting the rights of others’. There is guidance on educational materials and textbooks that should be ‘free from elements liable to give rise to misunderstanding, mistrust, racialist reactions, contempt or hatred with regard to other groups or peoples’. The context to be aspired to in early years’ schooling is detailed. ‘The first school should be designed and organized as a social environment … in which various situations, including games, will enable children to become aware of their rights, to assert themselves freely while accepting their responsibilities.’ There is also emphasis on developing a ‘sense of belonging to larger and larger communities  – the family, the school, then the local, national and world communities’. The 1974 UNESCO Recommendation continues to be a point of reference for UN member state governments. UNESCO has requested details of the extent to which governments have implemented the Recommendation on six

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occasions over the years, most recently on a four-year cycle (2008, 2012, 2016). A  detailed analysis of the responses from 2008 and 2012 has been published (McEvoy 2016). Under this self-reporting system, most governments claim to be promoting some form of HRE. In the twenty-first century UNESCO’s major contribution has been drawing up and disseminating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) supported by all UN member states since 2015. These evolved from the earlier Agenda 21 (1992) and the Millennium Development Goals (2000). Of particular interest to this book is SDG 4 on quality education and in particular SDG 4.7, which reads as follows: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and 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.

In this perspective, HRE contributes to a sustainable future for the world’s population and is closely associated with initiatives to promote Global Citizenship Education.

European Initiatives on HRE Further elaborations of how HRE is to be defined and conceptualized have subsequently been published by regional and global intergovernmental organizations. The Council of Europe, wishing to extend its influence as guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights to three Southern European countries that shook off their dictatorships in the 1970s (Greece, Portugal and Spain), convened a major symposium in Vienna in 1983 that resulted in a Recommendation Teaching and Learning about Human Rights in Schools (Council of Europe 1985; Starkey 1991). The conceptual framework influenced by Ian Lister (1984), Derek Heater (1984) and Judith Torney-Purta (1984) underpinned a number of international teacher education meetings (Osler and Starkey [1996] 2018a) at which teachers and teacher educators worked to develop a practice of HRE. The context of this European Recommendation and its rationale were expressed as a need to reaffirm democratic values because of intolerance,



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violence and terrorism including public expressions of hate speech as well as a general disillusionment of young people with the state of the world. Little has changed in the decades since. Many governments view teaching and learning about human rights both as essential for countering terrorism and racism and for giving some hope to young people that there are principles and standards that can underpin actions for promoting social justice in the  world. Many of the key ideas proposed by the Council of Europe’s experts were encapsulated in the 1985 Recommendation. For example, Democracy is best learned in a democratic setting where participation is encouraged, where views can be expressed openly and discussed, where there is freedom of expression for pupils and teachers, and where there is fairness and justice. An appropriate climate is, therefore, an essential complement to effective learning about human rights. (Council of Europe 1985)

Democracy is often considered simply as a system of government, but it is also a way of looking at the world in terms of social structures that respect dignity and human rights, irrespective of any particular political arrangement. The 1985 Recommendation also recognizes the potentially controversial content of discussions of human rights: Human rights inevitably involve the domain of politics. Teaching about human rights should, therefore, always have international agreements and covenants as a point of reference, and teachers should take care to avoid imposing their personal convictions on their pupils and involving them in ideological struggles.

The safeguard for teachers when approaching political issues is the capacity to ground debates and discussions in human rights principles set out in instruments that in principle have been accepted by governments. In terms of pedagogy and curriculum, the Recommendation stresses that HRE is more than the inculcation of knowledge, important as that is. The study of human rights in schools should lead to an understanding of, and sympathy for, the concepts of justice, equality, freedom, peace, dignity, rights and democracy. Such understanding should be both cognitive and based on experience and feelings. Schools should, thus, provide opportunities for pupils to experience affective involvement in human rights and to express their feelings through drama, art, music, creative writing and audiovisual media.

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HRE requires thinking, feeling and doing (Osler and Starkey ([1996] 2018a). There is a core of essential knowledge such as the existence and content of human rights instruments. However, this is unlikely to be sufficient in developing a human rights culture. HRE also requires some emotional engagement through literature and art and opportunities to be involved in actions at any level, from the very local in school to the global, that are designed to make a positive difference. The Council of Europe Recommendation of 1985 also implies another way of viewing HRE in three dimensions, namely, the past, the present and the future. Understanding history and struggles for rights and freedoms is an important aim. However, knowledge of history without involvement in contemporary struggles is sterile and so HRE includes opportunities for actions in the present. Also, by definition, if the actions are based on commitments to human rights, they are about creating a fairer and more peaceful world in the future. The Council of Europe continues to promote HRE through a programme of Education for Democratic Citizenship/Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE). Materials and activities have been developed to support the Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education which has been adopted by the Organization’s forty-seven member states as a formal Recommendation. Sticking closely to UN definitions, it defines HRE as follows: Education, training, awareness raising, information, practices and activities which aim, by equipping learners with knowledge, skills and understanding and developing their attitudes and behaviour, to empower learners to contribute to the building and defence of a universal culture of human rights in society, with a view to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. (Council of Europe 2010)

Such a broad definition relies on an understanding of what constitutes ‘a universal culture of human rights in society’. It does not refer to human rights instruments, though these are acknowledged in the preamble to the Recommendation.

United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET, 2011) The ending of the Cold War after 1989 and the democratization process, whereby governments in Eastern Europe and Latin America adopted liberal constitutions following periods of authoritarian control, led to calls for a World Conference



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on Human Rights that was held in Vienna in 1993. The Conference was attended by 171 member states of the UN, allowing the organizers to claim that 99 per cent of the world’s population was represented. It was also attended by numerous NGOs who contributed very actively to the drafting of the conclusions. The formal outcome was presented as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 1994). The Vienna Declaration emphasized a consensus that human rights are a universal standard and entitlement and that the ‘universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question’. This uncompromising assertion is further developed in paragraph 5 as:  ‘All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.’ In other words, human rights is a complex framework for determining appropriate human interactions but there can be no question of prioritizing some rights if others are jettisoned. The Declaration also welcomes the recent adoption of the CRC (Article 21) and gives impetus to HRE, emphasizing ‘the importance of incorporating the subject of human rights education programmes’ and calling on member states to implement this (Article 33). The second part of the Declaration includes a further five articles on HRE and concludes with a proposal for a UN decade for HRE. This had been the aim of, among others, the People’s Decade for Human Rights Education, an American NGO. The UN General Assembly took up this proposal and acted swiftly so that 1995–2004 was designated the UN Decade for HRE. At the end of the decade there was agreement that efforts for HRE needed to be continued and the General Assembly adopted the continuing World Programme for Human Rights Education (WPHRE). The first phase (2005–9) focused on HRE in primary and secondary schools, and during this period NGOs and UN officials and experts worked together to draft a United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training that was finally approved by the General Assembly in 2011 (UN General Assembly 2011). While the UNDHRET does not formally define HRE it does confirm the categorization that had been widely adopted by practitioners and trainers of education about, through and for human rights. This is developed as providing knowledge of instruments and the values underpinning them (about); ensuring the learning and teaching context respects human rights (through); intending the outcome to be to ensure learners practice human rights in the present and in their future lives (for). Declarations from the UN are primarily intended to influence the actions of governments and therefore suggest a top-down approach. Scholars working closely with NGOs have proposed approaches to HRE that start from the lived

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realities and actions of those who struggle for their rights. They invite the HRE community to learn from the realities of people with less power and access to justice. These include individuals and groups across the world active in ‘struggles for decolonization and self-determination, against racial discrimination, genderbased aggression and discrimination, denial of access to basic minimum needs, environmental degradation and destruction’ (Baxi 1997:  142). One model of HRE in this tradition of critical scholarship is to recognize HRE as capable of producing transformative action when embraced by those marginalized from economic and political power. HRE provides a framework for such learners to make sense of the world and their capacity to influence it (Bajaj 2012a, b). Building on this tradition of scholarship, which has its roots in the work of Paulo Freire ([1970] 2005), and drawing on experience of HRE in a contemporary colonial setting, Mai Abu Moghli (2016: 71) proposes a new definition of HRE: An ongoing process built on universal human rights standards and rooted in the praxis of people struggling for their rights, aiming to raise consciousness, dismantle structures of domination and oppression and build a space where subalterns have the opportunity and ability to make meaningful change to their lives.

The concept of subalterns refers to marginalized and disempowered people. It is a concept that can be applied to children, who, by definition, have less power than adults (Alderson 1999, 2008). Children’s rights set out and define some universal standards intended to ensure young people’s access to their human rights. In one sense children’s rights are intended to avoid discrimination in rights on the basis of age. The CRC preamble notes that the UDHR (in Article 25)  provides that childhood ‘is entitled to special care and assistance’ and this is perhaps the main moral authority for initiating an additional legally binding convention for children, namely, the CRC. The preamble to the CRC, setting out the principles on which children’s rights are founded, repeats and expands on the assertion in Article 16 of the UDHR that ‘the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society’. The family is not defined, and this leaves scope for applying this principle to a large number of possible configurations. This is an advantage since defining families is a politically contested and sensitive issue in many parts of the world. Whereas some religious and political leaders promote a normative view of family composition, including that parents should be a man and a woman, the CRC makes no such assumptions. Rather, family is a metaphor for an environment where children



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grow up ‘in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding’ (Preamble). Family and school together are responsible for bringing up children in the spirit of the ideals of the UN and ‘in particular in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity’. The following sections explore the nature and practice of CRE.

Children’s Rights Education Both the UDHR in its Article 26 and the CRC in Article 29 define the aims of education. The CRC specifies that it is referring to ‘the education of the child’. This is a role very predominantly given to schools. The aims are set out in five short paragraphs. The first emphasizes ‘the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’. This suggests that states have an obligation to ensure the quality of the education available to children. Three of the paragraphs are about developing respect. Children are expected to respect human rights and ‘the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations’. This certainly implies that HRE is a right under the CRC, for how can children respect principles unless they learn about them? Children are also expected to learn to respect the ‘natural environment’. HRE and environmental education are here brought together as they are in the SDGs. Respect for human rights and for the environment is complemented by developing respect for ‘the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own’. The article clearly anticipates children travelling and migrating. There is a suggestion that the values of the parents and the family, which should be respected, may not be entirely aligned with ‘the national values of the country in which the child is living’. It is this concern that led the UK government to mandate the teaching of Fundamental British Values in schools from 2014. The context was concerns that young people were being drawn to terrorism through a radicalization process. A  prevalent view in government departments was that students of Muslim background were particularly susceptible and that the educational response would target students who may reject an exclusively British identity. This interpretation ignored the fact that the values to be promoted as fundamental and British are not uniquely British since they require schools to actively promote ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’

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(Department for Education 2014:  6). Since these values are also enshrined in human rights instruments and so are already existing standards, the intervention by the Education Ministry was controversial as it appeared to be politicizing the teaching of values by linking it to a security agenda (Richardson 2015; Starkey 2018; Vincent 2019). The drafting of CRC Article 29 is problematic in that it suggests that a child has a singular identity, whereas in practice children may well identify with more than one country, be proficient in several languages and be able to operate effectively in different cultural settings. That said, the aim of education in this article is the ‘preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin’. This implies access to multicultural or intercultural education as well as education that emphasizes the values of the UN. HRE, perhaps particularly through materials produced by some NGOs, has sometimes been associated with condemning or at least highlighting severe abuses of human rights including torture and genocide. Apart from the pedagogical argument that such materials risk traumatizing young children, this can also give the impression that human rights are about what adults do to each other in distant places (Krappman 2006). CRE is based on the premise that children have human rights and that these are relevant to and exercised in their daily lives, whatever the context (Verhellen 1993). This can be conceptualized through the principles embodied in Article 2 of the UNDHRET, namely, that education should be about children’s rights; that it should be conducted through a process which respects children’s rights; and that it should aim to secure children’s commitment and capacity to act for children’s rights. CRE therefore provides a lens for thinking about the following: • the content of education, • the process of education and • the purposes of education. CRE is derived from the CRC in two ways. First there are specific articles which define children’s educational entitlement to some form of CRE (Articles 28, 29 and 42), and second, there are broader principles that should inform education provision, such as non-discrimination, the best interests of the child and the right of the child to have their views given due weight in decisions that affect them (Lundy 2012). In a CRE perspective, education should be seen as both a substantive right in itself and also an enabling right, through which children



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develop the understanding and capacity to access other rights, such as the right to free speech. In fact, the right to education unlocks many other rights. It ‘functions as a multiplier, enhancing all rights and freedoms when it is guaranteed while jeopardizing them all when it is violated’ (Tomasevski 2006: 7). This emphasizes the importance of education as a right for children. However, a children’s rights approach requires attention to all aspects of the context of education including the school context. This includes the ‘legal framework, institutional policies, educational projects, codes of conduct in schools, curriculum, class management, pedagogical activities, student government, and community life’ (Potvin and Benny 2013: 4). It therefore falls to adults to ensure that CRE addresses the fact that children simultaneously have rights in education and a right to capacity building to enable them to progressively realize their rights (Lundy and McEvoy 2012). Similarly, the UNDHRET (UN 2011) underscores the central role of developing children’s agency, both by reinforcing the general commitment to educate children through and for their rights and through the clear commitment to provide children and young people with ‘knowledge, skills and understanding and developing their attitudes and behaviours, to empower them to contribute to the building and promotion of a universal culture of human rights’ (Article 2). The UN agency for children, UNICEF, has a particular concern for CRE and has published what it calls the CRE Toolkit in which there is a clear focus on developing agency. It provides a further definition of CRE: Teaching and learning about the provisions and principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the ‘child rights approach’ in order to empower both adults and children to take action to advocate for and apply these at the family, school, community, national and global levels. (UNICEF 2014: 20)

The clear intention here is to align the content, process and purpose to ensure coherence between the means and ends of CRE, with both focussing on children’s capacity to act as rights-bearers and the defenders of others’ rights.

The CRC and Education: The First General Comment The first General Comment (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2001) focused on Article 29 of the CRC and this section summarizes and comments on this important text as it helps to clarify what CRE might look like. The first

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concept to be developed in the Comment is that of Empowerment (paragraph 2). The Committee confirms that Article 29 insists upon the need for education to be child-centred, child-friendly and empowering, and it highlights the need for educational processes to be based upon the very principles it enunciates … The goal is to empower the child by developing his or her skills, learning and other capacities, human dignity, selfesteem and self-confidence. (our emphasis)

This strengthens the notion of young people’s agency, advocating that HRE should include ‘encouragement to take action to defend human rights and prevent human rights abuses’ (Gerber 2008: 85). The Committee goes on to address the issue of a possible clash between the general principle that education should promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all peoples and policies in paragraph (c)  of Article 29.1 to develop respect for the child’s own cultural identity, language and values. The tension might be where a child is exposed at home or in the community to political, religious or cultural discourses and practices that are intolerant. The Committee insists on the role of education in raising such issues and challenging beliefs and attitudes that do not support human rights. Moreover, the Committee notes optimistically that ‘children are capable of playing a unique role in bridging many of the differences that have historically separated groups of people from one another’. The way to achieving tolerance and friendship between groups, the Committee argues, is through intercultural dialogue. Opportunities for such dialogue should therefore be built into policies and practices of CRE. The Comment tackles the criticisms that have sometimes been made of the CRC, namely, that its provisions may challenge the beliefs and practices of some communities. It argues that the exercise of rights must be judged in the context of these rights being exercised within the broad ethical parameters of human rights values. An example might be controversies over relationships and sex education. Whereas adults may wish to shield their children from learning about same-sex relationships or abortion, a child’s capacity to live a full and free life in their society may depend on having access to knowledge and understanding that families and relationships can take many forms. In other words, the best interests of the child, as opposed to the interests of the parents, require access to quality information and education. While the Committee notes that ‘most children’s rights, far from being externally imposed, are embedded within the values of local communities’, this acknowledgement of tensions or conflicts also



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recognizes that schools may have to introduce other perspectives and additional information.

Case Study 1  Limits on selection and censorship Most children in the UK attend schools that are funded and regulated by the government, but a minority attend private schools. While state schools may retain a religious ethos, some religious communities also opt to establish their own private schools, in order to maintain greater independence from government. Such independent religious education is compatible with the UDHR rights to freedom of religion (Article 18) and parents’ ‘right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children’ (Article 26(3)). But we have already seen that there are other requirements of education, such as those outlined in this chapter that might require some restrictions. In its guidance to independent schools, the UK government recognizes as follows: All schools select their book and video holdings to some extent in terms of suitability, and the practice in some schools, of carrying out editing of texts and films to remove material which other schools might regard as harmless is not in itself unacceptable. (DfE 2019: para. 2.31) This UK guidance acknowledges that teachers may even redact resources, to reflect the school’s own ethos or values. This has led to some religious schools issuing textbooks with images obliterated by black marker pen, for example, photographs where women’s shoulders are visible or reproductions of Picasso’s artworks (Roberts 2018). However, the guidance also requires schools to provide personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education which ‘encourages respect for other people, paying particular attention to the protected characteristics set out in the 2010 Equality Act’ (2.2(d)). These characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. In this way, the guidance not only clearly seeks to recognize a religious community’s rights to educate children in accord with their religious principles, but also asserts children’s rights to know there are other values and overarching legal principles such as equality and the protection of minority rights. Where schools fail to balance these approaches appropriately, they may fail a school inspection and be required to change their practices (Roberts 2018). In this way, these tensions can be worked through to achieve a balance. Although the government guidance does not explicitly state the argument in terms of children’s rights, the balancing process can be framed as congruent with an approach based on CRE principles.

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The interrelationship between the content of the curriculum and the values imparted in the educational process requires attention to the ‘educational processes, the pedagogical methods and the environment within which education takes place, whether it be the home, school, or elsewhere’. The Committee observes that children do not lose their human rights by virtue of passing through the school gates. Schools need to be child-friendly and respectful of the dignity of the child. This implies ‘the participation of children in school life, the creation of school communities and student councils, peer education and peer counselling, and the involvement of children in school disciplinary proceedings should be promoted as part of the process of learning and experiencing the realization of rights’. The Comment expands on this in paragraph 15 where it suggests that the lifelong process of HRE can start at school with ‘the reflection of human rights values in the daily life and experiences of children’. Other issues raised by the Committee include an insistence that corporal punishment is incompatible with respecting the dignity of the child and that other forms of discipline need to be monitored to ensure that they do not demean children. Additionally, schools need to ensure that bullying and ‘other violent and exclusionary practices’ are eradicated as being incompatible with the CRC. The Committee comments on the importance of the curriculum being relevant to children, that is, that it should build on their experience while expanding their horizons. It also has some general advice on pedagogy and in particular the need for differentiated approaches. Not all children learn in the same way and teachers need to provide varied learning experiences. There is criticism of an approach to the curriculum that involves simply accumulating knowledge and depending on competition to provide motivation. It deplores such methods as leading to an excessive burden of work on children. In fact, the guidance calls for comprehensive reforms to the curriculum to ensure that textbooks and materials fully respect Article 29 of the CRC. The guidance in the Comment is especially forceful in emphasizing education’s role in addressing discrimination and particularly in combatting racism. The suggestion is that the topic of racism and xenophobia should be addressed directly. It stresses the importance of ‘teaching about racism as it has been practised historically, and particularly as it manifests or has manifested itself within particular communities’. Finally, the Comment in paragraph 22 urges member states to undertake self-evaluation of their progress with implementing the CRC and to ensure that children and other stakeholders including teachers, parents and administrators have opportunities through surveys or meetings to communicate their views. This completes an account of CRE which emphasizes



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children’s agency and their ability to be engaged as active members of the school community. On one reading, the Committee’s General Comment No.1 simply builds on the international consensus around HRE and children’s rights and elaborates what this might look like in practice. However, as Case Study 1 illustrates, such guidance incorporates a number of tensions that need to be resolved. Some of those tensions are inherent in the children’s rights framework, as different rights and interests need to be balanced. But other tensions arise as these principles are translated into existing institutional contexts and practices. Schools were not established as rights-respecting institutions, and educational practices have not necessarily been premised on a commitment to children’s rights. We end this chapter by drawing attention to some of the tensions that arise from a critical reading of the literature defining CRE. We cannot resolve these issues here, but the tensions set the scene for the rest of the book and illustrate why teachers have to be politically engaged with CRE in order to engage productively with these tensions and contradictions.

Tensions in Implementing CRE First, while the General Comment envisages a participative approach to discipline in which children and adults share roles and responsibilities to maintain order and dispense justice, this is not how many schools operate. The reality is that relations are highly unequal, teachers generally assert authority over children and decisions about punishments are generally taken by adults. While there are other traditions to draw on (notably in progressive schools) these have generally only been applied in a minority of schools and are open to the criticism that ‘democratic’ processes only really mask teacher authority, because teachers generally remain the key decision-makers (Buckard 2007; Drew 2019). The balance of power between teachers and students and the extent to which all schools can adopt such alternative processes is a challenge that is not fully resolved by CRE. Second, there is a tension around the role of teachers in promoting values. Within the educational community there are differences of opinion about how to help children learn about and live by a set of values. Most guidance on HRE and CRE envisages the transmission of core principles. However, the transmission of values can be criticized as being akin to indoctrination, which raises problems for our commitment to respect the integrity of young people. There is another

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approach, however, derived from Kohlberg (1981), attempting to encourage moral reasoning through a process of values clarification, rather than values transmission. This approach is developed and promoted in the Council of Europe’s Manual for HRE, Compass (Brander et al. 2012). However a pedagogy of values clarification promoted by an organization, the Council of Europe, whose constitution is based on human rights principles, could arouse concerns over how much freedom of thought is actually envisaged when engaging with these materials. A third tension arises from considering the Committee’s commitment to holistic education where teaching and learning are based on thinking, feeling and doing and where the context of education, the way schools are organized, is as significant as the content. While holistic education is an ideal for many educators, it can be difficult to implement. For one thing, the systems in many countries are highly competitive, with a narrow focus on exam outcomes and international comparisons. A study of a school implementing an NGO-initiated HRE programme found that there were tensions between a dominant neoliberal paradigm promoting individualized, competitive, consumer models of education and the humanistic, collaborative, developmental education espoused within the HRE model (Amnesty International 2009; Mejias and Starkey 2012). Such concerns are also reflected in the 2014 report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, which discusses the implications of the growth of marketization in education as a threat to the principles of universal education for social justice (UN General Assembly 2014). A fourth tension arises from the commitment to equality and anti-racism. The commitment to anti-discrimination, a fundamental principle of any educational programme based on human rights, is far from straightforward to implement. Critical race theorists have helped us to see how deeply ingrained racialized assumptions are within education systems (Gillborn 2008). Similarly, while the Committee calls for teachers to resolve the tensions between groups, this is politically highly controversial and usually beyond the scope of education to achieve. On an individual level, programmes of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Palestinians and Israelis, Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Tamils and Sinhalese may produce a recognition of the humanity of members of antagonistic groups. However, in the absence of political dialogue such enterprises will have very limited impact. Moreover, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New  York, educational programmes aimed at tackling radicalization and extremism have often been premised on promoting national values and assimilation with an implicit



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assumption that Muslims are less likely to be patriotic and upholding of human rights (Akar 2019; Vincent 2019). Finally, advocates of CRE build on a long tradition of so-called progressive education that promotes a curriculum that is relevant to the everyday lives and needs of children (Dewey [1916] 2002; Beattie 2002). There is, however, a counter-argument that flourished in the early twenty-first century that education should focus on building ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young and Muller 2013) which is precisely the knowledge that one does not encounter in everyday life, because it is knowledge that derives from established bodies of academic disciplines. There is a democratic argument for ensuring all children have the right to access such knowledge. However, this requires addressing two further tensions. First the principle of the transmission of so-called powerful knowledge can be in tension with attempts to make the curriculum child-centred, because the curriculum content is often perceived as slightly esoteric and disconnected from immediate experience. Second, some students will retain an advantage related to their background. When it comes to accessing elite universities and the most desirable jobs it is likely that such knowledge forms part of everyday experience for those young people who attend elite schools where the elements of what is known as cultural capital are present in quantity (Bourdieu 2004). That said, there are other understandings of powerful knowledge based on struggles for freedom and justice. The African National Congress based its successful struggle against apartheid on a commitment to universal human rights which powerfully added a moral dimension to the cause that brought it worldwide solidarity. The assassinated US civil rights leader Malcolm X spent his last days arguing for adopting the powerful discourse of human rights over the more narrowly and nationally focused civil rights (Clark 1992). The tension remains, however, that teachers are being invited to enact CRE within a curriculum context which will often promote forms of knowledge which sit uncomfortably alongside the commitment to a holistic and relevant education. So far, we have argued that CRE is a limiting case of HRE. Children are entitled to all human rights. That said, the social construction of childhood along with very real limitations of physical strength and, for some, intellectual development combines to deny them access to their rights and their sense of citizenship. There is then a need for special consideration for this group of under 18s who constitute over one third of the world’s population. The CRC provides just such a consideration and acts as an agenda for action. Given that rights are not powerful unless both rights holders and duty bearers are aware of them, the case for CRE is overwhelming. In this chapter we have traced how CRE

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has developed over decades and how international agreements have expanded and elaborated the vision of what CRE should be. However, as our final section illustrates, that vision cannot easily translate into practice, because established norms and practices are not readily compatible. In Part Two of the book we think about some philosophical and pedagogic ideas that will help teachers to construct their own responses to these tensions. But first, in Chapter 3, we turn to the more pragmatic issue of what we can learn from current CRE and HRE practices around the world.

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Implementing Children’s Rights Education

Introduction In the previous chapter we explored definitions of human rights education (HRE) and introduced children’s rights education (CRE) as a way to foreground the distinctive issues related to children’s human rights. In this chapter we move on to consider what we can learn from established practices and so we survey the literature on the evaluations and impact of HRE and CRE. We start by outlining the considerable efforts of the United Nations (UN) and identify some of the lessons learned from the UN’s own evaluations of practice. We then move on to consider a wider variety of sources of information to illustrate ways in which states have sought to implement their international obligations regarding HRE and CRE. We draw lessons from evaluations of a variety of programmes and projects developed through schools, NGOs and others. We identify three significant issues, namely, the role of teachers; the place of HRE and CRE in the curriculum; and the role of other advocates such as scholars and think tanks. We end by summarizing what we know about the impact of HRE and CRE on children and in particular what children learn.

The Work of the UN Describing what he refers to as the ‘Global Human Rights Regime’, Hopgood asserts, ‘Human Rights is a global structure of laws, courts, norms, and organizations that raise money, write reports, run international campaigns, open local offices [and] lobby governments’ (Hopgood 2013: ix). At the heart of this structure is the UN with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sitting as what Hopgood describes as the ‘highest of high priests’. While Hopgood casts a critical eye on what he calls the bureaucracy of Human Rights with capital letters,

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fearing that it may be too far removed from the lived experiences of individuals and groups, he does convey something of the scale and complexity of the human rights-related activity of the UN. We start this chapter by outlining some of the ways in which the UN has sought to implement HRE and CRE in its various forms. In Figure 1 we provide an overview of the issues discussed in this section. It shows relationships between various initiatives of the General Assembly of the UN and their enactment by different UN agencies including UNHCHR, HRC, UNRWA, CRC, CESCR, UNICEF and UNESCO. The full titles of UN agencies in the perhaps bewildering array of acronyms are given in the diagram. The diagram features institutions and agencies (e.g. UNICEF) and activities associated with them. It also includes key documents or instruments that make up the legal, moral and diplomatic apparatus of HRE in international law. We might start by noting that the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) features a ‘compilation of provisions of international and regional instruments dealing with human rights education’ (OHCHR 2014) which includes over two hundred separate documents, spanning treaties, conventions and recommendations from a range of UN institutions and regional bodies. As well as reiterating the core principles we have outlined in the previous chapter, these documents include some significant variations relating to the context or purpose of each document. As an example, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990) includes the ‘preservation and strengthening of positive African morals, traditional values and cultures’ as an explicit requirement of education (Article 2); and the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam (2005) states that ‘every child has a right to free compulsory basic education by learning the principles of Islamic education’ (Article 12). The Bamako Programme of Action, agreed by the francophone states in 2002, also extends the commitment to education for human rights, democracy and peace to include safeguarding the collective memory, through the construction of archives, including the collection of testimonies. These examples illustrate some of the ways in which HRE and CRE have been interpreted in different contexts and elaborated to reflect the concerns of different governments. In broad terms we might see the UN as promoting direct and indirect activities. Direct activities refers to the provision of HRE and CRE through the UN’s funded programmes, while indirect activities focus on advocacy activities, that is, encouraging governments to provide HRE and CRE as part of their general commitments to implement human rights obligations. We start with two significant examples of direct UN provision, relating to the work of the UN

Human Rights Educaon in the UN Key: Instuon

Document

Acvies

Universal Declaraon of Human Rights (UDHR) Art. 26 Right to educaon that strengthens human rights

UN General Assembly

United Naons Declaraon on HRE & Training (UNDHRET) Art. 2 Educaon about, though and for human rights.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR)

Human Rights Council

Promong Rights through Educaon is one key dimension to UNHCHR acvies

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Educaon

Funding HRE projects Producing HRE resources & compiling library World Programme for HRE • Decade HRE 1995-2004 • Phase 1 2005-9 Primary and Secondary Schools • Phase 2 2010-14 Higher Educaon, Teacher Training, Civil Servants, Police & Military • Phase 3 2015-19 Media Professionals & Journalists • Phase 4 2020- Youth & Respect for Diversity

Figure 1  Human rights education in the UN.

UN Secretary General

United Naons Convenon on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Art. 28 Right to educaon Art. 29 Educaon that develops respect for rights

UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) UNRWA educates approximately half a million children p.a. following local curricula and a HRE & conflict resoluon curriculum

Commiee on the Rights of the Child Periodic Reviews submi„ed by governments & expert responses Complaints against government

UN Internaonal Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

UNICEF promotes ‘Child Friendly’ schools in poorer countries & provides resources UNICEF promotes Child Rights Educaon in donor countries Naonal plans for HRE

General Comments e.g. No.1 on the aims of educaon (Art. 29) • Right to HRE • Rights in school • Educaon to promote rights

Global Educaon First Iniave Ban Ki Moon -2015 Goal 3 Global Cizenship Internaonal Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Art. 13 Right to educaon that strengthens human rights

Commiee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights

General Comments e.g. No.13 on the right to educaon (Art. 13) • Educaon is a right and a means to realize other rights • Access & nondiscriminaon UN Educaon, Scienfic & Cultural Organisaon (UNESCO) UNESCO promotes Global Cizenship Educaon within Sustainable Development Goal 4.

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International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UN Direct Provision UNICEF employs almost eight hundred staff around the world and spends in excess of a billion US$ on education each year across 144 programme countries (UNICEF 2019). For UNICEF the world is divided into ‘programme countries’ where UNICEF funds direct interventions, and other countries which are primarily seen as donor countries. That billion dollars funds direct education provision for almost 7 million children in emergencies and educational resources for 11 million children. Much of the money is also spent on supporting the school systems in programme countries to improve access for marginalized children, promote gender equity, strengthen management and oversight, and develop teacher training. As we shall see in more detail in Chapter  8, in programme countries UNICEF has adopted the terminology of the ‘Child Friendly School’ (CFS) rather than foregrounding the language of HRE or CRE, but this model is firmly rooted in a commitment to children’s rights to a quality education and to the recognition of their rights within education: CFS models are concerned as much with the health, safety, security, nutritional status and psychological well-being of the child as they are with teacher training and the appropriateness of the teaching methods and learning resources used for schooling. They have as much to do with promoting child participation and creating space for children to express their views and opinions as they do with helping children learn to follow rules and regulations or show deference to school authorities. (UNICEF Evaluation Office 2009: Ch. 1, p. 3)

As such, although CFS priorities reflect the context in which programmes are being developed, they incorporate commitments to build strong links between schools and communities, and to embed the principles of inclusion and childcentred pedagogy (Ch. 1, pp.  10–11). In such provision, UNICEF urges that the reality of inclusion demands much more than simply making school places available, for example, the manual for CFS observes, Marginalization by teachers who fail to engage students in the learning and teaching process, do not speak their language, do not believe they are capable of learning or do not have the pedagogic skills to handle the diversity these children bring to the classroom prevents them from having a quality learning experience. (Ch. 2, p. 9)



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Further, CFS guidance challenges the use of rote learning, rejects political or religious indoctrination, and promotes a process of curriculum negotiation with local stakeholders, including children (Ch. 2, pp. 10–12).

Case Study 2  Developing an educational response to the Rohingya refugee crisis Between 2017 and 2019 approximately seven hundred thousand Rohingya people of whom 58 per cent were children were displaced from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Most of these displaced people are in Cox’s Bazar, the former tourist resort where Kutupalong has become possibly the largest refugee settlement in the world, housing more than six hundred thousand refugees according to UNHCR (Center for Global Development 2019). In the crowded conditions the children struggle to get access to education. To prevent informal routes of citizenship for large numbers of displaced people, the Bangladeshi government has restricted access to formal education, the use of Bangladeshi curricula and qualifications, and teaching in Bangla. Nevertheless, a joint humanitarian plan has led to approximately two thirds of children being enrolled on some kind of learning programme. In the absence of access to local curricula and teachers, UNICEF has led the development of a Learning Competences Framework, which has been recognized by the Bangladeshi government as ‘Guidelines for Informal Education Program for Children of Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals in Bangladesh’ which make provision for numeracy and literacy, as well as aspects of personal and social development. This framework recognizes that the education system needed some form of assessment and differentiated provision, so that those young people attending classes were able to make progress and to demonstrate their achievements should they be able to rejoin a formal school system at some point. Even in the emergency context of having to generate in excess of a third of a million school places in a relatively hostile context, the UNICEF framework asserts the CFS principles of child-friendly spaces, gender equity, inclusion and community engagement. While in this context, explicitly teaching about human rights might not be seen as an immediate priority, the education programme does address key survival issues such as how to stay healthy and safe in the camps, disaster risk reduction, and social cohesion. While access to adequate resources, safe sanitary facilities for girls and delays in getting the curriculum off the ground have all been recognized as challenges, the established CFS models also enabled UNICEF to ensure that the educational response provides relevant and useful knowledge and skills. The aim is to help the children survive, as well as building some basic elements of formal

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education that will help them resume a formal education in the event that the Myanmar or Bangladesh government grant these children access to their national curricula. This illustrates why the manual for CFS (referred to above) stresses the need for pragmatic decisions and local variations in schooling, and acknowledges that the principles may look different in different contexts. Sources: Inter Sector Coordination Group (2018); UNICEF (2018a); Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (2019); Center for Global Development (2019).

By contrast, UNRWA, a specialist agency which works to support Palestinian refugees, has had more opportunity to establish schools and an educational infrastructure (UNRWA 2019). It operates in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where it runs over seven hundred primary schools and educates over half a million students. In these contexts, unlike for the Rohingya people, schools follow the curriculum of the authorities in whose jurisdiction the schools are situated, and UNRWA supplements this with resources on human rights. Their HRE programme includes the election of school parliaments in all of their schools and in 2017 an Agency-wide Student Parliament was elected for the first time, with representatives from all five regions, to feed into the agency’s planning and review processes. UNRWA’s policy refers to ‘Education for Human Rights, Conflict Resolution and Tolerance’ (HRCRT) and although this guidance is effectively added to the local curricula being followed in schools, the agency promotes this as the underlying principle for all of its education work (UNRWA 2012). The vision for HRCRT is to ‘empower Palestine refugee students to enjoy and exercise their rights, uphold human rights values, be proud of their Palestinian identity, and contribute positively to their society and the global community’ (UNRWA 2012: 9). As such the policy outlines not only knowledge about human rights, with a particular emphasis on the UNCRC, but also stresses that students should be helped to apply human rights concepts to understand difficult conflicts, historical events in their own country, and the individuals and groups who have promoted human rights. In addition to such knowledge and understanding, the HRCRT programme promotes tolerance and empathy and encourages young people to ‘take an active role in defending, protecting and achieving the human rights of others’ (p.  11). As well as outlining what children should learn, the policy also asserts that classrooms should also be rights-respecting spaces, so teachers’ contracts should require them to affirm they will not use corporal



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punishment and all teachers should receive some basic training in human rights. A ‘teacher toolkit’ (UNRWA 2013) provides a guide for teachers through the basic principles of HRCRT and outlines forty practical class-based activities to introduce human rights to students. These range from basic comprehension of the UDHR and UNCRC, to personal reflections on conflict situations, evaluating the school as a rights-respecting environment and learning about patterns of global inequality. The Agency undertakes a regular study of stakeholder perceptions of the UNRWA programmes, including headteachers, teachers and students. In 2016 there were generally positive perceptions of teachers including human rights in their classes, and these had improved since 2013 (UNRWA 2016). However, the research found that attitudes towards gender equality had slightly worsened over that period, and a significant minority (around 20 per cent) felt unsafe in schools. While this research demonstrates that the HRCRT programme has not yet been fully effective, it does also demonstrate that the Agency is taking seriously the commitment to working in rights-respecting ways, involving children in providing feedback on the quality of their education and ensuring that some children are involved in higher level reviews and discussions of strategy. These two examples of UN provision reflect how the framework for HRE/ CRE has to be interpreted in ways that adapt to the context. Sometimes such programmes are explicit about the content of a human rights curriculum, at other times the focus is on tackling immediate threats to rights. They also demonstrate how such a framework can be used to address all educational questions: the curriculum and assessment system; the language of instruction and activities used in the classroom; connections to external community organizations; students’ access, participation and safety within schools; teacher qualifications and regulation.

UN Indirect Provision The UN has also been increasingly active in promoting HRE and CRE to governments and other organizations, encouraging them to develop their educational provision in line with the principles outlined in UN guidance and agreements. One key development has been the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET), which was adopted by the General Assembly in 2011. A meeting held in 2016 (OHCHR 2016) to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Declaration noted a number of international examples of

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progress, including the development of a new national policy for HRE in Costa Rica, the work of a National Institute for Human Rights Education in Morocco and the start of a decade of reforms to embed HRE in the Paraguayan education system. These kinds of meetings and the gradual expansion of international agreements and norms around HRE and CRE work as a form of acculturation through which states come to adopt elements of HRE and CRE to conform to international expectations. The UN sometimes has other forms of action available to it, such as coercion, but in education there is little recourse to international courts or tribunals to enforce agreements, which means coercion is unlikely to be relevant, and therefore a combination of acculturation and persuasion is the main method of encouraging the spread of initiatives such as HRE and CRE (Goodman and Jinks 2004). These processes might involve states contributing self-reviews to UN evaluations and also submitting themselves to periodic reviews by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Committee requires states to submit reports every five years on their progress in implementing the UNCRC and then the Committee can take further evidence from interested parties before issuing a response (concluding observations), which identifies areas for further attention and development. Lundy (2012) has analysed these reports and concluding observations for all twenty-seven countries in the European Union (2000–11) and notes that CRE is a common area for criticism by the Committee, with recommendations frequently calling for improved staff training, better integration of children’s rights in national curricula and better engagement of young people in educational initiatives (p.  401). However, Lundy also argues that this process of being subjected to scrutiny and possible criticism does work to persuade states to make improvements over time, and that it therefore helps to improve implementation. This may well be the case, but other research conducted in twenty-six UNICEF donor countries (Jerome et al. 2015) showed that such soft mechanisms for implementation also enable governments to backslide fairly easily. While both Lundy and Jerome et al. cite examples of states where HRE and CRE implementation is gradually improving, Jerome et  al.’s research also records countries where progress has been sidelined or even eroded in subsequent reforms. An example of the former can be seen in Australia, where a new national curriculum framework failed to incorporate a comprehensive commitment to human rights and children’s rights, despite this being discussed in the early stages of the policy. Similarly, the Scottish government has issued some very positive reports and commitments to children’s rights, but failed to incorporate this into their curriculum. Examples of erosion include Spain,



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where a 2006 law securing HRE was repealed in 2013 (Muñoz Ramírez 2018), and Ireland, where Civic, Social and Political Education (which included human rights) was made optional as part of a broader curriculum liberalization, effectively reducing it from an entitlement for all children to an enrichment for some (Jerome et al. 2015). While persuasion and acculturation clearly have some benefits, they are not foolproof methods for rolling out HRE and CRE. The OHCHR has also attempted to create and sustain some momentum behind the development and dissemination of HRE and CRE through organizing a World Programme for HRE, which has run through several phases: • • • •

1995–2004 Decade for Human Rights Education 2005–9 World Programme for HRE Phase 1 – focusing on HRE in schools 2010–14 Phase 2 – focusing on higher education and the public sector 2015–19 Phase 3 – focusing on the media and consolidating previous phases • 2020–4 Phase 4 – focusing on equality, diversity and inclusion The plan of action (OHCHR and UNESCO 2006) accompanying phase 1 set out a very clear commitment that HRE should incorporate learning about the UNCRC and involve children and young people in inclusive processes in the education system. It specified five key areas for states to address in relation to embedding HRE and CRE in schools: 1. Policies should be developed to ensure HRE is planned in a coherent manner across schools and in the curriculum. 2. Policy implementation should be facilitated by allocating sufficient resources to implement, monitor and improve policies. 3. The learning environment should incorporate rights-respecting practices, ensuring that children learn through exercising their rights. 4. Teaching and learning processes and tools should be reviewed to ensure they incorporate the principle of children’s rights. 5. Professional education and development of teachers and other education personnel should ensure adults have sufficient knowledge and skills to implement HRE. The OHCHR’s evaluation of the World Programme was based on seventy-six national reports and analysis of a range of secondary documents for those not submitting national reports (OHCHR 2010). The report itself recognizes that the processes within each country were varied and a brief look at some of the country reports reveals how variably these have been completed. The Gambian

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form, for example, has been completed by hand very briefly and includes general assurances that HRE is included in all teacher education programmes, despite subsequent government strategic plans noting a lack of coherence across the teacher education provision (Government of the Republic of Gambia 2017). The UK government’s report only applies to England, and some sections are left blank, and in others while the questions refer to human rights the responses refer to other concepts such as well-being or health. Assurances are made that all children learn about human rights in ‘maintained schools’ which ignores the fact that by this stage (2010) half the secondary schools in England were not required to teach this curriculum. By contrast, the New Zealand report is much more detailed and not only specifies policies and documents where HRE is being implemented but also clearly states where no such mechanisms exist, for example, the government plays very little part in producing textbooks and resources. This is just to highlight that, in a system where countries decide the extent to which they implement HRE and the extent to which they will participate in evaluations, the quality of information is clearly variable. Nevertheless, the evaluation does provide a broad overview of the kinds of actions that governments have taken and some of the problems and issues that persist. Human rights are often taught through other subjects in the curriculum, for example, civics or social studies, and sometimes feature as cross-curricular themes. This means that policies are not always explicit about the HRE element of related curricula, for example, lessons on peace or sustainability are clearly relevant to HRE but human rights and children’s rights may not be spelled out in that context. Government responses included more detail on issues related to the curriculum and the production of resources than on contextual issues, such as the learning environment. Often, general observations about child protection or inclusion policies were referenced, with almost no formal connection to children’s rights. However, the evaluation report does list a varied selection of countries where formal school level, regional and national structures exist for student representation and involvement in education governance. In some countries these processes are enshrined in law. While the statutory provision was mixed, almost all the participating countries reported producing or endorsing educational projects, resources, handbooks and manuals. In this regard the governments seem to be adopting the kinds of strategies also adopted by the UN, namely persuasion and acculturation, rather than seeking to establish mechanisms for coercion or compulsion. In the previous section we considered some aspects of UNICEF’s direct educational provision in programme countries, through their Child Friendly



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Schools framework. UNICEF also has a presence in donor countries, through a network of National Committees, coordinated by an office in Geneva (UNICEF PFP). This network also promotes HRE and in 2014 officially started to use the terminology of CRE to describe its work. The ‘Child Rights Education Toolkit’ emphasizes that CRE should incorporate a ‘child rights approach’ which furthers the realization of children’s rights, uses the UNCRC as a guide for behaviour and action, and builds the capacity of children as rights holders (to claim their rights) and the capacity of adult duty bearers (to fulfil their obligations) (UNICEF 2014: 21). The network commissioned a survey across the National Committees to act as a baseline study of CRE and to collect examples of good practice to inform the development of benchmarks (Jerome et  al. 2015). This study found many of the same issues as the WPHRE evaluation discussed above, but in exploring examples of education systems where CRE was happening, the benchmarking statements also illustrate what a successful CRE-promoting education system might look like.

Case Study 3  Defining successful CRE Attribute 1: CRE in the curriculum Ideally the curriculum will specify what children should learn about their rights and what it means to have rights. They should be aware of how these rights are (and are not) realized in their own contexts and around the world. They should learn about their rights and the duty bearers who have responsibilities to promote their rights.

Where might you see this? An example of success is provided by Iceland where human rights and democracy is a theme running across the whole curriculum and where learning outcomes are defined to ensure high standards of learning.

Attribute 2: Teacher education All people qualifying to teach should learn about children’s rights. Those teachers already in the system should have access to ongoing training in

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CRE and national frameworks regulating the profession should incorporate children’s rights.

Where might you see this? In Scotland all new entrants to the profession have to demonstrate basic knowledge of the UNCRC in order to pass their qualification to teach. Children’s rights are also part of the professional values framework that should be promoted by all teachers. This means that any teacher undermining children’s rights could be disciplined.

Attribute 3: Teaching Teachers should use a variety of resources and teaching strategies to ensure children learn about rights in their own and other contexts. Teachers should protect children’s dignity, respect their views and promote their agency as rights holders and activists.

Where might you see this? In Scotland UNICEF UK has produced resources with children about their experiences of poverty. In Belgium and France a network of Freinet schools helps to nurture children’s agency and autonomy (see Chapter 6).

Attribute 4: Participation as a right Schools equip children with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to ensure they are involved in decisions that affect them and offer opportunities at school, local government and national levels. Adults assume responsibility to make sure this happens.

Where might you see this?

    

In Hessen in Germany schools routinely hold class councils and elect representatives to a local youth parliament. This is inspected as part of the monitoring and quality assurance work of the school inspectors. Source: Jerome et al. (2015: 66–73).



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UNESCO also works to promote HRE as part of its constitutional commitment to ‘build peace in the minds of men and women’. UNESCO coordinates the Associated Schools Network (ASPnet) which includes over eleven thousand schools in 182 countries. The ASPnet programme is primarily focused on ‘civic actions that promote a better world’ (UNESCO 2016:  6). It seeks to achieve its aims through nurturing and testing innovative approaches, building capacity within schools and enabling teachers to connect with others to share ideas and inspiration. This is positioned more towards the acculturation end of implementation strategies and is very focused on nurturing excellence to hold up as examples for further dissemination. ASPnet is just one example of the UN’s educational work that is broadly focused on two themes. The first is a concern to achieve sustainable development. The second is to promote global citizenship. Both projects are ‘based on the universal values of human rights’. UNICEF and UNESCO both have human rights–based agendas, but their emphasis is slightly different. UNICEF, whose mission is support for children, considers CRE as a right in itself that needs no further justification. UNESCO, whose mission is education and science, is more explicit about seeing education as a route to other outcomes. UNESCO was an active participant in the process of drafting and adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN General Assembly 2019), and its mission corresponds to SDG 4, which is Quality Education. An example of its educational approach to climate change is its document ‘Changing minds, not the climate’ (UNESCO 2018), which explains UNESCO’s strategy as changing minds first in order to achieve environmental and political changes. An evaluation of progress on SDGs estimates that a network of almost one hundred strategic partners has reached 26  million learners and 2  million teachers across 150,000 schools regarding education for sustainable development (ESD) (UN General Assembly 2019). Within this large-scale ESD programme are a number of exemplary projects that are focused on ‘empowering learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions’ (Tang 2018: 3). This first section has sketched some of the efforts of the UN’s various bodies and programmes to promote HRE and CRE. These examples illustrate the wide-ranging implications for the education system, as well as the diversity of approaches adopted to promote rights in education. In the rest of the chapter we consider evidence from a broader range of actors to first reflect on what has been learned about the process of policy implementation and enactment. We then move on to specify some of the substantive issues that have emerged from evaluations and academic research about what happens when HRE and CRE are

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implemented. In the final section we consider what (little) we know about what children learn from these efforts.

What Do We Know about the Implementation of CRE and HRE? The journey between ratification and implementation is a long and complex one. In a pessimistic review of ten international studies examining the impact of ratification of a variety of human rights treaties, Gerber concluded that ‘there was no link between ratification of a human rights treaty and improved human rights practices’ (Gerber 2008: 323). Clearly ratification in itself only leads to changes when the State Party (i.e. national government) also provides funds and initiates actions towards implementation. That said, a review of the implementation of the UNCRC in law in twelve countries concluded that where states had fully incorporated the UNCRC into domestic legislation, such incorporation was ‘in and of itself significant’ (Lundy et al. 2012: 4). Where incorporation occurred, it raised awareness of the UNCRC in government and civil society. The review also found that while few countries in their survey had fully implemented the Convention in law, certain specific principles, such as ‘the best interests of the child’ (Article 3) or the right of the child to have their views taken into account (Article 12), were sometimes implemented in legislation. Such partial incorporation of key principles from the CRC is probably undertaken without acknowledging that these are international standards. Indeed, a partial adoption of some principles from the CRC negates another principle of human rights, which is that they are indivisible. In other words, they form a holistic package from which it is inappropriate to pick and choose. Consequently, taking the example of Denmark, it can be argued that such a ‘stepwise implementation’ has resulted in the Convention remaining ‘weak and relatively invisible’ twenty years after ratification (Jorgensen et al. 2011). Although member states of the UN are responsible for signing and ratifying treaties and conventions, such as the CRC, it is frequently the case that education is a devolved responsibility and that implementation occurs at regional or state levels and in the multinational state, that is, the UK at a national level below that of the nation state. The particular problem posed by implementation in federated or devolved states is the dilution inherent in the transfer of responsibility to the regional education authority (Gerber 2008; Lundy et al. 2012). There is a tendency



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for inconsistencies in approach and a lack of clear lines of accountability with a consequent denial of an explicit children’s rights framework (Williams 2012). This was echoed in the evaluation of the first phase of the World Programme for HRE which noted the complexity of implementing HRE when working through a central government (OHCHR 2010). This continued problem led the authors of a survey of HRE in Australia to conclude that one of the most significant steps towards progress would be the establishment of some central curriculum authority to map curriculum coverage across the various educational jurisdictions as a first step towards focused curriculum developments in HRE (Burridge et al. 2013). This general point resonates with Fullan’s argument for trilevel education reform to secure deep educational change (Fullan et al. 2004). His analysis of a number of educational reform programmes led him to conclude that change is more likely to be effective when (i) the state, district and school level agree on an agenda for change; (ii) the district creates and sustains capacity to both challenge and support schools; and (iii) the state creates additional capacity for challenging and supporting the district. When applied to programmes of children’s rights and education, there is a strong recommendation for up-to-date national plans for children accompanied by action plans, targets, responsibilities, deadlines and resources (Lundy et al. 2012). This indicates that one of the obstacles blocking HRE and CRE may well be the fragmented governance structures in nation states, rather than any particular antipathy to HRE or CRE per se. While the national government may endorse HRE instruments, they may lack clear policy levers to implement those commitments. Ironically, such fragmented systems often exist because they are seen to support more democratic, responsive forms of education. This tension suggests that top-down models of policy implementation may well be inadequate. This is a point routinely made in studies of policy enactment in education (Ball, Maguire and Braun 2012), and Gerber’s work on the implementation of Article 29 makes a similar point in relation to HRE (see Figure 2). Significantly Gerber’s account acknowledges that HRE could develop from the bottom-up as well, often through the initiative of teachers working alongside NGOs to develop classroom and school-level provision. The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) programme, which we discuss in more detail in Chapter 8, provides a powerful example of this kind of initiative, and many UNICEF National Committees are involved with similar programmes that focus on developing a direct relationship with teachers and children. In the

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Emergence of HRE as a norm in international law (Article 26(2) of the UDHR) Expansion and tranformation into Article 29(1) of CRC Ratification of CRC Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 1 to guide States Parties on how to implement and comply with Article 29(1) Enactment of domesc legislaon to implement HRE Development of policies and pracces to implement HRE by the federal government Development of policies and pracces to implement HRE by the state government Development of HRE resources and disseminaon to schools as a means of complying with Arcle 29(1) Training of teachers about HRE in compliance with General Comment No.1 Incorporaon of HRE into school curricula in compliance with recommendaons in General Comment No.1 Influence of NGOs on HRE policies and practices Educators teach student about human rights

Figure 2  Top-down and bottom-up perspectives on the journey from convention to classroom. Source: Adapted from Gerber (2008: 9).

UK, UNICEF has developed a school-level programme, which enables teachers to access support and training to embed children’s rights into their curriculum, classroom practice and school ethos. UNICEF UK assesses the quality of the school’s work to determine whether the school should gain the award. Over time this entirely voluntary programme has attracted thousands of schools, and in Scotland a majority of schools are now recognized as Rights Respecting Schools (Jerome et al. 2015). UNICEF UK has also begun to build on this school-level work to move into university-based initial teacher education programmes (Jerome 2012b) and into local authority-level work. The lack of alignment between the different levels of governance and policy development is not just an administrative feature but is also partly due to the nature of education as a site of conflicting desires (Quennerstedt 2011). Competing agendas (most notably within and between government and parents) are often not mutually compatible, as well as not always being compatible with a children’s rights perspective. There are well-documented tensions between children’s own



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interests, the state interests in education (e.g. to develop the workforce and create social cohesion) and parents’ interests (e.g. to equip children with skills for a successful life and pass on their values, culture and language) (Lansdown 1999). Relying on the bottom-up approach may have the advantage of getting CRE implemented in practice for some children, but this is clearly an inadequate strategy for making CRE an entitlement for all children. This problem is unwittingly illustrated by the Council of Europe et al.’s (2009) compendium of good practice, in which many of the examples are optional courses or frameworks and are therefore not part of universal state implementation. While such projects can fill the gaps left in state responses, they may have to do so against the grain of policy. Curriculum development projects, whether state or NGO initiated, may be conducive to CRE, in that they provide a space for CRE to develop, but they may also limit CRE through creating an overcrowded curriculum, which leaves little space for innovation beyond core subjects (Gerber 2008; Waldron et al. 2011). Despite the inherent problems associated with working within nonconducive policy contexts and developing practice from the bottom-up, there are opportunities for state policy to be influenced by well-established good practice. Case studies in America and Australia reveal that grassroots campaigns for HRE have led to changes in HRE policies and practices at the state government level, ‘demonstrating that the journey from convention to classroom is … a process that operates in two directions’ (Gerber 2008:  328). In other words, while policy alignment is a requirement for a coherent HRE or CRE plan, bottom-up provision and lobbying may help to bring this about in the absence of a central government lead. It is important to recognize that such bottom-up developments cannot replace state action entirely, and that therefore such actions may be seen as enacting a form of lobbying and advocacy as well as addressing practical aspects of provision. Ultimately the state retains responsibility for implementing children’s rights.

Learning Lessons from Evaluations of CRE and HRE Theme 1: Thinking about the Role of Teachers UNICEF’s ‘A Human Rights-Based Approach to Education for All’ (UNICEF and UNESCO 2007) provides a comprehensive account of how human rights standards should be applied in relation to education. Alongside legislative

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frameworks and general policy commitments to inclusion, the document emphasizes the need to provide training for teachers to build the capacity of schools to adopt a rights-based approach. It also asserts that it is necessary to respect teachers’ rights in order to build the conditions in which they can respect children’s rights. This hints that working with teachers to implement HRE and CRE is not just a question of building their knowledge of human rights and children’s rights, there is also the need to address values and attitudes in order to combat scepticism about children’s rights and promote positive models of how children’s rights promote inclusion and build strong school communities. The role of teachers is a focus of the next chapter, so here we introduce some key issues arising from evaluations by way of starting to consider the importance of teachers. Bajaj’s discussion of HRE in rural India points out that at the very least NGOs wishing to develop HRE programmes must have a strategy for winning over teachers, since they depend on them to gain access to children and schools. Once teachers are open to the idea of CRE they can be collaborative agents who are willing and able to work with NGO specialists to establish programmes. In addition to being gatekeepers or collaborators teachers can also act as ‘legitimating agents’ through the following: Modelling human rights values through their own changed behaviour; Convincing parents and other community members of the value of HRE; Assisting children in their learning and subsequent action. (Bajaj 2012b: 13)

Implementing CRE depends fundamentally on teachers’ awareness of the CRC and their confidence in relation to CRE. Evidence from Ireland echoes many previous studies which find that while attitudes to HRE were generally positive, teachers had low levels of knowledge of human rights. This meant that teachers’ ideas for teaching were not always related to human rights language or principles and that there was a tendency to focus on a social cohesion agenda rather than empowerment, critique and inequality. It is common to find teachers adopting a conservative model rather than a transformative one; for example, the Irish survey reported HRE events were commonly linked to charity campaigns with an international or global focus (Waldron et  al. 2011). Such approaches minimize opportunities to think about children’s rights in children’s own contexts or to think about problems politically. A similar report in Scotland also showed that HRE there is sporadic and that teachers undertake it through their own interest or through engagement with NGOs (e.g. UNICEF’s RRSA).



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The majority of teachers in the Scottish survey said they had not been trained and lacked adequate knowledge of HRE (BEMIS 2013). Unsurprisingly then, teacher education emerges as a significant recommendation when promoting CRE in many and varied national contexts since the lack of teacher training remains one of the most significant obstacles to the effective implementation of HRE (Lansdown 1999; Morgan and Kitching 2006; Gerber 2008; Burridge et al. 2013; Danish Institute for Human Rights 2013; Human Rights Centre (Finland) 2014). The UN evaluation of the first phase of the World Programme for HRE noted that ‘the overall approach to teacher training seems ad hoc’ (OHCHR 2010: 10) and bemoaned ‘the lack of systematic approaches to … the training of teachers’ (p. 20). This is replicated at the project level, for example, in an Action Aid project aiming to increase awareness and understanding of children’s rights to and in education in Ghana, Uganda, The Gambia, Liberia, Malawi and Zambia was hampered because many teachers saw children’s rights as a threat to adult authority. The project recognized the need for more sustained training and support for teachers to enable them to adopt more inclusive approaches, to involve children in decision-making and to stop using physical punishment in school (Figue 2013). There is some indication that such training, when well designed, can have a positive impact. Such professional courses are recommended to adopt experiential or participatory learning approaches, with the intention that they engage learners with the moral consequences of their decisions, rather than adopt a ‘sermonizing’ approach (Andreopoulos 2002:  243). Malaysian teachers’ attitudes towards children’s rights were reportedly changed through a combination of clear information (replacing some myths about rights equalling granting children what they want) and participatory workshops modelling learner-centred pedagogy (Keng 2008). A case study of CRE in Kosovo similarly claims that teacher education can have a direct impact on practice and on students’ experience (Gaynor 2007).

Theme 2: Thinking about Where CRE and HRE Fit in the Curriculum and School Provision An issue for UNICEF and for others in the field is the proliferation of education traditions which have a bearing on HRE and CRE, and which may to a large extent develop many of the same objectives, for example, anti-racist and antisexist education, citizenship, civics, cooperative education, global education, inclusive education, intercultural education, peace education, education for

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sustainability. These may form part of HRE and CRE, or HRE may nestle within these traditions, where they are better established. There are certain commonalities across these educational initiatives, and these include addressing knowledge, skills and attitudes in relation to the human rights and active citizenship of educators and students, as well as strategies for changing structures and practices in schools to make rights effective and encourage an inclusive school culture. (Potvin and Benny 2013: 4)

In the absence of an established tradition of HRE and CRE it may be necessary to draw on wider traditions while being aware that each alternative educational project (such as citizenship, intercultural education, peace education, multicultural education) has its own origin and institutional support. In Chapter  2 we noted the developing definitions of HRE in international declarations and recommendations. We argue that HRE requires specific anchoring in commitments to human rights instruments such as the UDHR and the CRC. More specifically, CRE is recognized by its explicit reference to the CRC. There are also dangers of conflation, in which HRE and CRE are simply absorbed into other agendas. One example is where HRE is formally adopted, but subsequently only selectively implemented or significantly adapted, a process known as decoupling (Meyer and Rowan 1978; Bajaj 2012b). Three observed examples are as follows: Religious morality being used as a lens through which to interpret human rights and therefore rights language being used to legitimate the religious stance; Rural public health and hygiene projects trying to take over HRE and use HRE to promote public health; Some officials and teachers using HRE to promote their own left-wing political agendas. (Bajaj 2012b: 13)

In other words, many groups promote themselves by drawing on human rights discourses. Examples include both corporate social and moral responsibility specialists and grassroots marginalized activists. However, using the language of human rights or children’s rights does not mean that the activities of an organization or movement are always necessarily in the spirit of human rights (Bajaj 2012b). As we noted in Chapter 2, the Council of Europe at one point adopted an Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) paradigm, with human rights subsumed as one knowledge component. However, democratic citizenship in



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Europe is explicitly underpinned by formal commitments to human rights and so current programmes are explicitly referred to as EDC/HRE, making clear that HRE is an equal partner to EDC (Council of Europe 2010). However, this compatibility cannot be assumed as some interpretations of citizenship education stress responsibilities or duties rather than rights (Audigier 2000). While rights and responsibilities are complementary, there is no reason, from a human rights perspective, for individuals to be required to meet their responsibilities in order to claim their rights. While this agenda of responsibilization has some currency within contemporary debates about citizenship, there is a risk that it may suggest that rights are conditional and draw attention away from the state as the primary duty bearer (Jerome 2012a). If children are to be informed about their rights through CRE they must be clear that they are rights holders, and this is not dependent on them fulfilling specific responsibilities. It can be argued that the different histories and philosophical characteristics of human rights (universal and inalienable) and citizenship (conditional and exclusive) mean the two educational agendas should be separated (Hung 2012). We would simply urge caution and suggest that there are many processes which can distort, redefine and sideline the children’s rights element of a topic or subject. Charity, citizenship and religion may provide opportunities to develop CRE, but this has to be consciously developed.

Theme 3: Thinking about Who Promotes CRE Networks are emerging as a significant theme in the analysis of educational policy change. Network policy theory provides a lens through which to analyse individuals and groups and their relationships to one another and to the policy process. It also challenges perceptions of government as a single, hierarchical decision-maker since it captures something of the process of policy implementation whereby multiple stakeholders are involved (Ball and Junemann 2012). While policy has always been open to influence through networks, the extent to which this has been formally adopted as a system of governance will depend on the extent of public service reform in different countries. However, this is likely to be useful in thinking about the development of HRE and CRE policy, for example, in a study of the development of citizenship education in England, the existence of networks of policy advocates is a key explanatory factor in the development of curriculum policy (Kisby 2012).

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A report on the implementation of children’s rights in law in twelve countries concluded that a strong NGO sector was important because it provided a consistent lobbying capacity, which both acted directly on government in relation to implementation and also worked indirectly by contributing to a children’s rights culture (Lundy et  al. 2012). The report also noted the significance of children’s rights champions, who are able to use their positions of influence to secure advances in implementation. Such a champion was a local lawmaker, active in Boston, United States, whose interest in rights education appeared to be sufficient to secure some form of rights education there, despite the United States not having ratified the CRC (Gerber 2008). NGOs may adopt a strategy of ‘persuasive pragmatism’ as practised by the Institute of Human Rights Education (IHRE) in India which incorporates three elements of relationship building (Bajaj 2012b: 11): • Establishing the personal credibility and status of NGO staff as bearers of human rights information; • Addressing the reasons why stakeholders might be interested in advancing HRE, particularly their personal motivation; • Creating an extensive network of supporters for HRE to enhance the status of participants and provide incentives. In other words, the NGO engages seriously with power and social location by planning a networking phase to precede any programme implementation. An evaluation of Amnesty’s Rights Education Action Programme (REAP) noted how the project incorporated building a network of supporters as a key dimension for sustainability. REAP outcomes included more trainers trained, Amnesty membership trebled and the number of local groups doubled, enhanced partnerships with NGOs and government and increased lobbying of government. The programme involved training ‘multipliers’ who had access to organizations such as schools and community groups to adopt HRE. Teacher multipliers reported the highest impact in terms of reach (Tibbitts 2010). More traditional Amnesty campaign methods, such as letter writing, have also been successful in education and, alongside sustained advocacy to secure legislative change, such methods have helped to achieve significant educational outcomes, for example, reducing the segregation of Romani children in Slovakian schools (Amnesty International 2011). So far in this section we have identified three important lessons that can be learned from the literature evaluating HRE and CRE. First, we need to pay attention to the role of teachers; this means not only building their knowledge



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and supporting their practice but also taking seriously their misgivings and concerns to enable them to embrace HRE and CRE. Second, we need to be cautious about how CRE and HRE fit into a busy curriculum, and particularly how they can be attached or coupled with other traditions. Here our counsel may be summed up as ‘beware false friends’ as superficial similarities may also de-politicize teaching or distort key messages about rights. Third, we need to understand the importance of networks, within and outside of education, to build a culture that will sustain CRE and HRE. This gives a sense of the difficulties in implementing HRE and CRE. In the final section of this chapter we consider what we know about the impact of such education when it actually happens.

What Do We Know about the Impact of CRE and HRE? While the UN and NGOs promoting HRE and CRE are under pressure to evaluate their work, such evaluations often focus on process rather than on educational impact since process is easier to measure. As we have noted, the evaluation of the UN’s World Programme for HRE is of limited value because questionnaires are sometimes poorly completed by national respondents who are unable or unwilling to respond in any detailed way (OHCHR 2010). Whereas studies of legal implementation and the documentation of rights violations have received scholarly attention, new ways of assessing progress towards the full implementation of specific rights, such as HRE, are less common (IIHR 2005; Iturralde and Rodino 2004). This means there is less evidence about the impact of HRE and CRE on learning than might be expected. Some positive impacts are reported in UNICEF country reports, for example, a report on Nicaragua (Spier et  al. 2009) indicates that most children in the areas surveyed knew about their rights and that teachers were more likely to use child-centred teaching approaches than previously. However, the selection of participating areas and schools in Spier’s survey is not clear and therefore the sample makes generalization problematic. Many publications rely on Covell and Howe’s work to provide some evidence about impact (Covell 2010; Covell and Howe 2011; Covell, Howe and Polegato 2011; Howe and Covell 2005, 2010). Their work has examined a variety of rights-based education practice, but they mostly focused on one local education authority in the south of England, Hampshire, where many schools have adopted a rights-based approach to education, focusing on ‘rights, respect and responsibility’. They were able to collect a range of information from children, teachers and outcomes data over

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five years across sixteen primary schools, and their evaluations of these schools conclude that the initiative has had the following benefits: • It has promoted children’s engagement in school, which in turn has led to an increase in children’s sense of academic and social efficacy. • It has resulted in a more positive school climate with better peer and student–teacher relationships, reductions in bullying and less teacher burnout. • It has led to enhanced citizenship values and behaviours. • Where teachers have focused primarily on rights, rather than responsibilities, children have developed a clearer sense of mutual obligation and ethical behaviour. • Teacher motivation and job satisfaction have also improved. Given that their work is so influential it is useful to recognize the limitations to Covell and Howe’s conclusions. For example, they make an assertion about the age at which young people should learn about rights (Howe and Covell 2005) referring to Wade (1994) to support the view that children younger than 11 find it difficult to conceptualize rights, and adolescents find it easier to conceptually understand and empathize with others. They therefore argue that formal teaching about rights could wait until high school/secondary school. However, this is not an entirely accurate account of Wade’s article, which makes the point that children learned different things from their study of rights, reflecting their prior conceptions. Wade’s conclusion that ‘our greatest error was neglecting to confront the misinformation that many students possessed … and teach for assimilation and accommodation rather than content coverage’ (Wade 1994: 91) implies the fault was with her teaching rather than reflecting any intrinsic problem with teaching rights to young children. More broadly, Trivers and Starkey (2012) have also argued that the programmes evaluated by Covell and Howe may only embody a rather limited interpretation of CRE, which focuses more explicitly on behaviour control and modification, rather than exploring the fuller implications of learning about the political nature of rights and realizing children’s participation rights in school. In addition, Covell and Howe rely on teacher reports to ascertain the level of school implementation of a rights-based education, an approach which tends to produce more positive results than children’s own accounts (Hart et  al. 2001; Cleaver et  al. 2005). This does not mean their findings are not significant, but it merely serves as a reminder that the evidence base for HRE and CRE is emergent and illustrative, rather than conclusive and definitive.



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Looking at the broader literature, there are some indications that even relatively modest changes can have significant impacts. Simply revising textbooks in Romania was reported as having an impact on learners’ knowledge of and attitudes towards civic participation (Tibbitts 1999). Another evaluation study concluded that children who learn about their rights and the CRC ‘tend to be more respectful and grow in psychosocial competencies’ (Tibbitts 2005a: 6). A  UNICEF survey of children’s subjective well-being in Spain concluded that those children who had learned about their rights also reported higher levels of well-being than those who had not. The Spanish survey also indicated that while overall levels of participation (in local area and family decisions) were low, those children who did report high levels of participation experienced higher levels of well-being (UNICEF Spain 2012:  18). A  more refined study of over three thousand children in Northern Ireland confirmed a correlation between children’s subjective well-being and their perceptions that their participation rights were being respected in school and the community (Lloyd and Emerson 2017). Similar links have been reported following focus groups with young people involved in Amnesty activism that identified a range of positive impacts on well-being, including enhanced feelings of personal efficacy and stronger bonds between individuals and groups (Montague and Eiroa-Orosa 2018). An evaluation of UNICEF UK’s whole school Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) programme was based on visits to twelve schools from five local authorities over the course of three years, with an additional single visit to nineteen other schools across ten local authorities. The report concludes that the Rights Respecting Schools Award programme had the following outcomes: • It enabled children and adults to develop a shared language for understanding rights in relation to their everyday interactions. • Relationships and behaviour improved. • Students felt empowered to respect the rights of others, for example, through campaigns. • Students demonstrated positive attitudes towards inclusion and diversity. • Students were more likely to be aware of, and to become involved in, decision-making systems in the school (Sebba and Robinson 2010). The authors also noted, as did Covell and Howe, that adopting a rights-respecting approach can have a positive effect on teachers, encouraging them to reconnect to some of the broader aims and ethical purposes of education. A large-scale evaluation of rights education in India focused on an NGO, the IHRE, which promotes HRE in a network of four thousand schools. Data was

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collected from over 100 teachers, 625 students and 80 HRE trainers or policy makers. The benefits of the programme, especially for marginalized students, included: • • • •

Heightened human rights consciousness Enhanced sense of efficacy Ability to situate their personal experience in a broader framework of rights Undertaking collective action (Bajaj 2012b)

While this study is a welcome addition to the evidence base, there are some methodological limitations we should be aware of. Although the researcher spoke to hundreds of participants, these were largely an opportunistic sample approached through collaboration with the NGO delivering the education programme she was evaluating and she employed a post hoc qualitative approach, meeting participants after projects to discuss their perceptions of the impact, through focus groups, interviews, observations and questionnaires. Nevertheless, the number of children she spoke to and the variety of backgrounds strengthen her claim that there are a number of perceived benefits of such programmes to participants. A classroom-based study with 120 students between 11 and 18  years of age examined the extent to which they used human rights to solve a dilemma (Jerome and Lalor 2016). The participants were presented with a scenario in which a child requires a blood transfusion but their parents refuse consent due to their religious beliefs. This was based on a story reported in the press concerning a Jehovah’s Witness family, but the religion was not specified in the scenario; such a scenario has also been described in Ian McEwan’s novel ‘The Children Act’. Children were given an information sheet outlining some relevant but conflicting rights ((i) the right to life, (ii) the best interests of the child and (iii) religious freedom) and the instructions explicitly directed them to consider this from a rights perspective. However, many of the children (across all ages) simply side-stepped the issue of rights and merely asserted their own preferred solution. Where they did consider rights, they generally simply dismissed everything other than the right to life as a secondary consideration. A  very small number attempted to reason through the dilemma by considering the rights simultaneously and discussing how they could be balanced against one another and the reasons for this. This clarifies a challenge for HRE and CRE that students may be tempted to offer solutions to difficult issues without recourse to human rights discourse. Students do not always perceive the usefulness or relevance of such information, even where the scenarios and case studies under



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discussion are perceived to be inherently interesting and engaging. This suggests the first task of CRE is to underline why human rights and children’s rights are important. A small-scale evaluation report of the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and HRE programme ‘Speak Truth to Power’ reinforces some of the earlier findings discussed in this section and illustrates one way in which teachers might respond to this challenge (Jerome 2017). In this project 11- to 16-year-olds studied human rights with a focus on ‘human rights defenders’ and therefore, rather than begin with international agreements and general principles, they started with urgent case studies of injustice and political struggle. Such case studies included well-known people such as Malala Yousafzai and her struggle for girls’ education in Pakistan, as well as lesser known activists such as Frank Mugisha, who is an advocate for LGBT+ rights in Uganda, and Marina Pisklakova, one of Russia’s leading women’s rights activist. The specificity of the case studies meant students were quickly able to learn about the situations and recognize that many rights were relevant simultaneously; and they engaged with rights from the perspective of a struggle for justice, rather than a legal framework. The ‘Speak Truth to Power’ materials provide human stories and convey the urgency of injustice and this starting point seemed to make human rights more obviously relevant to the students. Perhaps even more importantly, students were able to perceive how human rights were a tool for fighting for justice, rather than a distant body of knowledge. The case studies also made it possible for students to perceive how their own actions could play a part in a wider campaign, whether that be through direct activism (letters to the UK Foreign Secretary), acts of solidarity (messages of support) or awarenessraising (presenting their knowledge to others). In focus groups students were able to articulate what they had learned: The most important thing I learned was that human rights doesn’t just consist of the main things … there are very specific rights and rights within rights. (Student quoted in Jerome 2017: 10)

And they also discussed how the work had opened their eyes to the kinds of actions that could be undertaken by people like them: I think I feel more inclined now to get involved in some kind of political activity because human rights has shown me how interesting politics can be. (p. 10)

And they felt, even in a relatively short classroom-based project, they had had opportunities to build their capacity as right holders and rights activists:

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In this small qualitative project, there was some evidence that students learned about, for and through human rights.

Conclusion In this chapter we have described what we know about HRE and CRE as it has been implemented around the world. This has illustrated the variety of ways in which the rights framework can be adapted to different contexts, as well as the range of implications for different elements of the education system. While the pathway to implementation is complex and strewn with obstacles and deviations, the final section illustrates some of the positive impacts recorded in the literature. This suggests that CRE is well worth pursuing, but that the journey will not be easy. In Part Two of the book we turn to consider the role of teachers more explicitly and offer a range of ideas drawn from different educational traditions that may well help colleagues think through what next steps might be feasible and effective in their own contexts.

Part Two

Ideology and Interpretations

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4

Children’s Rights Education, Ideology and the Teacher as Change Agent

Overview This chapter revisits and deepens our account of the teacher’s central role in children’s rights education (CRE), since this has been relatively underexplored in the literature to date. We argue that there are three ideological world views associated with CRE. On the one hand there is a legalistic position, which sees CRE as largely a technical issue of interpretation and implementation. This position focuses on the teacher as having a passive role in simply implementing a policy. A  second perspective recognizes explicitly that advocating children’s rights is more than a legalistic obligation and more akin to promoting a distinctive ideology of childhood, in this case, one which challenges conservative social norms and expectations about a child’s place in the family and society. This view also tends to position teachers as rather passive, in that they require training by experts. A third approach to CRE recognizes that teachers need to draw on a range of critical ideological frameworks that can help empower them to take on the role of an agent of change. While we firmly support teacher agency, we also recognize that such agency must be understood in the context of existing institutions and systems. A  commitment to CRE recognizes that teachers are both professional and political actors working within schools that are inevitably sites of political contestation. Teaching becomes a political act, but not all such politically informed actions generate benefits and learning opportunities for children. In the second half of this chapter therefore we turn to consider a range of ways in which CRE may go wrong, through the impact of external and contextual constraints or through misguided teacher action.

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Introduction This chapter stems from reflections on a research project undertaken for UNICEF (Jerome et  al. 2015) which included interviews with a number of CRE advocates working in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and educational institutions in several countries. One of the contradictions that emerged during these conversations was that respondents often seemed to envisage significant changes as a result of CRE, while also discussing fairly small changes in legislation or policy. They imagined, for example, transformed pedagogic practices, innovative forms of school decision-making and a greater degree of child-centeredness and curricular flexibility. But they often adopted relatively conservative reforms, such as a revision to a single element of the curriculum. Such aspirations can appear to be politically naïve against the backdrop of the dominant education policy paradigm of international standards, accountability and performance management, which makes radical change in a more humanistic and child-friendly mode unlikely (Sahlberg 2010). To develop a more realistic view of what teachers can do in this difficult context, this chapter considers how teachers exert agency in the processes of policy interpretation and implementation in complex and nuanced ways. Sociologists of education have documented the role of teachers in ‘policy enactment’ (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). This refers to ways in which teachers interpret and implement policy (Bowe et  al. 1992; Ball 2010). Borrowing from French semiologist Roland Barthes, Ball and colleagues distinguish between writerly and readerly texts, which position teachers in different relations to a policy (Bowe et  al. 1992). Readerly policy texts, they argue, specify what should happen in some detail and leave little room for additional interpretation. On the other hand, writerly texts invite a more active engagement and are open to more creative interpretation. Below we apply this idea to outline three possible roles for teachers in relation to three different world views. This classification system is offered as a heuristic device, namely a model produced to encourage creative thinking. This also revisits some of the evaluation literature discussed in Chapter  3 but identifies the different assumptions underpinning them. The first position treats CRE as part of a legal framework and tends to perceive it as a relatively uncontested area for implementation of already agreed standards. Position two acknowledges the CRE standards do not represent the

Table 1  Summary of three positions in relation to CRE

View of CRE

Position 1 A legalistic world view

Position 2 A reformist world view

Position 3 A radical world view

CRE reflects an international consensus and is therefore uncontroversial.

CRE represents a distinctive educational ideology, closely aligned with the tradition of progressive education. CRE is based on international agreements but is a further elaboration of these, enhanced by other educational theory.

CRE entails challenges to the status quo and is therefore an arena of political contestation.

Nature of interpretation CRE is derived from international agreements and standards.

Role for teachers

Teachers are ‘readers’ of CRE and Teachers may be seen as gatekeepers positioned as technical implementers. with the potential to block or promote CRE.

There are competing ideologies which threaten CRE, and competing ideologies of CRE, which reflect context and broader political orientations. Teachers are seen as active agents who must construct CRE in their practice.

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whole picture and adopts a slightly more creative process of interpreting a range of relevant documents. Position three places CRE more firmly in contested ideological terrain and adopts a more radical perspective. In this chapter we draw out some of the implications of each position for conceptualizing teachers’ roles in promoting CRE. Our purpose is to reflect on some of the different emphases which are often glossed over in the literature. We aim to identify more clearly how different interpretations of CRE reflect different world views and also suggest different kinds of roles teachers might undertake in order to enact CRE in schools. Table  1 summarizes these three categories and the subsequent sections develop the description and analysis of each type of teacher world view.

Three World Views on CRE A Legalistic World View: Implementing Children’s Rights Standards This first position treats children’s rights in general, and CRE in particular, as a relatively neutral set of ideas. On this reading children’s rights are not seen as controversial, and nor is education itself. Consequently, CRE as a specific area of endeavour is not problematized. This position treats interpretation and implementation as pragmatic matters, requiring efficient administration, monitoring and accountability structures. For example, the UNICEF website simply says that the CRC ‘is in force in virtually the entire community of nations, thus providing a common ethical and legal framework to develop an agenda for children. At the same time, it constitutes a common reference against which progress may be assessed’ (UNICEF n.d.). On this view the international declarations, conventions, resolutions and other assorted instruments provide an agreed framework which defines CRE (OHCHR 2014). As part of the World Programme for human rights education (HRE) (2005– 19) the United Nations (UN) has issued guidance, action plans, self-evaluation toolkits and programme evaluation reports which flesh out what HRE (and by implication CRE) should look like in practice (UNICEF and UNESCO 2007; UN 2012a, 2012b). The evaluation report of the first phase (UN General Assembly 2010) gives the impression that implementation is a technical process requiring better training, better use of resources and clearer policy commitments at the state level.



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A synthesis of the academic literature on children’s rights in education notes that much of the work in this area is largely descriptive or evaluative, rather than contributing to a more developed theorization of the field (Quennerstedt 2011). As is evident in the UN material already mentioned, such academic work is mainly preoccupied with establishing what CRE should look like (largely answered by appeal to international standards) and the extent to which it is happening (generally perceived as a question of policy formulation and implementation). For example, Struthers’s attempt to clarify what it means to provide education about, for and through rights starts from an analysis of the text of the UNDHRET, rather than, say, a study of educational resources or processes (Struthers 2015). Others have similarly been concerned with developing a close reading and tight interpretation of the UN documents and in this sense CRE appears to be simply read off those documents (see, e.g. CHRCE 2012; Gerber 2008; Lundy and McEvoy 2012). In relation to the question of implementation, this legalistic approach tends to focus on the technical aspects of policy making, typically focusing on the need for policy alignment at national, regional and local levels to support school reform. For example, the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights urges governments to pursue the following steps: (i) the incorporation of human rights standards into national legislation … (ii) the development of relevant content and methodologies in curriculum policy documents, plans and study programs; (iii) the inclusion of similar content and methodologies in school textbooks; and (iv) continuous training for school teachers. (IIHR 2005: 8)

Similarly, another account of CRE focuses on the definition of standards, baseline assessments and alignment between policy and partners (Clair, Miske and Patel 2012). In this perspective, implementation is largely seen as a pragmatic process of managing educational change with various authors describing ‘ambivalent policy’ as ‘one of the keys to understanding why change in educational settings is slow’ alongside ‘a heavy blanket of traditions and cultures’ (Quennerstedt 2011: 675). This slowness can also be attributed to policy actors’ ignorance of children’s rights, for example, bemoaning ‘a general lack of awareness of the CRC and its links to domestic policy’ (Lundy 2012: 408). Within this legalistic world view of CRE, it is possible to find practical non-political reasons to explain the implementation process. Indeed, this is almost inevitable as CRE is itself seen as unarguable, and therefore there are no obvious reasons why it should be rejected. Ignorance and administrative inefficiency thus emerge as key factors,

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neither of which seriously jeopardize the positioning of CRE as uncontroversial and self-evidently positive. This is not to say that such work is always essentially politically naïve, one might argue that some advocates of this first position present themselves deliberately as uncontroversial precisely because children’s rights here are being used as a mechanism to hold governments to account. On this reading, adopting a legalistic approach rather than an overtly political one may be seen as an attempt to defuse the controversy inherent in discussions about the treatment of children (and the subsequent questioning of adult decisions). As noted in the introduction though, there is also a risk that presenting CRE in such terms may limit the impact in reality. After all, small changes may reasonably be expected only to deliver small improvements. On this view CRE is largely provided to teachers intact, as a body of recommendations (or requirements) specified in international agreements. This implies a top-down implementation model in which teachers are perceived as the implementers of CRE, as determined by others higher up the educational system. Typically, others design resources for CRE, train teachers in CRE pedagogy and set up monitoring and quality assurance mechanisms, and the role of teachers may therefore be seen as relatively passive. They need to be trained, use appropriate resources and teaching methods, and comply with inspection. If there is leeway for interpretation it is at the micro-level regarding day-to-day decisions about how best to implement these sources of guidance. Checklists produced by the UN and other international bodies are generally at a fairly high level and thus specify overall system requirements for the government to address (e.g. EUAFR 2010), with the expectation that national plans should develop more detailed specifications (OHCHR and UNESCO 2006; UN 2012b). However, some of these documents do specify HRE and CRE in some detail (UN 2012a: 32). There has been an attempt to go a stage further in outlining a set of standards for teachers, derived from international human rights instruments (Jennings 2006). The basic point to make here is that teachers are seen in relatively simplistic ways as cogs in the implementation machine, to be incentivized and monitored to ensure alignment between international agreements, national policy and classroom practice. Reflecting this view that teachers are driven by structures rather than their own agency, teacher training, rather than teacher education, becomes a key recommendation in many reports on HRE and CRE (Morgan and Kitching 2006; UN General Assembly 2010; Burridge et al. 2013; DIHR 2013; HRC 2014).



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A Reformist World View: The Hermeneutic Process of Building an Interpretation of CRE Our second position in relation to CRE is, in many ways, an extension of the first, but one in which authors are more explicit, and often more creative, in constructing further elaborations of CRE. In moving further beyond those core declarations and conventions these examples get closer to embracing CRE as a distinctive ideological position within education and one which represents a broader challenge to education policy and practice. To some extent this is represented within the UN by the General Comments issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which elaborate on the Convention with detailed guidance. For example, as we saw in Chapter 2, General Comment No.1 (UNCRC 2001) interprets Article 29 on the aims of education, but in doing so significantly expands the range of the Article and goes some way towards elaborating a more overtly political view of CRE. It states that CRE has implications for the curriculum, educational processes and institutions and calls for a whole raft of child participation and peer education initiatives (paragraph 8). In response, UNICEF’s Child Rights Education Toolkit (UNICEF PFP 2014) represents a further interpretation and elaboration on the General Comment and includes an appendix which urges teachers to adopt a pedagogy which is interactive and features humour, suspense and positive modelling. While these may be valuable characteristics of teaching, they are certainly not specified in the CRC and as such they represent a commitment to quite freely interpret the key texts. General Comment No.1 also stakes out a very distinctive ideological position, criticizing education which prioritizes competition and a narrow focus on knowledge acquisition (paragraph 12). This must be seen as presenting CRE in opposition to policies currently observed in many states, rather than just an additional layer of policy to be introduced. In promoting this fuller interpretation of CRE, the Committee positions itself in some fairly contentious educational territory, although it does not always acknowledge this. To summarize some of the most controversial issues (discussed in Chapter  2), the notion of empowerment within a school where adults have legal responsibility (and thus where they have the final say) has been derided as disingenuous by critics of progressive methods (Buckard 2007); the focus on holistic education is seen as problematic in the context of high-profile international standardized tests (Mejias and Starkey 2012); the call to promote equality without fundamentally challenging the basis of social inequality is seen as hypocritical and naïve by proponents of critical race theory (Gillborn 2008);

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the debate about whether a curriculum should be driven by ‘relevance’ is opposed to a recent emphasis on the curriculum as the vehicle for a more rarefied form of ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young 2013). The Committee frames its declarations in the name of ‘interpretation’ of the CRC, but it is evident that the positions advocated by the Committee are far from being neutral or uncontroversial, indeed they strike at the heart of current education policy debates. The academic work which could be situated in this second category tends to be more explicit in its recognition that this CRC-related ‘activity meaning system’ (Dauite 2008) is being formulated and interpreted within a context in which children, childhood and education are contested concepts. For some authors this involves the construction and elaboration of CRE and the drawing of definitional boundaries in relation to other related agendas, such as civics or ethics. The argument made is that the universality and unconditionality of human rights make HRE distinctive and so should not be conflated with citizenship education, which requires boundary setting and therefore some element of conditionality (Kiwan 2005; Hung 2012). Others focus on promoting child-centred education and participative methods, for example, promoting forms of pedagogy which exemplify children’s capacity for working cooperatively (McCowan 2012; Osler and Starkey 2005, 2010). Such work spans a variety of approaches, from very specific teaching strategies to whole school programmes. The educational movement known as Philosophy for Children has been popularized as a CRE teaching method (Lyle 2014). A  Council of Europe (2007) handbook lists over forty different teaching strategies that promote children’s rights. School councils are justified in relation to children’s rights (Fielding 2001; Wyse 2001; Whitty and Wisby 2007b) and Rights Respecting Schools programmes are offered as mechanisms for embedding children’s participation rights into school structures (Covell and Howe 2005; Sebba and Robinson 2010; Trivers and Starkey 2012). These ideas can certainly be developed from a reading of the CRC. However, taken individually, such initiatives emphasize some aspects of the CRC and minimize others. Even proponents of the approaches and strategies in this second position above may be prone to simplify the role of teachers. Whereas the first position may characterize teachers as simply being unaware of the principles of the CRC and CRE, the second position goes beyond seeing teachers as ignorant or afraid and identifies the problem as teachers holding misguided authoritarian and paternalistic world views. Some teachers may define or perceive children as



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incapable and in need of direction and control. This recognition that teachers may have principled reasons for being cautious or sceptical about CRE requires conversations about other ways of conceptualizing their roles. A research study of the activities of a large NGO programme for HRE positioned teachers as ‘collaborative agents’. Consequently, the strategy developed for CRE was one of (small p) political engagement, namely to engage with teachers, listen to their concerns and try to win them round through discussion (Bajaj 2012a). On this view teachers can open the doors of the classroom to CRE, encourage students to engage with CRE and promote CRE to parents. This second role therefore still positions teachers as essentially readerly (in the sense that CRE is already established according to expert interpretations), but teachers are recognized as having a significant gatekeeper role, and therefore CRE is best promoted through a dialogue with them. This represents a political engagement with the teacher, albeit one which may be slightly optimistic about the strength of some of their objections. Strategies designed to tackle resistance to the introduction of a holistic form of CRE may involve an explicit challenge to the world views of teachers. For example, confronted by teachers who choose to focus on teaching children about their responsibilities before they are prepared to teach them about their rights (Covell and Howe 2005), a CRE advocate might offer some direct training to challenge this misconception. However, an alternative might be to sidestep the teacher’s problematic world view and appeal to the teachers’ other priorities. Typically, such strategies include promoting CRE because it leads to other valued outcomes such as better attendance, behaviour and even literacy levels (Covell and Howe 2005; Trivers and Starkey 2012). The risk here is that such strategies promote the instrumental value of CRE rather than an intrinsic value, and this implies that one may reject CRE if it no longer secures these other outcomes. Even if teachers are convinced that the CRE strategies outlined in our second model are valuable in their own right, and not as means to other ends, there is still the problem that such teaching strategies may not sit easily in an education system configured around other values. Teachers who attempt to promote more rights-based pedagogic strategies in traditional schools, where such principles are not routinely accepted and practised, run the risk of being perceived by students as hypocritical (Yamasaki 2002). We return to this below, but we have now introduced the rationale for a more political engagement with children’s rights, which is the subject of the next section.

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A Radical World View: Education as Contested Terrain Both of the positions considered so far could be described as ‘declarationist’ (Keet 2015: 4). The term is used to mean that they are focused on the interpretation and implementation of declarations, conventions and other international legal instruments. In this section we outline a different view of CRE, which frames it within a more overtly radical critique of contemporary educational practices and which develops a more context-related approach. In so doing it moves away from a technical implementation process. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the rights framework emerging from it are essentially a utopian vision. As such, it may be a spur to political action because it challenges inequalities and injustices (Starkey 2012). Scholars committed to challenging injustices in the field of education may use commitments to CRE as justification, but the actions that follow are likely to draw on a wide range of political perspectives. For example, they may also draw on critical pedagogy, building on Freire’s radical pedagogy and transformative potential (see Chapter 5). The need for such a political framing is illustrated by a study of a school implementing an Amnesty programme. The study highlighted tensions between a dominant neoliberal ideological paradigm promoting individualized, competitive, consumer models of education and the humanistic, collaborative, developmental educational ideology espoused within Amnesty’s rights-based model (Mejias and Starkey 2012). These competing priorities (accountability, managerialism, standardized tests) are not simply alternative policy prescriptions vying with CRE for attention, but rather, they function as components of an overarching neoliberal paradigm, which may be inherently antithetical to CRE (see also Ichilov 2012). Neoliberal ideology positions children in terms of human capital rather than as rights holders and agents for promoting rights (Kjørholt 2013). A radical world view on children’s rights acknowledges there may be different legitimate traditions of CRE, each with their own distinctive ideological perspective. This is very different from the first position (the legalistic world view), which tends to focus on the standard to be achieved and which would therefore see local variations as merely steps on the way to full implementation. The radical approach recognizes that there are a number of legitimate alternative interpretations of CRE. However, to be legitimate they must be justified in relation to the CRC and to the local context, a process of ‘vernacularization’ (see Chapter 10). This position moves away from the temptations of relativism whereby incidents and situations are judged solely by local standards. The CRC



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requires judgements to be made about dignity and about equalities. For example, many teachers across the world still use corporal punishment. A  perspective that interrogates such practices through the lens of the CRC leads to the firm conclusion that violence against children is outlawed under Article 19 whereby schools must ‘protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence’. The appropriate standard is not relativism but relationalism (Osler and Starkey 2010). Such judgements based on knowledge of the CRC are not impositions based on the ideologies of liberal democratic countries but rather applications of global standards to local contexts. We recognize that CRE will take different forms in different contexts. In postconflict contexts it may be more appropriate to focus on the rule of law and the legitimacy of authorities. Under authoritarian or repressive regimes CRE may have to adapt or even be part of a clandestine focus point for resistance and empowerment. In democratic but poor countries issues related to sustainable development may be most significant. In wealthy liberal democracies CRE may be more focused on issues related to discrimination (Tibbits 2008). CRE depends on teachers to provide the quality education to which young people are entitled. Teachers’ roles must be constructed within specific national and institutional contexts and within ongoing educational debates. It follows that teachers are required to be active agents of change. On this view, CRE is more firmly positioned as a writerly phenomenon, which requires people to actively engage with it in order to create an educational agenda they can implement. Teachers’ implementation of the curriculum has been shown to be influenced by the extent to which it resonates with their own beliefs and values (Howe and Covell 2005). This suggests that CRE will be promoted more willingly by those with a commitment to children’s rights and children’s agency more generally. In other words, teachers’ strategic decisions about how to spend their time reflects their own motivation in relation to the topic (Schweisfurth 2006). Thus, teacher beliefs have a significant impact on how they interpret the curriculum, especially topics seen as political (Leenders et al. 2008; Myers 2009; Jerome 2012a; Jerome and Clemitshaw 2012). In fact, as we saw in Chapter 3, the traditional top-down model of policy implementation can be reversed to some extent, with committed teachers joining together with NGOs to develop new forms of education (Gerber 2008). The radical world view that promotes education for transformative action recognizes that the forces that keep children from fulfilment of their rights are greater than mere tradition and ignorance, although these are significant enough challenges in their own right. These inhibiting forces include the tendency

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within education policy to individualize education, to perceive it in terms of a personal investment in social capital and to judge it according to the success with which educated individuals can transition into the economy. A new critical CRE is required to address the problematic relationship between human rights and the neoliberal global economic context which so routinely violates human rights (Keet 2015). By contrast, those adopting the first two world views, the legalistic and the reformist, may defend their positions precisely on the grounds that they will avoid plunging CRE into hotly contested political territory. On the legalistic world view, change can be implemented through bureaucratic mechanisms, without having to engage in overtly political arguments, and teachers can simply be instructed about best practice. On the reformist world view, CRE can simply be elaborated by experts and then somehow promoted to teachers as a valuable project. Both positions hold on to the ideal that one can derive a universal standard for education outside of the ongoing debates about what education is for, who should control it and what values should inform it. However, we would argue that a CRE which fails to acknowledge the essential oppositional nature of such a project is destined to become marginal. A CRE which acknowledges the essentially political nature of education at least holds out the prospect of developing intellectual and ethical coherence in naming and dealing with the dominant discourses which undermine human rights. If it is important that the means of education are aligned with the ends (McCowan 2009) it is also important that CRE recognizes the systemic and ideological constraints which inhibit children’s rights in the education system. We argue that CRE is consequently a political agenda for educational reform. It cannot simply be a narrow programme for teaching and learning. It also demands a more sustained writerly approach to interpreting CRE, so that teachers who are supportive of the cause see themselves as agents of change (Fullan 1993). Those advocating for CRE also need to be clear what form of CRE they are pursuing and avoid conflating the means envisaged in relatively apolitical models (such as outlined in position one), with the transformational ends envisaged in other more radical accounts of CRE (such as those discussed in position three). Those who advocate for a type of CRE that promotes a slightly enhanced role for student voice and a slightly more flexible curriculum structure to allow for individual choice should not expect that such CRE can produce empowerment and transformation. Conversely, if CRE is seen as a means to tackle systemic inequalities and the marketization of education, this is no mere



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technical matter of compliance with international standards, rather it is a radical call to action. The implications of this final point are significant. It means that the appropriate course of action would be for CRE advocates to engage governments more directly and critically to question the dominant education paradigms and to assert a more democratic set of principles as the basis for education. It also means offering teachers who feel frustrated by the ways in which their agency is thwarted, and education is distorted, the opportunity to adopt children’s rights as an alternative framework for conceptualizing their practice. This means essentially giving up the comforting myth that the UN promotes a one-size-fits-all CRE, implemented from the top-down. Instead we argue for a series of locally negotiated solutions, which address local problems in the context of local cultures, traditions and resources as a contribution to what Hopgood (2013) refers to as the ‘democratization’ of human rights. This places teachers at the heart of CRE and requires us to think about teacher agency.

Teachers’ (Constrained) Agency in Challenging Contexts The teacher is a curriculum agent, whose practice ‘is intellectual, moral and inventive’ (Parker 1987). Teachers respond to policy, and they both shape it and are shaped by it in different ways (Ball, Maguire and Braun 2012). Teachers’ agency is therefore best understood as situated not only within their own individual political and professional narratives but also within the institutional structures where they work and within the broader political and cultural context in which schools operate (Priestley, Biesta and Robinson 2015). Kishore Singh, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education (UN 2014), has noted that this context is one where education is no longer primarily a public or societal good grounded in democratic principles of justice and equal opportunity but has become associated with an individual, atomized and personalized private good (Macpherson, Robertson and Walford 2014). Accountability mechanisms mean that schools are increasingly seen as exam factories and, although the broader goals of education may still be paid lip service, these are pushed to the margins of school life and therefore of teaching (Smithers 2007). In this climate, teachers often prefer to simply ‘teach to the test’, as this is what is formally valued within the education system. The criterion of students’

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success is used to assess the success of the teacher (Sahlberg 2010). Teachers may feel increasingly alienated from their work and frustrated that they seem to spend more time and energy focusing on aspects of the job which fall outside of the core educational relationships between them and their students. Time spent complying with external demands cannot be spent devising new activities or even just talking to children, parents and colleagues. Emotional energy expended on managing one’s performance for the managerial gaze shifts the focus away from the children. The end result is a feeling of inadequacy and inauthenticity as the superficiality of an externally defined performance dominates one’s experience (Ball 2003). Although such alienation is well documented in England, similar policies are emerging around the world in what are sometimes characterized as policy epidemics, supported by international organizations such as the OECD and new networks of global governance, including philanthropists, specialist policy organizations, research institutes and private providers (Ball 2008; Ball, Junemann and Santori 2017). The market-emulating policies spread through such networks have been described as the global education reform movement (GERM) (Sahlberg 2010). These changes also mean that public service as an expression of a citizenship ethic is replaced by a market-related logic in which teachers are recast as service providers and children (and their parents) as consumers (Crouch 2003). There are good reasons to problematize the context within which teachers are trying to promote CRE. Their own professional lives, and the contexts in which education takes place, are increasingly at odds with the values and practices of CRE. In the remainder of this chapter we explore some of the ways in which CRE is thwarted and consider why teachers do not always manage to rise successfully to the challenge. We have developed these categories not to criticize teachers but to contribute to a clearer model for thinking about the problems that arise and also to inform the development of differentiated strategies to tackle the varied reasons why CRE sometimes fails.

The Ignorant Teacher As we saw in Chapter  3, teachers’ lack of knowledge emerges as a consistent finding in evaluations of HRE and CRE. One possible reason for this lack of knowledge might be related to the highly regulated performativity culture of many schools, such as those in England. Teachers in many countries are able



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to qualify and perform the role of a teacher without acquiring any knowledge or understanding of human rights or gaining familiarity with the CRC. This also applies to school leaders and inspectors. Research undertaken in Iraqi Kurdistan found one school inspector who said, ‘when it comes to the subjects of human rights and democracy, I do not have very close knowledge of them’ (Osler 2016: 94). In other words, she is able to undertake her job and inspect schools without having this knowledge. The kinds of performance indicators used by inspectors and managers to judge teachers reflect concerns which are not related to the deep development of learning in CRE. Research persistently reveals the superficial teaching which results from the ‘teach to the test’ culture in many schools. What can be measured becomes the main and distorting focus of teaching (Sahlberg 2010). In such a context, where teachers want to be seen as successful, and to work in successful schools, the absence of CRE in the definitions of success means there is no immediate incentive to tackle this ignorance, nor any mechanism to point out that there is specialist knowledge to be discovered. Whereas maths teachers are expected to have substantial mathematical knowledge and history teachers to have a qualification in history, there is no equivalent for teachers of CRE, as there are few countries where children’s rights exist as a specialist qualification or status (Jerome et al. 2015). Sometimes teachers are simply unaware that there is a specialist knowledge-base, which might leave them convinced that they are promoting HRE, while their policies are flawed and ignore significant principles around inclusion (see, e.g. Mahler, Mihr and Toivanen 2009). For such people children’s rights is little more than ‘common sense’ (Jerome 2012b). In England, when citizenship education was introduced into the national curriculum, teachers regularly reported they were very confident in their subject knowledge overall, even though they had not read any of the key documents. When asked about specific topics, such as how the economy functions or how the EU operates, they admitted they had little knowledge of these areas (Kerr et al. 2007; Hayward and Jerome 2010). In recent education policy reforms for preventing violent extremism, teachers in England have similarly reported that they are confident they can safeguard children from radicalization, while being unable to explain how radicalization occurs (Busher and Jerome 2020). Teacher ignorance may therefore stem from a lack of clarity about what is required of them, a lack of status for CRE or a misplaced sense of confidence about ‘common-sense’ knowledge.

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The Conservative Teacher The very idea of children’s rights may present a challenge to the traditional beliefs of some teachers, because it represents a shift from education as welfare provision to education as a right. It also implies a second shift in adult roles from protection to facilitating emancipation and autonomy (David 2002). Empirical case studies continue to reiterate the importance of these issues. For example, a case study of HRE in Hong Kong concluded that two major obstacles remained:  the teachers’ fear for the loss of their authority and the limiting impact of their lack of subject knowledge (Leung, Yuen and Chong 2011). In the absence of specialist knowledge which might counteract this fear or a training intervention that might assuage these concerns (see, e.g. Gaynor 2007; Lyle 2014), some teachers’ innate conservativism about adult–child relationships may come to the fore. For example, in Ireland a survey found that teachers’ lack of specialist knowledge meant their teaching was not always related to human rights language or principles and that this was associated with a tendency to focus on a social cohesion agenda rather than empowerment, critique and inequality. Teachers thus tended to adopt a conservative model rather than a transformative one, with half the reported HRE events being linked to charity campaigns with a somewhat colonial global focus rather than addressing local social, political or economic issues (Waldron et al. 2011). Similarly, a case study of citizenship education demonstrated that teachers often adopt a softer communitarian sense of citizenship as ‘helping’ and ‘good neighbourliness’ and downplay the more overtly political dimensions (Jerome 2012a). Conservative educational contexts can also lead teachers to focus on aspects of HRE which are less overtly political and critical of the government (Banks 2017), for example, in Turkey one teacher who was the subject of a case study focused primarily on creating an inclusive multilingual classroom and developing empathy, rather than engaging in overt teaching about human rights (Aydin and Koc-Danngaci 2017). These examples illustrate the process of ‘decoupling’ which we referred to in Chapter 3, where a programme such as HRE is formally adopted but subsequently only selectively implemented or significantly adapted (Bajaj 2012b:  4). Other agendas provide the lens through which human rights are interpreted, which distorts what is learnt, frequently by depoliticizing rights and focusing on children’s responsibilities. There are other examples where prevailing cultural values and educational traditions are seen to be incompatible with aspects of HRE. For example, it is reported that HRE advocates in the Republic of Korea refuse to use the terminology of rights at all in order to avoid the local sensitivities



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that might be aroused (Lee 2007). In Japan, HRE tends to be mediated through a dominant approach to moral and values education, leading to some principles such as participation being downplayed (Takeda 2012). In this context, there is anecdotal evidence that, when asked about human rights, teachers often talk about values such as kindness, sympathy and being good to friends rather than concrete rights or conventions (Akuzawa 2007). In one detailed study of a class in Japan, the emphasis was on developing empathy for others, especially those suffering from the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and reflecting on shared identity. However, it avoided issues of the state’s responsibilities towards residents in the affected area and policy questions about nuclear power (Kitayama, Osler and Hashizaki 2017; Kitayama and Hashizaki 2018). Distortions occur where rights are mediated through education for national identity or patriotism (Akuzawa 2007). Similarly, there is some evidence that teachers tend to interpret policies for countering violent extremism through Islamophobic assumptions, and thus further distort the principles of HRE (Leeman and Wardekker 2013; Pal Sian 2015). We have already noted that teachers who are preparing young people as citizens and rights holders are themselves citizens with their own political beliefs which will inevitably influence their interpretation of HRE. This means some teachers will have political views that may be in tension with aspects of human rights. One teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan, perhaps speaking for many, said, ‘I don’t think HRE fits with our reality … which is not ready to digest the message behind human rights norms’ (Osler 2016: 97). This teacher was clearly familiar with human rights norms since she was able to use them as a standard against which to judge the local culture. Other studies have found some teachers prepared to use discriminatory and highly insulting language about their students or to repeat prejudices and taboo words that they have heard in school contexts (Bekerman and Cohen 2017). Such teachers have either not received an education about human rights standards or have rejected such standards as inappropriate to their local context. We contend that human rights standards are always relevant to local contexts. Teachers may be conservative forces in at least three ways then: first, they may simply adopt traditional authority roles in schools and thereby limit the agency of young people; second, they may conform to traditional moralizing aspects of CRE; and third, they may promote conservative political interpretations of CRE, because of their individual political motivations. In these ways, teachers can refract the radical, political and collective nature of CRE through the traditional expectations of school and society about children. One of the students in a teacher

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education course lamented about the CRE component of the programme:  ‘I found this to be the most problematic course, one which looked more like government propaganda than any realistic look at what happens in education’ (Jerome 2012b:  110). From the student’s perspective, the course attempted to politicize a process that was apolitical. He perceived that, rather than offering him support, CRE exacerbated his main concern as a new teacher, namely what he referred to as ‘badly behaved pupils who had no interest in learning’ (ibid.). Given that the GERM tends to focus on compliance and individual performance and accountability, the student’s conservative tendencies and reticence about children’s rights may be reinforced.

The Hypocritical Teacher Working in an institutional context with a conservative culture may lead some teachers to adopt an avowedly conservative view of CRE, as discussed in the previous section. It may also lead to another potential challenge. Teachers may believe that they are promoting a critical and progressive form of CRE, while falling considerably short of that goal. This leads to the charge of hypocrisy (Yamasaki 2002). For example, school councils may be manipulated to co-opt students into traditional authority structures (Hunt 2014). Our first form of teacher hypocrisy then is the situation in which teachers appear to offer a democratic and rights-respecting education but fall short because they do not really believe in children’s capacity to engage with the process, or because they fall back too readily on managerialist agendas. Critics of progressive education argue that this form of hypocrisy is built into the very assumptions of the philosophy because the teacher is always ultimately wielding authority under the cloak of democratic participation (Buckard 2007). Significant tensions can be experienced by teachers in Rights Respecting Schools who seek to combine ‘assertive teacher authority’ with a ‘relaxed rights-respecting adult’ role (Webb 2014). Another form of hypocrisy stems from fuzzy thinking about the role of values in education. Well-intentioned teachers can fall into the trap of proclaiming they leave children free to explore alternatives while actively promoting particular values in their teaching. We noted in Chapter 2 that the authors of the Council of Europe’s Compass Manual for HRE (Brander et  al. 2012) claim that values clarification is one of their pedagogical tenets. This fails to recognize that the manual explicitly promotes the principle that all young people should value human rights. In fact what is being offered is a programme of values transmission



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rather than values clarification. In a study of student teachers of citizenship education, there was a similar tension between their desire to promote the values of democracy through developing democratic pedagogies but a distaste for explicitly saying that was what they were doing. Similarly, many more of these student teachers felt it was appropriate for the school to somehow promote certain values, even though they were sceptical about undertaking the task of promoting values themselves (Jerome and Clemitshaw 2012). Well-meaning teachers, supportive of CRE, almost inevitably fall short of their aspirations. The competing priorities of exam grades and individual progress in a competitive system are not simply alternative policy prescriptions vying with HRE for attention, but they often function as overarching paradigms, which may be inherently antithetical to HRE. In a school case study of an Amnesty HRE initiative, the dominant discourse around standards and accountability prevailed and student voice was ultimately silenced quite dramatically, when school managers reasserted their authority over the children and abandoned their rights-based project (Mejias and Starkey 2012). In this case ‘HRE was seen by teachers and leaders as a way to encourage better behaviour and even conformity through the linking of rights to responsibilities’ (Mejias 2017: 191). The project was ultimately undermined by authoritarian management practices because school leaders felt able to withdraw students’ rights if they deemed them not to be living up to their responsibilities. There is an argument that hypocrisy within the stifling performativity culture can be embraced as a stepping stone towards a more progressive set of values (Chuah 2009). In other words, it may be better to tolerate teachers saying they value alternative educational goals even if they really do not, or know they cannot achieve them, because this at least creates an alternative way of talking about education. This perhaps requires teachers to adopt a more playful approach to exploring non-performative goals. However, we should not ignore the impact such hypocrisy may have on children. Lining up values and behaviour is central to a healthy school culture, and teachers must avoid being perceived as having double standards. Children with teachers who cheerfully embrace a rhetoric of CRE but fail to follow through are likely to feel betrayed. Teachers who playfully spend time on alternative projects will still be monitored and judged by their performance of the officially sanctioned roles for teachers. They risk being perceived as challenging the priorities of the school leadership. Either way it is difficult to interpret such hypocrisy as anything other than problematic. One way in which teachers may try to resolve these difficulties is to embrace exams and qualifications in aspects of CRE and thus publicly perform educational

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success through their subject, but this is also potentially problematic in that the subject becomes another element in the ‘exam factory’ and is as susceptible to the logic of ‘teaching to the test’ as any other subject.

Reflections In order to avoid these pitfalls, teachers need to tread a careful path. They must understand the rules of the system sufficiently well to spot opportunities for reinterpretation and challenge, while not compromising themselves too fundamentally in the eyes of those empowered to judge and discipline them. Teachers may well be on a journey, exploring the possibilities, testing the boundaries and building their confidence. We are not claiming that the typologies outlined above describe teachers in some essentialized way; rather, they describe the various positions teachers may occupy at particular times and in relation to different aspects of CRE. As an example, a case study of a teacher in Kuwait, who challenged expectations by radically changing the classroom layout and encouraging participation, ends by noting that the curriculum was subsequently reformed. The three-year social studies course that provided opportunities for discussing injustice was condensed into one year, radically reducing the time available to explore issues around the textbooks. The teacher will do less HRE as a result, but she is unlikely to stop (Al-Nakib 2017). By contrast, a case study of a teacher in France describes a cautious teacher, starting to teach about knowledge, building his confidence to hold debates and discussions, and eventually being moved to engage directly with contemporary traumatic incidents (the 2015 terror attacks in Paris). Teacher’s agency in implementing CRE may therefore depend on them building their own confidence, building trust in their students and importantly on their political reading of the context (Bozec 2017). As it can be useful to think about children’s agency in terms of how particular situations thicken or thin their agency (Robson et al. 2007), the teachers in each of these categories might be supported to thicken their agency. For example, the ‘ignorant’ teacher may be supported by revealing the rich knowledge base that underpins CRE, moving it from the ‘unknown unknown’ into the ‘known unknown’ category. Just offering a course may not be effective if teachers have not yet realized they lack powerful knowledge (Parker 2018). Some cautious teachers may be assisted by learning about the small steps taken by others in similarly restrictive contexts. For example, the school inspector who told Osler (2016:  95) ‘it would be better that these subjects are taken up to the political



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level and enacted through law’ might be persuaded that there are small positive steps that can be taken through carefully curating existing curriculum resources, rather than waiting for national reforms (Al-Nakib 2017; Akar 2017). Similarly, teachers who are using the rhetoric of CRE without fully achieving it, and who thus risk being seen as hypocritical, may benefit from critical friends within the profession to help them deepen their practice. By contrast, conservative teachers who are politically opposed to CRE, for example, because of religious beliefs about gender and sexuality, may need to be challenged by external political activism, demanding the school live up to its legal obligations to promote equity. Even when teachers are constantly observed and monitored and may feel that they have little agency, there is always the possibility for forms of resistance. Many scholars draw on Foucault’s conceptualization of power as not simply invested in roles or office-holders but rather in relations between people (Foucault [1976] 1998). Foucault likened the mechanisms of surveillance and control of teachers to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, which was an architectural feature of prisons where a single warder can observe all the prisoners simultaneously (Perryman 2006). However, even close surveillance is not absolute. Teachers can find ways to work professionally but unobserved. Every occurrence of a surveillance situation involves a negotiation between the observer and the observed teacher. Confident teachers can brazen it out to some extent, redescribing radical pedagogical or curriculum interpretations in terms which are more likely to be officially sanctioned. They can resist power by appearing to conform but seizing opportunities to take unsanctioned action when they consider this to be in the interests of their students. They may be able to count on the complicity and loyalty of their students to undertake tasks and enquiries that are intrinsically motivating rather than being always subject to extrinsic examination and time pressures (Leask 2012; Stickney 2012). This may feel dangerous or even dishonest, but it is a consequence of the way power circulates. Like their students, teachers can resist what they consider to be unreasonable demands and structures. When this resistance is justified by reference to children’s rights there is the possibility of a dialogue with those in power. Engagement with children’s rights requires us to acknowledge that our sense of identity as teachers cannot exist prior to our engagement in such power relations. Our professional identities are formed through what we do, rather than what we are in some essential sense. In finding space to pursue a children’s rights agenda in schools, the first step is to unsettle the dominant discourses and create a space for thinking differently (Ball and Olmedo 2013). On the basis of critique and reimagining educational practices one can search for spaces and

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strategies to explore alternatives, but, having developed a more political reading of one’s situation, it is also important to engage with more collective forms of resistance. Individuals need to work together, both to build more powerful movements for change and also to sustain the individuals engaging in this difficult task (Apple 2013). Perhaps we should not be surprised that many teachers are not motivated by a radical or critical form of CRE, because ultimately they have benefitted from education and are unlikely to question those values which underpin the system (O’Sullivan 2008). This chapter has argued that many teachers are also likely to succumb to the dominant discourse regulating their professional lives. Faced with life in the panopticon the most sensible solutions may well be to stay and play by the rules of the game or find the door and leave. Those who stay and engage in the personal and collective struggle need help to build the networks and structures, including professional associations and teacher unions, which offer the intellectual and emotional support to sustain their efforts and to build the democratic alternatives. Committing to use one’s teaching to contribute to political change through CRE will always make substantial demands on individual teachers. But, through struggle we can create the spaces for developing practices which may presage a fuller achievement of democratic citizenship and human rights. In many ways the struggle for CRE builds on tried-and-tested ideas and practices. In the next two chapters we explore two established pedagogic traditions which provide useful starting points for thinking about how teachers can resist some of the harmful effects of current policy and develop their own agency to promote CRE. First we consider Freire’s work, in order to explore how teachers can play a role in transformational education. Second, we consider Dewey and Freinet as sources of inspiration for classroom practices that can promote everyday CRE. Both chapters extend our discussion of teacher agency as well as exploring different dimensions of CRE pedagogy.

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Introduction We have argued that the development of any form of educational project is ideological to the extent that education itself is an intensely contested ideological terrain. There are profoundly different values, purposes and processes being promoted at any one time by groups competing for resources and influence in contexts that provide various affordances and constraints. In this chapter and the one that follows it, we want to illustrate just how contested children’s rights education (CRE) is by exploring the two key concepts of transformation and experience. In this chapter we discuss the concept of transformation in relation to Paulo Freire. In the first part of the chapter we introduce Freire and identify some of the aspects of his work that are frequently discussed among CRE advocates. Then we proceed to explore Freire’s work in more detail, starting with his views on the relationships between learners and teachers, and then moving on to consider the ideological implications of adopting his work for CRE. In the final part of the chapter we distil six ways in which CRE can be transformational, again drawing on Freire’s work.

Freire and His Relevance to CRE Paulo Freire was born in Brazil in 1921 and in his 20s developed a distinctive approach to adult literacy teaching in the north-east of the country. He pursued this work over the next few decades, growing the literacy programme to reach thousands of groups, but the work was ended by the military coup in 1964, following which Freire was imprisoned and then exiled. By the end of that decade he took up a position as visiting professor at Harvard University and then in 1970

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took up the role of education consultant for the World Council of Churches. In 1968 he published Pedagogy of the Oppressed (first published in English in 1970) which has sold over a million copies and which has become one of the seminal texts in establishing the tradition of critical pedagogy (Giroux 2013). The roles he undertook outside of Brazil enabled him to encounter political struggles and educational practices all around the world, and Giroux writes that ‘Freire’s work was consistently fuelled by a healthy moral rage over the needless oppression and suffering he witnessed’ (p. xix). Those experiences enabled him to develop his understanding of the role of education in the struggle for justice through a series of publications including Education for Critical Consciousness (1973), Pedagogy of Hope (1994) and Pedagogy of Freedom (1998). Towards the end of his career, when the political situation changed again, he returned to Brazil and in 1989 became secretary of education in São Paulo. This position gave him responsibility for over six hundred schools educating three quarters of a million students, and he was able to implement some of his ideas, including a radical devolution of the curriculum, support for teacher development and a commitment to young people’s political engagement (Irwin 2012). He has inspired over a hundred books about his life and work, and continues to have an impact around the world not least because his educational philosophy ‘rips apart assumptions about neutrality in education’ (Darder 2015: 8) to assert the role of the teacher as a social agent for change, whose actions will either promote or limit freedom. Freire’s legacy is perhaps best known for two key concepts, both of which are central to understanding CRE. First that ‘education is a political act’ and second, ‘this act consists of an exchange between educator and educated carrying within it emancipatory potential from a repressive order’ (Butler 2008: 304–5). This means Freire is sometimes valued for pragmatic reasons, such as his ‘highly participative pedagogy’ (Roche 1999: 488), which enables educational processes to embed and promote children’s rights (education through rights). But for Freire, this participation is not just a pedagogic strategy, rather it reflects a commitment to replace the traditional hierarchical relationship between student and teacher with ‘a dialogical one, in which student and teacher are equal participants’ (Low and Sonntag 2013: 776). This opens the door to a wide range of creative educational activities, which engage the student and teacher in different ways. For example, young people in poor and marginalized communities have used media and arts both to critique the dominant representations of their lives and to re-represent themselves to others (Butler 2008: 307–8). So, for some CRE advocates, Freire continues



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to be influential because he recognizes the agency of students and rejects narrow ‘transmission’ approaches to education, in favour of more participative and mutually negotiated exchanges. He also recognizes that education has to engage with the lived experiences and perceptions of students, because this contextualizes the concepts to be learned (Ty 2011). CRE advocates have also engaged with Freire because he addresses a number of deeper challenges relevant to CRE. These include the need for individual and social transformation (education about rights and rights abuses); the role of education in a broader liberation movement (education through the struggle for rights); and the centrality of the development of critical consciousness (education for a culture of rights). Sometimes Freire is used by CRE advocates to underline the extent to which a radical reconceptualization of childhood is entailed by fully recognizing children’s rights. This aligns with arguments that CRE activities for children should be seen to be emancipatory, in other words, ‘a means of liberation from oppression’ (Butler 2012: 21). In this sense liberation refers to the experience of oppressed communities whose rights are not fully realized (the subject of human rights in general) and freedom from the unnecessary constraints of childhood which functions as a ‘tool for social control in that it reinforces separateness between children’s and adults’ worlds as a means of marginalizing children’ (Hartas 2008: xv). In this process, the children of poor families often come to be seen by government as problematic. Children from minority groups suffer additional disadvantages (Darder 2015). It follows that CRE must reflect the socially differentiated experiences of childhood and thus the different ways in which children encounter and experience their human rights. Freire’s concern with literacy is relevant in discussing the relationship between students’ acquisition of basic information literacy skills and their critical understanding of their social situation and their own capacity for change. This is well summarized in Freirean terms as ‘those who learn to read must also learn to use reading to expand their worlds in order to achieve goals they value’ (Glassman and Patton 2014:  1358). This aspect of Freire emerges particularly strongly in contexts marked by conflict and poverty, where teachers strive to ‘create classrooms of hope, both a safe haven (i.e. security) and source of new knowledge (i.e. growth and change)’ (Munter, McKinley and Sarabia 2012:  60). By seeing education as embedded within communities and by seeing children as members of those communities, rather than only perceiving them as ‘school students’, CRE seeks to overcome both social injustice and violations of children’s human rights. As part of that

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process ‘critical teachers and students do not merely regurgitate pre-existing ideas but are engaged in knowledge production and social transformation’ (Ty 2011: 207). This transformational role is a recurrent theme in the human rights education (HRE) literature more generally and features within many of the typologies developed by researchers and educationalists. Although many forms of government-endorsed HRE and CRE tend to promote fairly narrow or conservative agendas, they can nonetheless lead to transformation in a range of different ways (Tibbitts 2002, 2005b). For example, knowledge about universal rights can transform the way victims of human rights abuse understand the context in which such abuse occurs. Familiarity with the CRC can transform the world view of young people by revealing the world as a place where rights are upheld, denied and struggled for. It can also transform teachers’ understanding of their role in defending rights. NGO HRE programmes, especially those drawing on critical race theory and critical pedagogy, may be said to be explicitly committed to transformational goals (Potvin and Benny 2013; Bajaj 2012b). The campaign known as the People’s Decade for Human Rights Education that successfully inspired the whole United Nations (UN) Organization to develop the UN decade for HRE was unapologetic in arguing that the ‘revolutionary message in Freire’s educational philosophy must infuse projects in human rights education’ (Modrowski 2006: 66). A reading of Freire underpins the following theory of change for HRE: 1. Learners learn about a larger imagined moral community where human rights offer a shared language. 2. Learners question a social or cultural practice that does not fit within the global framework. 3. Learners identify allies to amplify their voice, along with other strategies for influencing positive change (Bajaj 2017). CRE advocates appeal so commonly to Freire because he provides an account of education which has functioned as a rallying point for those who wish to question the innately conservative nature of mass education. By drawing attention to the relationship between common educational practices and the broader processes that perpetuate inequality, oppression and exploitation in society, Freire offers educators an analysis through which they can assume a radical emancipatory role. By accepting this role as agents of transformational



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education they can directly contribute to the political struggle for the global realization of human rights. One of the distinctive appeals of Freire is his assertion that rather than being destined to function as cogs in the machine of the reproduction of social inequality, teachers can contribute directly to the transformation of society through their pedagogic practice. Education can both create the conditions for the transformation of society and create the cultural resources required to imagine such a transformation. Child rights educators are conscious of how society currently works to deny rights to many people, and they are aiming to bring about a significant cultural change in which respect for rights forms the bedrock of our culture. In many ways, the call for CRE to focus on education for and through rights leads to a Freirean analysis, in which the wider goal of a rights-respecting culture is achieved through the transformation of individuals’ consciousness, leading to their commitment to act for rights. Human rights advocates face a similar problem to Freire because they have to confront the following question:  if social justice, equality and a rightsrespecting culture are so worthy an aspiration, how is it that so many people fail to embrace this as a political goal or are unwilling to contribute to its achievement? Part of the educational task therefore is not simply to teach about rights but to develop a critical consciousness, which allows individuals both to perceive the conservative forces that lead to the marginalization of rights and to perceive the value in promoting an alternative vision. As discussed in the previous chapter, despite decades of rhetoric about childcentred education, governments and international organizations increasingly use a narrow range of educational measures to pursue higher positions in international league tables and to prioritize the development of the skills envisaged necessary for economic success (Ball 2008). This policy ensemble has been referred to as the global educational reform movement (GERM) which narrows, standardizes, measures and manages education (Sahlberg 2010). This often imposes metrics on schools and teachers, and thus the logic of education sees children as units to be brought up to the required standard, rather than as individuals who might flourish in different ways. In this regard using Freire as a starting point enables us to read the advice in General Comment No.1 from the Committee on the Rights of the Child with an appreciation of how deeply their critique of education runs: The overall objective of education is to maximize the child’s ability and opportunity to participate fully and responsibly in a free society. It should be

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emphasized that the type of teaching that is focused primarily on accumulation of knowledge, prompting competition and leading to an excessive burden of work on children, may seriously hamper the harmonious development of the child to the fullest potential of his or her abilities and talents. (UNCRC 2001: para. 12)

Starting with Freire makes it impossible to avoid the political context in which teachers work and indeed the political content of their teaching practices. The CRC provides one of the foundational statements of values, against which education policies and practices can be judged. There is a role here for teachers to read their situation politically, making judgements and championing some policies, reinterpreting others and marginalizing some that might be harmful. Advocates of Freire need to be conscious that he was writing in a revolutionary tradition, and Pedagogy of the Oppressed was devised with explicit revolutionary intent. In order to explain and justify his approach, he drew on Marxist thought, liberation theology and radical psychological theories. A focus on oppression linked Freire to contemporary struggles in the United States. Assata Shakur, the exiled Black Panther activist and feminist, made the widely quoted and influential observation that ‘the true history of an oppressed people is impossible to find in history books’ (Shakur 1987: 199). Or as the American writer and intellectual James Baldwin observed, ‘The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling’ ([1963] 1993:  101). While this warns us not to expect the state-sanctioned curriculum to provide the tools for radically changing the status quo, CRE might usefully critique the dominant histories and accounts of how the world works, to enable students to recognize alternatives where they see themselves reflected. However, if CRE is bound up with a revolutionary educational tradition, then there is the danger that governments will refuse to incorporate such an educational approach into mass state-funded education, and thus that CRE will fail to reach all children and teachers. A strategic approach to CRE must therefore take into consideration the risks of drawing on Freire for inspiration. In order to think through these issues in the next part of the chapter we turn first to consider Freire’s work in greater detail and then to consider how we can interpret that work in different contexts.



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Freire’s Pedagogy: The Teacher and the Student Before assessing the extent to which Freire provides a valid foundation for the pedagogy associated with CRE, it is useful to reflect on what Freire did and said, rather than just what has been done in his name. In this section we establish some of the key features of his approach to pedagogy, in order to establish a clear account of what drawing on a Freirean perspective actually entails. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed Freire ([1970] 2005) outlined the first major account of his educational approach. He argued for an education which ‘makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed’ through which will emerge the ‘necessary engagement with the struggle for their liberation’ (Freire [1970] 2005:  48). For Freire, in that struggle ‘this pedagogy will be made and remade’ (ibid.). In this brief formulation one can see some of the main principles underpinning his approach. First, we can see that education should not simply prepare learners in some generic or abstract way for their role in the world, but rather it should be rooted in a critical engagement with the reality of the social conditions of the learner. Second, through making these social conditions the object of study, learners would simultaneously be engaged in a struggle to change those conditions. Here we see the roots of the transformational approach to education, what Freire referred to as reading the word as a precursor to reading the world: How can I teach peasants in Brazil without helping them understand the reasons why thirty-three million of them are dying of hunger? I think teaching peasants how to read the word hunger and to look it up in the dictionary is not sufficient. They also need to know the reasons behind their experience of hunger. (Freire and Macedo 1995: 379)

In Freire’s account, this meant that his teaching would have to challenge the ‘common-sense’ notion that hunger was a biological issue and reveal the ways in which the economy works to produce inequality. In doing so, he argued that this transformed understanding opened the door to a transformed sense of potential agency. And third, we see Freire’s commitment that his pedagogical approaches were devised in a particular context, for a particular purpose, and that new pedagogical practices would emerge as the process of social change developed. This is a point which was reiterated by Freire and Macedo (his widow and colleague) in a posthumously published collection of writings, in which Freire warned, ‘I don’t want to be imported or exported. It is impossible to explore pedagogical practices without reinventing them’ (Freire and Macedo 2000: 6).

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Case Study 4  Poverty as a rights issue UNICEF UK produced an educational resource Seen and HEARD:  Helping young people explore poverty and children’s rights in the UK (UNICEF UK 2013a). This resource is aimed at 11- to 16-year-olds and was produced in collaboration with a student action group which was established to promote rights in their school. Having studied Article 27 of the UNCRC, which recognizes the ‘right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development’, the students were shocked to discover the levels of poverty in the UK and wanted to take action. The students came up with the title ‘Seen and HEARD’ as a twist on the old saying ‘children should be seen and not heard’. In doing so they were asserting their right, under Article 12 of the Convention, ‘to express [their] views freely in all matters affecting the child’. The students of St Kentigern’s Academy produced a video as part of their campaign (UNICEF UK 2013b), which was used as the starting point for a series of lesson activities. Crucially the video does not talk about poverty as an abstract social issue; it focuses on the impact of poverty on one child and then builds out from this concrete example. One of the students responsible for the project said, The outcome we want from this video is for people to realise that there are people around them in poverty, because when you say poverty, straight away people think of Africa and places so far away, but it’s in our country as well … our world. (UNICEF UK 2013b)

    

The lessons explore the impact of poverty, the extent of poverty and then prepare students to explore who has responsibility to tackle the problem. All of this positions students to undertake their own local action, either to deal with local issues or to raise awareness and encourage others to take further action. This project reflects Freire’s commitment to root learning in the real lives of students; to learn about the world in order to understand and change it; and to adapt strategies to local contexts. In this case the students had access to digital technology to produce campaigning films and access to a Rights Respecting Schools programme facilitated by UNICEF UK.

For Freire a pedagogy of the oppressed ‘must be forged with not for the oppressed … in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity’ (Freire [1970] 2005: 48). He argued that a pedagogy for the oppressed, which was undertaken as part of an educator’s humanitarian impulse, ‘maintains and embodies oppression’ and could be described as ‘egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism’ (ibid.). This is an interesting challenge for those who see HRE and



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CRE as practices for the poor and oppressed, to be delivered as part of an aid or development package from the well-off to the needy. For Freire, the traditional model of a teacher (teaching the taught) implied a one-way relationship that was already inescapably bound up with societal forms of oppression and inequality. His desire to develop an educational process which allowed for more meaningful human relationships led Freire to critique this dominant mode of teaching as a form of ‘banking’ education, in which the teacher sought to make ‘deposits’ of information to accrue into knowledge inside the students, who are seen as empty vessels waiting to be filled. For Freire such a system was marked out by several characteristics: • • • • • • • • • •

The teacher teaches and the students are taught. The teacher knows everything and the students know nothing. The teacher thinks and the students are thought about. The teacher talks and the students listen – meekly. The teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined. The teacher chooses and enforces his or her choice, and the students comply. The teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher. The teacher chooses the programme content, and the students adapt to it. The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority. The teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the pupils are pure objects.

In Education for Critical Consciousness Freire declared that ‘teaching cannot be done from top down, but only from the inside out … with the collaboration of the educator’ (Freire 1973: 45). He returned repeatedly to this theme, arguing in Pedagogy of Freedom that ‘whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning’ (Freire 1998:  31). This commitment to a genuinely democratic educational relationship led him to commit to dialogue as a key feature of effective pedagogy, and in considering the implications of this he argued that ‘dialogue can only take place when we accept that others are different and can teach us something we do not already know’ (Freire [1970] 2005: 92). Given what Freire said about the importance of developing pedagogic practices which are relevant to their time, place and role in changing societies we have to develop our own account of what a Freirean pedagogy for today would

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look like. Some insights can be gleaned by considering how we can adapt the model Freire developed in mid-twentieth-century Brazil for the purposes of promoting literacy for peasants. Freire warns us not to stick rigidly to his prescriptions, since they must be adapted to contexts (Souto-Manning 2010). Freire (1973) outlined several steps, starting with the educator spending time with the learners. In other words, the educator becomes a student of the students. This initial phase enables the educator to build relationships with people in the learning community and to start to develop an understanding of their lives and the knowledge they have. In relation to his focus on literacy education, this period is also a practical opportunity to study the vocabulary of the group, their typical turns of phrase and significant everyday expressions and words. At the beginning of the more formal phase of education, Freire developed the use of what he called ‘culture circles’ to establish dialogue at the heart of the teaching and learning exchange. To some extent the culture circle replaces the concept of the school or class for Freire (Elias 1994: 18), and these discussion groups are intended to develop a shared understanding of culture (and literacy) as part of a shared heritage, which is constructed by people. That is to say, the culture shapes them and is shaped by them. Through the work of the culture circle, Freire intended that the peasants he was working with would come to recognize themselves as members of Brazilian culture. This would empower them as cultural agents, rather than people who are subject to and entrapped in an external culture through laws which circumscribed their lives, granted others access to their resources and thus worked to disempower them (Irwin 2012). As Freire himself expressed in Education for Critical Consciousness, Literacy makes sense only in these terms, as the consequence of men’s [sic] beginning to reflect on their own capacity for reflection, about the world, about their position in the world, about their work, about their power to transform the world, about the encounter of consciousness … men understand words in their true significance: as a force to transform the world. (1973: 77)

Freire used a series of pictures to stimulate reflection on the distinction between nature and culture and to consider the significance of language and communication as a means by which people encounter other consciousnesses. The teacher invites participants to consider scenarios that show the development and use of various technologies, the production of cultural artefacts and the production of books, until the culture circle ends with a reflection on itself, as a manifestation of culture.



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Through such reflective discussions, the culture circle identifies a number of what Freire called generative themes which can be used to structure the subsequent curriculum. The themes that emerge from such preliminary discussions enable the teacher to identify the kinds of issues that can meaningfully form the basis of subsequent learning. Ideally, ‘a generative theme is an issue about which people feel strongly and are willing to take some action’ (Beck and Purcell 2013: 6). Such themes are not necessarily obvious at the outset and may take some discussion and excavation to uncover. The key issue is that the focus of the learning comes from the participants’ reflecting on their lives, not from an externally imposed curriculum from government or some other agency which has predetermined what is needed. For Freire, working with Brazilian peasants, such themes were often related to housing, food, clothing and so on, but for others pursuing this approach, such themes may well be different, for example, the students in the case study above (UNICEF UK 2013b) chose to focus on poverty, while participants in a project in Glasgow came to recognize discrimination as a common experience (Beck and Purcell 2013). Throughout this process Freire emphasizes the role of ‘critical and liberating dialogue’ and warns that ‘attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building’ (Freire [1970] 2005: 65). From this account we can begin to see why, for Freire, dialogue should never be viewed as ‘a mere tactic to involve students in a particular task’ (Freire and Macedo 1995:  379), rather it is much more fundamentally how teachers and students can ‘come to know the world critically, recovering the power to transform our lives as historical subjects’ (Darder 2015: 19). Darder’s discussion of Freire (1973) emphasizes that he was committed to dialogue as the mechanism through which we build our understanding collaboratively. That is to say that we build our thinking together through co-participation not merely as an individual developing our thinking to share with others  – ‘we think’ precedes ‘I think’ (Darder 2015: 93). In diverse societies, especially those affected by conflict, such dialogue can generate anxiety and personal struggles (Perumal 2012). In acknowledging and dealing with this, teachers might draw on a number of complementary pedagogic traditions from around the world. In the West there is a rich tradition of dialogic teaching, drawing on Alexander (2005) and Mercer (2000), which often reflects the principles of deliberation and dialogue discussed by Bakhtin (1986) and Habermas (1990). Arabic and Islamic scholars have established similar traditions for dialogical thinking in discussion circles or symposia (halaqāt) to seek knowledge through

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cross-cultural conversations, in a way that bears some remarkable similarities to Freire’s account of culture circles (Akar 2016:  48). Similarly, the African tradition of Ubuntu reflects some aspects of these tensions and productive potential, for example, there is a Xhosa proverb ‘a person depends on other people to be a person’ (Ter Avest 2012:  249) which resonates with Freire’s commitment that ‘we think’ precedes ‘I think’. In all of these traditions, dialogue is a mechanism to encounter the ‘other’ in order to build new knowledge and understanding together. It is this new collaborative understanding that creates the potential for change.

Freire’s Philosophy: On Revolution and Liberation Freire was not prepared to compromise with unjust power structures. His pedagogy enables students to find ways to confront and challenge power. Although he was writing in violent and revolutionary times and contexts, he did not advocate armed struggle, possibly for pragmatic reasons: We would need to ask, have guns brought lasting social change? Can true liberation be born out of violence? I would say we have not accomplished this in history. (Darder 2015: 159–60)

This quotation comes from a conversation that took place in 1992 and clearly illustrates the revolutionary theme in Freire’s thinking. In Pedagogy of Freedom (1998) he reiterates this by declaring ‘no-one constructs a serious democracy … without … radically changing the societal structures, reorienting the politics of production and development [and] reinventing power.’ Of course, such accounts are rooted firmly in Marx’s analysis of class antagonism and revolutionary change, and as with any Marxist analysis, one of the perennial problems confronting the theorist is why the oppressed seem not to perceive their predicament and why they resist attempts to organize them to change the situation. One answer to this problem lies in the idea of the oppressed maintaining a false consciousness, which is conditioned by the prevailing ideology of the ruling class. As Marx perceived the problem, ‘it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness’ ([1859] 1971). In searching for his own response to this dilemma, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed Freire draws on Fromm’s ([1942] 2001) notion of the ‘fear of freedom’ to explain that although the oppressed



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‘desire authentic existence, they fear it’ and that in some existential sense, they are ‘at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalised’ (Freire [1970] 2005). This resonates with Fanon’s account in Black Skin, White Masks of the ‘the Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority’ (Fanon [1952] 1986: 60). In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this leads to the acknowledgement that, initially at least, instead of striving for true liberation, the oppressed may seek to become oppressors themselves, simply looking to swap a subordinate role for a dominant one in the familiar social structure. Seeking to become an authority over others is recognized by Fromm as a strategy to overcome fear of freedom. However, there are other strategies the fearful oppressed may adopt, for example, seeking another source of authority by supporting ‘strong leaders’ or simply falling into mindless conformity through apathy and consumer culture. Replacing one source of authority with another, even if the authority is oneself, does not tackle the underlying problem that the oppressed and the oppressors are mutually constituted by a system of relations that denies them both some authentic humanity. This notion of endemic forms of exploitation and oppression is clearly at odds with the universal and humanistic aspirations of human rights, which uphold the principles of equality, justice and peace. For Freire it is this process of ‘dehumanization’ from which we need to liberate ourselves, rather than a specific oppressor, and he posits humanization as the people’s true vocation. In some ways, this position is an act of faith, which sits at the foundation of Freire’s philosophy, namely, the belief that there is some fundamental urge to authentic human relationships marked by freedom and mutual respect, rather than simply a clamour of wills, in which people seek advantage over others. Freire’s account of this draws on Marxism, liberation theology (Irwin 2012) and Fromm’s psychology (Spring 2008), which reminds us that Pedagogy of the Oppressed was produced around the popular protests of 1968, when a profound anti-war sentiment fused with a rather ethereal countercultural movement and when political and sexual liberation seemed to coalesce in a moment of radical possibilities. The immediate sense of being wronged that Freire notes and a vague impulse to do something about it do not translate automatically into a full understanding of the problem or of the most appropriate solution. Without further understanding, these basic urges may lead to revenge or reactionary politics. For Freire, therefore, education provides the necessary route to directly

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challenging the thinking that limits a more complete understanding of this problem. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed he argues: In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform. (Freire 1970: 49)

Freire uses the term conscientização, which is generally translated as conscientization, to capture this process of critical consciousness aligned with action for liberation. For Freire it is obvious that ‘I can’t transform it [my oppression] in my head … conscientization implies a critical insertion into a process, it implies a historical commitment to make changes’ (Freire 1972 cited in Cruz 2013: 173). Thus, conscientization describes the educational means for disrupting the false consciousness of the oppressed and seeking a more just society. This involves moving beyond a naïve awareness of injustice, which can lead people to blame individuals for their woes. Rather it aims to achieve a more critical appreciation of the systemic problems. However, Freire insists that a teacher cannot conscientize a student, because that ultimately replicates the power relationships of oppressor and oppressed. Instead conscientization can only emerge through sustained dialogue and action. It is this alignment of thought and action which gives rise to another key idea for Freire, praxis, which reinforces the importance of reflection and dialogue, which we have already noted have a central role in his account of pedagogy. Before we move on to consider some of the practical implications for CRE of thinking with Freire, we do need to address the argument that there are at least two versions of Freire that people have engaged with. There is a ‘safe’ reading that focuses on Freire as advocating ‘student-centred programs with a stress on functional and cultural literacy’ (McLaren 2013:  235). Another reading, however, suggests that his work can also ‘be opened to reveal the razor-edged teeth of more forbidding challenges to the totality of capitalist social relations that imprison us’ (ibid.). The first reading of Freire is what we suspect many advocates of CRE imagine when they refer to him; however, as Freire himself warned, it distorts his thought to isolate pedagogic practices from the wider political critique, indeed for him the specifics of pedagogy emerge from the struggle. The Marxist revolutionary dimension of Freire’s writing might, in some cases, present a potential barrier to adapting Freire for CRE. We argue that, on pragmatic grounds, his radical thinking is actually essential to help us think about ways in which CRE, which as we have shown is in many respects a radical



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agenda, can be integrated with everyday schooling. But, from a more theoretical perspective, we dispute the need for such a revolutionary perspective to secure social progress and promote the greater realization of children’s rights. The pure revolutionary reading of Freire is already troubled by Freire’s own work and development after the publication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he recognized that the moment for revolutions had passed and described himself as a ‘radical and substantive democratic’ socialist (Freire 1996: 114). It may in fact be helpful to divide Freire’s work into three periods: the initial phase when he developed his groundbreaking literacy work in Brazil (up to 1964); the revolutionary period of exile during which he published the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1965–79); and a third phase, after his return to Brazil in 1980 (Morrow and Torres 2002; Morrow 2013). It is perhaps only the middle period that was markedly revolutionary, since Freire ‘momentarily mis-recognizes’ his analysis as consistent with an idealized form of Marxism-Leninism (Morrow 2013: 73). By contrast, the first and final periods are marked by a ‘nonrevolutionary theory of democratic praxis’ (ibid.). The revolutionary spirit of Freire’s middle period can be read as a reflection of the conditions in which he was living and the context in which he was writing. The political context of Latin America at the time appeared so strongly anchored that nothing short of a revolutionary change would undermine the oppressive military elites holding power. Freire saw revolution as the only realistic way in which Brazil could reject the dictatorship and return to democratic values. However, as the context changed and the scope was extended for alternative forms of action, he came to see revolution as less realistic and the prospects of nonrevolutionary democratic action became more realistic. By reinterpreting Freire in a nonrevolutionary era, we can read him as promoting a broader range of possibilities described as ‘cultural action for freedom’ rather than the narrower category of ‘revolutionary cultural action’ (Morrow 2013: 80). In our current context, we are able to leave the revolutionary chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed to one side and focus instead on the broader range of democratic practices that may emerge from Freire’s process of conscientization. It is this reconceptualization of ‘revolution’ from sacred principle to mere pragmatic possibility in a given context which enables us to focus on those core educational processes envisaged by Freire. We can see a glimpse of this in the case study that follows of the Landless Movement which demonstrates how alternative educational structures can be radical if they are built on humanistic values and embedded in the collective experience of the community.

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Case Study 5  The Landless Movement, Brazil The Movement of Landless Rural Workers or ‘Landless Movement’ is one of the largest and most influential social movements in Latin America and functions in twenty-three of Brazil’s twenty-seven states. The movement grew in a context of huge inequalities in landownership, where 50 per cent of the land is owned by 1 per cent of the population, while 4.5 million people are landless peasants. According to the Brazilian Constitution idle farmland must be allocated to land reform, and the Landless Movement has developed a programme of land occupation, where families squat on land in order to expedite its formal reallocation. During the period of occupation, the movement mobilizes cooperation to support the families. A system of 1,500 schools has developed as part of the movement to ensure that the children of the occupying families are educated, as well as helping the adults to become literate. As the movement exists to pursue land reform and social justice, the schools themselves are based on this overtly political platform. Drawing on Freirean inspiration, the schools reject the ‘banking’ system of education in favour of ‘constructing a popular, democratic, flexible, dialogical school, a space for a holistic human development in movement’ (Landless Movement School documents quoted in McCowan 2009: 118). The education system which has emerged can only be understood as part of the movement, and some of the schools even follow the students when families move on. McCowan’s (2009) research analyses the Landless Movement’s school programmes in terms of the congruence between their aims and proposed curriculum/teaching approach and then also examines what happens on the ground. This gives some insight into the movement’s ‘politico-pedagogy’ which aims, like Freire, not to replace one form of oppression with another but to build ‘a new type of power’ and to transform ‘those “torn from the land” and “poor in every way” into citizens, prepared to fight for a dignified place in history’ (Landless Movement School documents quoted in McCowan 2009: 122). In this movement, citizens have to be ready to fight for their rights, rather than expect them to be provided by others or the state. In CRE terms the focus is on building people’s sense of themselves as agents who can contribute to the struggle for rights. In the schools that form part of the movement, there is a recognizable and fairly traditional curriculum structure, with subjects such as maths, science, Portuguese and history. However, these subjects are also intended to be sites for exploring various aspects of the movement’s political education, so history might be used to explore the various forms of oppression and inequality that have emerged, and maths lessons might help students to understand how inflation erodes living standards. Schools also focus on being spaces for open



    

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dialogue and discussion of political issues. Clearly the Landless Movement does not adopt an ideologically neutral values position, and so it is remarkable that McCowan’s observations and interviews recorded a very open attitude, with teachers focusing on helping students ‘construct their consciousness, their knowledge’ (teacher interviewed by McCowan 2009: 140). One student, who had moved from a regular school to a school within the movement, felt that her previous school acted as though they ‘don’t want the children to have a clear vision of what’s happening in the country … Here in the school you can speak to teachers … this school has made me grow a lot as a person’ (student interviewed by McCowan 2009: 141). This reflects the sentiment in General Comment 1 from the Committee on the Rights of the Child which recognizes it is important to focus on the child’s own community when learning about children’s rights (UNCRC 2001:  para. 11). It also reflects Lundy’s (2007) assertion that Article 12 of the Convention requires adults to provide the information and create the opportunities for young people to develop their own informed opinions. Schools also promote political action, both in relation to decision-making in the school and involvement in wider political activity, for example, students learn through their political activity within the wider movement, through protest, occupations and acts of solidarity for others. As McCowan observes, in such activities there is no separation between the means and ends, the students learn through doing and being, they are citizens and political agents in the movement, and have the opportunity to learn more about this through dialogue and the curriculum. McCowan reported examples of students feeling proud of the movement, their parents’ part in the struggle and expressing the sentiment that they would ‘never be ashamed’ of where they came from (student interviewed by McCowan 2009: 147).

Education for Transformation As well as providing us with grounds for questioning the general thrust of education policy in many countries, it is important that the advocates of CRE do not feel they can only lobby or wait for systemic change to align with CRE. Freire’s educational practices demonstrate that, even in difficult circumstances, pedagogic practices can be transformational. To bring this chapter to a close we outline six ways in which education can be transformational, each of which reflects an aspect of Freire’s work and each of which is open to teachers to adopt, to whatever extent is plausible in their contexts.

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Transformative Knowledge Given that the day-to-day life of a teacher involves the basic communication, application and evaluation of information, we start with the issue of knowledge. Transformative academic knowledge is one of five types of knowledge identified by James Banks drawing on feminist scholarship to highlight the importance of positionality (Banks 1996, 2012; Harding 2000; Code 2014). When scholars and scientists construct knowledge, they are doing so from a perspective that is hugely influenced by who they are. Aspects of their identity including their gender, race, social class, age, religion and sexual orientation as well as their political opinions and beliefs determine or at least impinge on their production. Whereas science, including social science, may intend to be neutral and unbiased, all knowledge reflects the power and social relationships within society and may therefore be, in Freire’s terms, oppressive. Transformative academic knowledge has been defined as consisting of ‘concepts, paradigms, themes, and explanations that challenge mainstream academic knowledge and that expand the historical and literary canon’ (Banks 2012:  1306). Scholars working in this tradition are committed to action to improve society and promote social justice. In addition, there has been a renewed interest in knowledge in the context of curriculum studies (Young and Muller 2013). The argument is that rather than just focusing on the sociological question, whose knowledge is encoded in the curriculum? (a question which generally elicits critical commentary about the curriculum as a means of social control); we might also fruitfully return to the more basic question, what makes some knowledge particularly powerful? This means returning to our underlying subject knowledge as being in itself powerful because this knowledge enables us to see the world in new ways. This general challenge has been applied to human rights by Parker (2018), who argues (following Vygotsky) that we need to differentiate between everyday concepts and scientific concepts, and challenges human rights educators to be clearer about how we help students to build that powerful knowledge. For example, once a child has learned about the concept of power in a way which is properly informed by politics and sociology, they can use it to link disparate examples of homelessness, party politics, media campaigns and bullying. They can see how power exists within structures and relationships, and they can start to see how strategies of disruption which have worked in other (ostensibly unrelated) areas can be adapted in their own circumstances. On this view, building our



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conceptual understanding of the world from our perspectives as citizens and human rights defenders helps us make new connections. Knowledge of what it means to be a citizen and an understanding of human rights enable us to see the world differently.

Transforming One’s World View It follows that what we learn can transform our entire world view. As an example, in the 1960s there was a campaign to ensure that African Americans in the southern United States were registered to vote. In Mississippi this was accompanied by alternative Freedom Schools. A young activist, Charles Cobb, developed a special Freedom Curriculum aimed to encourage students to ‘ask their teachers a real question’ and ‘make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities and to find alternatives and ultimately new directions for action’ (Levinson 2012: 293). The Freedom Schools campaign opened up a space, denied in the regular school provision, to learn about rights. One of the participants, Unita Blackwell, recalled: Students came to talk about that we had a right to register to vote, we had a right to stand up for our rights. That’s a whole new era for us. I mean hadn’t anybody said that to us, in that open way. (Hampton and Fayer 1990: 193)

Unita’s world view was transformed by her educational experience, as expressed in her assertion that it opened up ‘a whole new era for us’. She previously had been unaware of her constitutional right to vote in elections and had consequently perhaps resigned herself to effectively being a second-class citizen. Voting opened up the possibility of people like her having some say in political decisions and being able to influence to some extent the world around her. In other words, serious transformative education transforms not just one little bit of knowledge but our whole frame for making sense of the world. In CRE perhaps this might happen if we can help students understand that human rights are not simply ‘delivered’ by the UN or by states, but that they are actually rooted in ongoing processes of human rights activism and challenge. It might be common for children to learn what rights they have, by studying the UDHR or UNCRC, and this information can be transformational if a child decides to challenge an injustice because they have learned about their rights. It would be transformational of their whole world view if the child came to understand

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rights as part of an ongoing struggle to define, shape and influence rights. In an evaluation report of the Speak Truth to Power project, one of the conclusions was that teaching with a focus on rights activism enables the students to acknowledge human rights as a standard to aspire to, understand why people are often denied those rights, and rather than be despondent, to see human rights defending as a process to pursue to improve people’s lives. (Jerome 2017: 5)

Transforming Agency A key aim of rights education is to ensure young people develop a sense of agency or political self-efficacy. This third possible type of individual transformation is about coming to a sense of self-belief and self-awareness about living in and interacting with the wider society. This involves consideration of the political life of our communities and identifying the kinds of activities that can be most beneficial. The ability to engage and the belief that one can and should are essential aspects of self-efficacy. We have previously cited Al-Nakib’s (2017) account of a Kuwaiti teacher who helped her students to recognize that they did not always have to ask permission for everything in school and that they were entitled to engage in unsanctioned action where this did not inhibit the rights of others. In this way she gradually built her own and her students’ capacity to defend or demand rights, including expecting responses from those in power. This illustrates two of the key aims for CRE, namely, to develop education through rights-respecting processes and to promote education for human rights. One analysis of international data suggests that young people gaining higher level academic qualifications are more likely to engage in forms of political activity than those who only complete lower level vocational education. In other words, education may help to reproduce inequalities of political agency (Hoskins and Janmaat 2016). On the other hand, there is evidence from England that if young people experience some form of civic participation in schools, this can have a lasting effect on their political agency (Keating and Janmaat 2016). A  study in the Dominican Republic concluded similarly that an HRE project linked to local issues led to an increased sense of agency among the students and a belief that they could intervene to help resolve conflicts. When such projects focus consistently on the ways that they impact on students’ self-conception they are in a position to equip



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students, professionals and entire communities with the tools necessary for selfdetermination and community action in the face of increasing challenges to the achievement of all human rights for all people. (Bajaj 2004: 34)

This reinforces our key theme that teachers and children can learn to exercise (and build) their agency, even in challenging circumstances.

Transforming Classrooms and Schools CRE practices have the potential to transform the classroom and the school, especially in terms of sharing responsibility and agency more widely. Initiatives such as student councils, student voice, students interviewing and observing staff, students being consulted on curriculum reform are examples of ways in which school practices can be transformed. Such a commitment has led to the creation of some radically transformed institutions, such as the famous Summerhill School where staff and students work together as (almost) equal members of a community and where there is an emphasis on ‘liberating’ children from adult authority. A more mainstream approach can be developed when children’s agency is imagined on a continuum, as being ‘thickened’ or ‘thinned’ in particular contexts. Teachers can reflect on their practice and remove unnecessary constraints in order to build children’s capacity to assume greater agency in their education (Tisdall and Punch 2012). Freire’s significant insight here is to caution us against assuming unquestioningly the right of adults to hold authority over children. A conservative strand of thought seeks to maintain the position that the teacher’s authority must be unquestioned and wide ranging (Furedi 2009; Kitchen 2014). However, building on Freire we recognize that it is useful to differentiate between different forms of authority. For example, it is legitimate to acknowledge teachers’ authority in relation to the knowledge to be acquired, but this is distinct from other forms of authority, which may function to oppress students. In the context of educating adults in the community (which was Freire’s initial concern), it may be possible to imagine a more complete mutuality between the teacher and the student in the process of education, but in schools there is always an imbalance in power between actors, which cannot be simply wished away (Noddings 2013). If we try to ignore this, we risk alienating our students through hypocrisy because we are talking about equality while inevitably occupying a privileged position of authority. In response we may take as a principle that teachers should always reflect on the assumptions they are about to make when they are going to

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assert their authority in the classroom and the extent to which this is justifiable and necessary. Children’s capacity to exercise agency develops over time and differs between contexts and so the teacher must be sensitive to the changing balance over time and tasks. This means teachers should also commit to their own role in developing children’s capacity for greater agency, and this in turn rests on us rejecting the false binary that children either do or do not have the capacity to exercise agency. We embrace the more subtle notion that, depending on the context, teachers can make judgements and interventions which serve to gradually increase children’s agency. At the very least Freire’s promotion of mutuality should lead us to be open and honest with children about the nature of our authority, the limits on that authority and the conditions in which such parameters can be challenged or reviewed. This may sound onerous, but in reality, it is about ensuring that the teacher is working within explicit and shared professional rules, in much the same way we expect children to work within class or school rules. For example, a teacher might recognize that, while it may be appropriate to intervene when a child is speaking to clarify a misunderstanding, that is very different from arrogating the right to routinely challenge their opinion in a class debate.

Transforming Learning Another way in which we may seek to transform education is by turning old established models of learning and teaching on their head. Since students often learn effectively through experience, CRE can benefit from active pedagogies that go beyond sitting in rows and taking notes, a form of pedagogy that is still widespread. CRE may require students to be involved in political campaigns to understand how campaigning works. They need to use their literacy skills to communicate with those in power and thereby come to understand how officials and elected representatives operate and may be influenced. Engagement with fighting injustice may involve solidarity with activists around the world. Therefore, teachers should expect to be working beyond the school walls, so students can get out into the community and community members are invited into the classroom. For example, School 21 in London has taught children Spanish while they campaign for Latin American migrant workers’ rights in their borough (School 21 2020). Over the year, students researched human rights abuses in Spanish-speaking countries, as well as looking into the issues faced by the Latin American community in Newham, their local area of London. They created a campaign around their chosen cause that involved students working



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together to produce bilingual campaign material such as a pitch, a campaign leaflet, a campaign letter, memes, a website and an online petition. They worked with locally based NGOs such as Redlines and the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS). The project culminated in a Human Rights Day of Action when the students launched their campaigns at targeted locations across London. They had to engage with members of the public to inform and persuade, deliver campaign letters to key stakeholders and perform a media stunt, all of which involved the use of advanced English and Spanish oracy skills. Although we believe that doing is a powerful basis for learning, we also need to think about how to facilitate the processes through which learning can be distilled from the experience. This might involve studying the various models of the experiential learning cycle, engaging with the service learning tradition, or thinking about the role of reflection in our practice. As we have argued consistently in this chapter and in the book as a whole, learning from experience cannot be educationally neutral, and there are ideological considerations to bear in mind when deciding how to set up and manage such projects (Westheimer and Kahne 2004).

Learning to Transform Society We come then to perhaps the most contentious meaning of the notion of transformative rights education, namely, an education which seeks to contribute to a broader process of social transformation. Many advocates of this position follow Freire (1970) in his analysis that (a) schools function as mechanisms of oppression, and it follows that teachers act as oppressors; that (b) we need to tackle this situation through pursuit of some radical change; and that (c) through developing a new enlightened form of political consciousness, the education system has the potential to remove the scales from the eyes of the oppressed and enable them to build an alternative society. On this view education either serves to maintain the inequality which mars our society or it acts as a disruptive force. It cannot remain neutral. While this is the most exciting project for teachers, because it enables us to see our everyday teaching practices as radical acts of transformation, it also raises some profound questions, such as the following: How do we justify our pursuit of a particular form of politics? How do we deal with the inherently oppositional political role this assigns us? Does this mean we have to organize ourselves as a political force, rather than a profession? How would such an educator relate to their communities and stakeholders? How do we engage with diverse political opinions? We encourage readers of this book

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to use its theoretical and practical dimensions to work out their own responses to such questions. Many other scholars provide case studies and theoretical perspectives that can inform our thinking and our practice (Ladson-Billings and Tate 2006; Apple 2013; Osler 2016; Bajaj 2017; Banks 2017). Transforming society can also happen one step at a time. Once we separate Freire from the notion of a sudden (and potentially violent) revolution and we return to the idea of radical democratic change, then small actions that embody the spirit of transformation can be recognized as equally valuable. In a democracy, we will not achieve transformational change unless a majority is built around this commitment. In turn, the majority is unlikely to emerge unless people see, and recognize, small acts of change. This means that individual acts can resonate within communities. In a vivid example, children felt empowered to intervene when, having learnt about human rights at school, they heard about a potential threat of female infanticide in their rural Indian community. They formed a group and visited the parents of a newborn girl. Their pleadings with the mother to refrain from harming the baby were met with an assault by the father but they persisted: He scolded us and slapped us. We told [him] that the child also has a right to life, you should not kill the child. We said, ‘If you are going to kill the child, we will complain to the police, we won’t move from this area. We will stand here and watch what you are doing with this child.’ (Bajaj 2012a: 77)

Their persistence paid off as they monitored the welfare of the child to the point where the child reached school age and was out of danger.

Conclusion To summarize, if we seek to adapt Freire’s pedagogy to contemporary society, as he intended, then there are four essential principles. First, we need to bring in tensions from the community to the classroom so that students have the opportunity to wrestle with real problems. CRE must be relevant to the real lives of children, including learners. Second, teachers need to engage in critical analysis of themselves and others and help students to think critically beyond the personal and interpersonal and to engage with the reality of power structures that facilitate and constrain our lives. Third, consciousness-raising should involve transforming personal perspectives and seek to connect individual experiences and concerns to broader social justice principles. This will form the basis of a



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broader empathy and facilitate alliance building. Fourth, education should also seek individual empowerment and build students’ political understanding so they can develop strategic actions (Tibbitts 2005b). Thinking with Freire opens up a range of challenging and exciting ideas that can inform the development of a pedagogy for CRE. In the next chapter, we reflect on two contrasting educationalists and explore some of the ways in which thinking with Dewey and Freinet might offer up further thoughts for developing CRE.

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Introduction Following the United Nations (UN) Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UN General Assembly 2011)  we agree that children’s rights education (CRE) can be thought of in terms of teaching about children’s rights, teaching through children’s rights and teaching for children’s rights. This chapter focuses on teaching through children’s rights. It explores ways in which classrooms can be arranged and organized such that they embody the principles underpinning the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Our starting point is the thinking and writing of two highly influential educationalists both born in the nineteenth century and who produced their most important work in the first half of the twentieth century, namely John Dewey (1859–1952) and Célestin Freinet (1896–1966). Their ideas have been taken up and put into practice across the world, and both have inspired thousands of teachers. Freinet, indeed, has given his name to an institutionalized, well-organized and lively teacher-based international pedagogical movement. Dewey societies and special interest groups, on the other hand, are more likely to attract scholars and academics who focus on ideas as much as on practice.

Dewey and Freinet Dewey was an American philosopher, who as director of the University of Chicago Laboratory School from 1896 to 1904 put some of his key ideas into practice. He spelt out the political philosophy that underpinned his school in a brief article where education is ‘the fundamental method of social progress and

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reform’ (Dewey 1897: 80). The key emphasis is the conviction that children are social beings and that the social context of education is its very essence. As he put it, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction. (Dewey 1897: 78)

Thus, the school is ‘a form of community life’ where teachers select the influences that may stimulate children and help them in responding to these influences. Dewey used his practical experience as a school leader to set the agenda for his educational thinking. He developed an original educational philosophy grounded in the concept of democracy. His seminal work Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916) was published during the cataclysmic period of the First World War after which he sought out and contributed to educational developments in revolutionary times. He worked in Soviet Russia, Mexico and China. In China (1919–21) Dewey supported the May Fourth Movement for political, cultural and educational change. During his stay he gave seventy-eight courses, some of which had fifteen to twenty lectures. All of these were published at the time, resulting in a dozen substantial books. His star quality was such that the minister of education at the time of his visit Cai Yuanpei made a speech in which he suggested that Dewey was a better model than Confucius (Schulte 2012). Freinet, on the other hand, was a French primary school teacher who carefully recorded, theorized and disseminated his educational principles. Freinet grew up in rural southern France, leaving his village to start training as a primary school teacher at a time when access to secondary education and university was prohibitively expensive. He was called up to fight in the First World War at age 19 and was wounded, invalided out with a serious lung condition spending four years of convalescence. After the war he was appointed as teacher in a two-class village school where he pioneered a child-centred pedagogy built on children’s publications. This experiment led to him developing his signature active learning approaches, formal cooperative structures at class and school level, class and school exchanges and an international perspective. What both have in common is that they offer a vision of utopia, that is, a better world to be created through education and gradually realized in the future (da Cunha 2016). This positions teachers in a potentially central role and certainly emphasizes the importance of developing a coherent pedagogy. Rather than asserting a blueprint for a utopian state and then deriving a model



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of education from it, Dewey saw the ideal state as defined by processes, which could be incorporated into schooling. On this view, it is not possible to establish in any a priori fashion what the ideal distribution of resources might be or what kind of culture should be promoted, rather we should focus on the nature of democracy as a means by which people come together, learn from one another and hammer out their best solutions in their specific context. All of these are only provisional and therefore liable to change in the future, should citizens decide a new solution is better. This means the processes become the heart of the utopian vision, and so therefore, it makes sense for schooling to promote these processes. A process model of utopia can avoid prescribing unchanging ends, and become an impetus for continued growth … When we structure our experience in regard to final ends … there is an increased risk that our participation will be subjugated to the needs of the end … When we structure our experience in terms of ends-in-view … our participation is more likely to remain primary, and particular ends-in-view will be sought only as they satisfy our needs. (McKenna 2001: 89)

This also implies a deep-seated commitment to pragmatism. What is right in any given situation must be discussed and agreed through these democratic processes; they cannot simply be assumed from tradition or authority. Both Dewey and Freinet challenged the educational orthodoxies of their times. Both put the child at the centre of their educational vision and project. Both developed approaches to learning and ways of interacting in the school and the classroom that broke away from the simple and simplistic transmission model with its emphasis on teaching. Instead they offered a focus on learning, and this as a communal and cooperative activity. Both also situated schools and learning within a wider international education community, thus challenging nationalistic discourses that narrowed rather than opened perspectives for children. Their child-centred approach was not individualistic. They advocated for children working together and working with rather than for their teachers. For Dewey the key word was democracy. For Freinet it was cooperation. Both concepts involve living and working together for a common aim and a better future. For both of them the overriding principle was communication. This is the essential principle both of democracy and of cooperation. When education prioritizes communication between all partners within a school community and with the wider world, many other issues of social justice and rights fall into

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place. It is for this reason that advocates and practitioners of CRE across the world find much inspiration and practical guidance in the writings of these two figures and the movements they have inspired. Since the CRC was universally endorsed following its publication in 1989, educators in the Freinet tradition refer to the CRC when they promote children as citizens (Le Gal 1999). In so doing they build on the traditions of a movement that has always foregrounded children. For the 30th anniversary of the CRC in 2019 the French Freinet-inspired movement  – the Office Central pour la Coopération à l’École (Central Office for Cooperation at School or OCCE)  – launched a major campaign to ensure the implementation of the Convention in French schools, providing materials and newsletters and promoting UNICEF materials. They also worked with the French ombudsman (Défenseur des Droits) on a listening exercise whose results were published in a book of children’s views on topics such as equality, health, online issues, violence, family life, education, freedom of expression, knowledge of rights.

Dewey and Democracy in Education John Dewey identified two key criteria for a democratic society that he applied to education. Dewey’s first criterion for democracy is that the society has ‘a large number of values in common’ ([1916] 2002: 97). This can be developed when ‘all the members of the group … have an equable opportunity to receive and to take from others’. In other words, democracy is a process where there are opportunities for maximizing communication between individuals and groups. The process of listening and discussing leads to some common understandings and agreements on the procedures for settlings conflicts and differences. The creation, many years after Dewey’s seminal work, of the UN and the drafting and recognition of key human rights instruments including the CRC provided a common basis for discussing contentious issues and developing procedures to resolve them. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has addressed this in their General Comment No.1, where they acknowledge that Article 29 of the UNCRC includes a diverse set of values to be promoted through education although they ‘might be thought to be in conflict with one another’ (paragraph 4). Their resolution is to argue that these tensions can only be reconciled through ‘dialogue and respect for difference’ and, like Dewey, they also express the faith that rather than being shielded from such tensions, ‘children are capable of playing a unique role’ in bridging many of these differences.



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Dewey argued that in a ‘democratically constituted society’, which can be a school or another social unit including a nation, social control is achieved as a result of a consensus about shared aims and values rather than through coercion. Rather than being a result of school discipline or a justice system based on policing, democratic societies flourish when they have common aims and values. For example, schools can develop a democratic culture when all members are aware of their human rights and of children’s rights. It is expected that debate and discussion about the implications of these rights will enable a democratic and human rights culture to prevail.

Case Study 6  Reconciling LGBT+ rights and the right to religious freedom In the UK tensions have arisen between some communities’ wishes to protect and promote their distinctive religious ethos, and recognition of equality for LGBT+ people. On the face of it this seems to be one of the intractable issues where rights clash and where the law might be needed to judge the limits of each type of freedom. But schools are on the front line of such tensions, especially where the school is a faith school, and have therefore committed to promote a particular religious ethos. Where that religion regards homosexuality as a sin, how can the school find a way forward, which recognizes the rights of everyone? In England this became a more urgent question in 2019 when new guidance on Relationships and Sex Education was published. One organization, ‘Educate and Celebrate’, has run a project to explore whether and how these tensions can be reconciled through dialogue, as the Committee on the Rights of the Child and Dewey might argue. They ran a project in a number of faith schools to explore how teachers could be supported to engage with children and parents in productive dialogue to avoid the problem becoming divisive. Anna Carlile, who evaluated the project, spoke to teachers, parents and children throughout the project and in reflecting on the way forward argued that the best way to address the issue is to frame the debate within the UK’s Equality Act (2010). This places a positive duty on schools to advance equality of opportunity, eliminate discrimination and foster good relations between people. In this legislation a number of protected characteristics are identified, which include religion or belief, sexual orientation, sex and gender reassignment. Rather than frame the debate in terms of competing values and ideas about what is right or wrong, Carlile argued that talking to people about how their protected characteristic is protected by the very same law that

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protects others helps to open up a space for dialogue based on empathy and mutual recognition. One of the teachers in the research described her feelings after a conversation with a concerned parent: Obviously, anything that you educate your son with at home, I don’t get involved in that. He was like, ‘That’s fine.’ … Obviously, to them, if they do feel that strongly about it I have to respect that. It’s a different culture, it’s a different religion. I think it must be really sad if you really, genuinely believed that your son would be going to hell if he was gay. That must be a fear that you have. If that’s something that you believe and then you think, ‘Oh goodness, they’re being corrupted by this woman.’ That must be a genuine fear. I do respect that. For one child, the discussions precipitated a family conversation between his older brothers and their father: We had a family meeting and my brothers talked to my dad about it. When my dad knew about the Equality Act protecting us because we are Muslim as well as protecting LGBT people he was ok about it; he said school was just telling us about the people we might meet in the world.

    

While on the face of it this seems like an almost impossible clash of fundamental values, the evaluation concludes that framing the discussion as a rights issue actually helps to create the space to work towards a compromise position. In the spirit of Deweyan democracy, no one group imposes their view on another, but both find a way forward. Source: Carlile (2018, 2020).

Dewey’s second criterion for a democratic society is that there should be free association and interaction within and between communities. The ideal is that all perspectives including those of minorities find expression and are taken into consideration. This provides opportunities to continuously revisit habits, processes and procedures. Interaction between groups helps to develop new perspectives and encourages new experiences. With support and encouragement, it develops skills of intercultural evaluation (Hall 2000). Intercultural evaluation requires the exercise of judgement about a situation or event using the universal criteria of human rights. This provides a language and concepts that enable the identification both of democracy, peace and freedoms on the one hand and the naming of injustice, discrimination and oppression where these are manifest.



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A democratic education therefore suggests that there is a strong argument for comprehensive education. This is because segregation, whether within or between schools, leads to the impoverishment of the communication and dialogue that are possible among the members of a school community. Democratic schools provide opportunities for students to work collaboratively on tasks in a range of diverse groups. The tasks are shared experiences and they are the occasion for discussion, negotiation, dialogue and communication. Democratic schools also provide opportunities for dialogue between school leaders and administrators, governors, teachers, ancillary staff and students. Democratic schools are outwardlooking and value links and exchanges with other organizations. The school curriculum reflects this outward-looking approach. The Freinet movement supports schools to develop as such democratic- and rights-respecting schools. Democratic dialogue in schools is an opportunity for all concerned to examine their values and their behaviours and to be responsive to the perspectives of others. Dewey’s vision is of a cosmopolitan democracy in which the horizons of all members are constantly extended by opportunities to learn from those from other backgrounds. He concludes: A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity. (Dewey [1916] 2002: 101)

In other words, in a democracy, the principle of reciprocity is fundamental. A citizen is required both to ‘refer his own action to that of others’ and also ‘to consider the action of others’. Citizens are aware both of the impact of their own actions and of ways in which the behaviour and lifestyle of others may enrich their own. Democracy requires ‘the breaking down of barriers of class, race, and national territory’. The cosmopolitan democracy needs to be nurtured in school. Dewey’s vision is internationalist. Writing during a world war, he recognizes that this will require teachers to engage with controversial issues: It is not enough to teach the horrors of war and to avoid everything which would stimulate international jealousy and animosity. The emphasis must be on whatever binds people together in cooperative human pursuits and results, apart from geographical limitations. (Dewey [1916] 2002: 114)

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The emphasis is on our common humanity. Schools are democratic insofar as they provide opportunities for all participants to learn from one another. Such schools have been said to ‘take rights seriously as living ever-present realities which can only be addressed with integrity by people within relationships of mutual respect’ (Alderson 1999: 196). This has been rearticulated by Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen as a universal principle. He argues that ‘the practice of democracy gives citizens an opportunity to learn from one another, and helps society to form its values and priorities’ (Sen 1999: 12). Democracy in schools depends on creating trust and respect. Democracy as a fundamental principle of education may be in tension with authoritarian school structures, but it does not necessarily threaten legitimate authority or undermine behaviour policies. Research suggests that increased student participation is, in fact, likely to enhance discipline (Osler 2000; Taylor with Johnson 2002; Ekholm 2004). This is particularly the case when discipline is conceptualized in line with the principles of the CRC (Durrant and Stewart-Tufescu 2017). Within democratic schools there will be opportunity for teachers and managers to explain their perspectives and the reasons, for example, for specific school rules and procedures. This does not mean relinquishing authority. Teachers and school managers have the responsibility to exercise their authority in the interests of improving educational opportunities for all children. Democratic schools are likely to be more effective in a number of respects. Some pragmatic reasons are as follows: • rules are better kept by staff and students if democratically agreed • communications are enhanced • greater control by staff and students leads to an increased sense of responsibility • consideration of a range of internal and external interests and options enhances decision-making. (Harber 1995: 11)

Dewey’s view of knowledge is also profoundly democratic. All kinds of knowledge, whether academic or practical, is developed through interactions with others and with the external world. Knowledge comes from discussion, observation, experimenting, making hypotheses, testing them, reflection and action. In short knowledge is the result of experimental inquiry (Boyte 2017). In much of his writings Dewey was concerned to move beyond simplistic binaries, such as the knowledge/skills debate. He argued that we need to test thought by action if thought is to pass over into knowledge. This means that adults and children learn through dealing with problems that arise in the course of



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their activities, but this should not be seen as devaluing the role of knowledge, because knowledge is accrued from the learning derived through this process. This insight was shared by Célestin Freinet whose work and legacy are based on applying democratic building of knowledge within a cooperative framework.

Freinet, Cooperation and Education Freinet was essentially a school teacher with a vision of education that brought him into conflict with the social conditions and poverty of rural France and the rigid educational structures of the national education system dictated from Paris. He was an avid reader of educational books translated into French including the work of John Dewey. He was also a prolific correspondent. In his summer holidays in the early 1920s he visited successively Germany, Switzerland and the Soviet Union and by 1927 had launched his own pedagogical movement that essentially survives to this day. Freinet was an activist and a great networker, organizing conferences to share his pedagogical insights initially alongside meetings of one of the teachers’ unions. In 1923 he wrote an article promoting the ideas of John Dewey to the effect that schools should become places that engage with the life of the society around them in order to make a difference for the better (Barré 2008). From the mid-1930s when he had left school teaching to devote himself to his movement, he brought together like-minded progressive educators from around the world at an annual convention. In this way although he spoke and read only French, he was in touch with the leading child-centred educators of the time whose writings he read in translation. Freinet inspired and was instrumental in organizing a pedagogical movement that is still highly effective in France and influential in many countries across the world, claiming to teach 5 million children in 4,500 cooperative classes. In 1947, following the Second World War Freinet founded the Freinet movement through a new organization: the Co-operative Institute for the Modern School (Institut coopératif de l’École moderne  – pédagogie Freinet (ICEM). Both the earlier Central Office for Cooperation at School (OCCE) and ICEM support the thousands of teachers who run Freinet classes. The movements are officially recognized, and they provide training and support online and at training events and conferences as well as publishing materials and learning sequences. One of their most thriving groups is the children’s rights group.

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Constrained by a cramped, drafty, rural classroom, Freinet developed his pedagogy in reaction to what he perceived to be oppressive structures. Finding the prescribed class textbooks and readers uninspiring, he worked with children to develop their own texts, the best of which were selected by the children in a form of democratic process and then printed and distributed. Reacting to the formal abstract history, geography and science curriculum, Freinet took his children outside the classroom on exploratory walks to observe nature and agriculture and bring back lively observations and questions that could be written up and also printed. Finding the mandated dictation and copying exercises to be stultifying, he promoted a more active engagement with accuracy in finalizing the printed texts. His dislike of the expected authoritarian model of teacher-imposed discipline led to the development of structures such as the democratically conceived class council and cooperative that rely on respect for others and generate an intrinsic motivation (Beattie 2002). There are three central aspects of the Freinet tradition: • the organization of school life based on individual and collective responsibility; • acquiring knowledge through personal research and through cooperation in research, also in confronting one’s conclusions with those of others; • engaging the school with its surrounding community, educating citizens (Legrand 1996). The first of these leads through the second to the third. The class and school organization enable cooperative research and project work which encourage interaction with the community and translate as active education of citizens. We can note, then, that the Freinet movement is essentially about citizenship education.

Distinctive Pedagogies Freinet’s pedagogical model, derived from the practical day-to-day experience of encouraging and stimulating rural children working in relatively spartan conditions, can be expressed positively as five key approaches: • The teacher should be a friendly facilitator, not a disciplinarian. • Schools and classrooms are part of a community and a wider world. • Children learn better when their motivation is intrinsic.



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• Children experience freedom when they are able to participate. • Children gain in self-confidence through participation (Acker 2000, 2007). These key beliefs underpin Freinet’s six key named pedagogical insights, which are: • Pedagogy of Work (Pédagogie du travail): learning by making useful products or providing useful services; • Cooperative Learning (Travail coopératif): cooperation in the productive process; • Enquiry-based Learning (Tâtonnement expérimental): a trial and error method involving group work; • The Natural Method (Méthode naturelle): an inductive, global approach; • Centres of Interest (Complexe d’intérêt): building on children’s learning interests and curiosity; • The formal presentation (la conférence d’enfant) (Schlemminger 1997). These named approaches combine and are applied in the practical working of a Freinet school. One of Freinet’s earliest experiments was with getting children to learn printing. While it is possible to find earlier examples of printing presses in schools, dating back to the eighteenth century, Freinet’s use of printing was not vocational or technical but pedagogical. It is an example of prioritizing communication as a motivating and also a democratic force. Early-twentiethcentury French primary schoolchildren, like children in many parts of the world in the twenty-first century, were expected to learn from textbooks and memorize notes and indeed chunks of text. The textbook is presented to children as an almost unquestionable source of authority. As well as being officially provided and endorsed, the authority of the textbook partially stems from the apparent permanence of the printed book. This contrasts with writing on the chalkboard (or modern whiteboard) that can be easily erased and that disappears without trace. A Freinet approach offers children the opportunity to make their own printed texts and thus to demystify the printed word. Printing was so important to Freinet’s pedagogy that Printing at School (L’Imprimerie à l’École) was the title of his first book (1926) and also of a journal he founded. Given that so many features of a Freinet approach are encapsulated in his work with printing, it is not surprising that the book appeared in several editions and was also incorporated into the definitive account of his thinking published at the end of the Second

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World War (Freinet [1945] 1975). This fundamental questioning of the ways that authority can be reproduced in education indicates how significant political insights may well have quite ordinary pedagogic implications. It also resonates with Freire’s motivation to enable peasants to see themselves as the active producers of culture, as the beginning of their formal education. It continues with the Committee on the Rights of the Child which argued that taking children’s rights seriously in education would entail ‘the systematic revision of textbooks and other teaching materials’ (paragraph 18). A Freinet learning sequence builds on several of his insights about children’s learning. A starting point is that children are taken out of the classroom and into the natural and built environment. These (nature) walks provide opportunities to observe closely, to record and to ask questions. Children are participating in their learning rather than being bound to their desks. They get to choose the topics of enquiry and this stimulates curiosity and generates enthusiasm and motivation. In an example provided by Freinet himself, children found some snails and decided to set up a snail race which provoked much excitement. They came back to the class with lots of questions and an eagerness to discuss what they had observed. The blackboard was covered with phrases, scientific words and drawings until at the end of the day the board was wiped clean and the learning experience risked being lost too. Freinet’s response was to invest in a small movable-type printing press so that reports and records could be produced, kept, discussed and shared. This enabled a teaching sequence to be developed whereby returning to the class from a nature walk the children work in groups finding answers to their questions and producing accounts of their findings. These reports are shared with others in the class and discussed. The most interesting report, as judged by the children, is then prepared for printing. The printed copies can then be read, used, displayed and disseminated. They can also be combined into booklets and brochures and made available to other children and to parents. An early additional dimension was to develop exchanges of these materials with other schools, at first locally but soon internationally. The preparation for printing demands a copy editor or newspaper subeditor’s meticulous attention to detail. Spelling mistakes must be avoided. The aesthetic look and feel must be considered. Once in print the text takes on a certain authority and given that the authors are children this builds both their selfconfidence and their critical faculties. Underlying this approach is the notion of writing for an audience. Writing is no longer just a question of copying or of answering decontextualized questions, but rather it is genuine communication,



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requiring creativity, accuracy, precision and empathy. It results in a product (Freinet’s ‘pedagogy of work’); requires cooperation; builds on children’s centres of interest; and uses an inductive and holistic approach. When accompanied by exchanges of materials with other schools, this process situates the school within a wider community of other schools, nationally and internationally. Writing in 1926 the editor of Le Temps newspaper headlined Freinet’s approach of ‘bringing Gutenberg to the classroom’. He observed that ‘the child feels a strong and lasting bond with his ideas when he sees them printed’ and continued that, as writers for an audience, children ‘must choose the correct words carefully and respectfully since many readers respect and are in awe of the power of the printed word’ (quoted in Acker 2007: 20). The learning sequence based on printing has of course been adapted to the computer and internet age. Reports may now more easily include photographs, tables and diagrams but the excitement of seeing and sharing the finished booklet or pdf file is undimmed.

Case Study 7  Young reporters for the environment The Foundation for Environmental Education in Denmark runs a programme encouraging young people to report on environmental issues which are of concern to them. This programme is operated in forty-five countries by national coordinating organizations and involves an estimated 360,000 young reporters (between 11 and 25 years of age). The methodology builds on Freinet’s commitment to the production of texts, but here the idea of a text is interpreted for the new media age to mean photographs and films as well as articles published online. An annual competition helps to raise the profile and encourage high production standards. Young people are encouraged to follow a four-step programme:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Investigate an issue of concern to you or of local significance. Research a solution. Report your work. Disseminate your work to relevant people.

This process requires young journalists to target a particular audience and justify their chosen method of communication in relation to the audience. Having carried out the work and produced high-quality media outputs, the journalists then have to publish the work, broadcast it or exhibit it as appropriate. One young participant reflected:

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Being a young reporter on the environment allowed me to gain a lot of knowledge – and this is the kind of knowledge we can’t get from books, it comes from experience.

    

This kind of methodology demonstrates how easily the principles of Freinet can be updated to our digital age. Young people can produce the kinds of polished media outputs that Freinet’s students could have only dreamt of, and they can also publish their material to real audiences at the press of a button. Not only does such a project demonstrate the continued relevance of such educational approaches, but it also meets a very real need to encourage young people to engage in the democratic potential of new media. In theory social media offers the opportunity to more and more people to move beyond the passive consumption of media and to become producers. While research regularly shows this happens for only very few people, this project deliberately sets out to empower young people as producers of media in the new worldwide digital media environment. Source: Information from: www.yre.global.

As well as printing, Freinet pioneered classroom techniques that enable children to take responsibility for their own learning as far as possible. One of his innovations was the use of work cards providing tasks and exercises which can be corrected by students themselves referring to an answer card rather than the teacher. He was apparently inspired by the Winnetka method pioneered by school inspector Carl Washburne in the United States. Another was the use of personal weekly workplans, or contracts agreed with each child. This too was borrowed from the United States where Helen Parkhurst developed the so-called Dalton Plan after the name of her school in New York founded in 1919 (Schlemminger 1997). Critics of such approaches have argued that the knowledge arising from such experiences will be relatively incoherent and is likely to leave gaps that a well-structured curriculum would not (Peters 1977). However, such criticisms sometimes ignore the extent to which Dewey, in particular, was committed to teachers planning a curriculum experience in considerable detail. The idea that learning might best arise from experience simply means the teacher has to plan effectively for the right kinds of experiences, not that they are beholden to whatever experiences happen to occur. The pedagogic challenge for teachers is how to ‘reinstate into experience’ the subject matter of the curriculum in order to avoid imposing the accrued knowledge of humanity on the child. That challenge requires careful expert planning to replace the learning into a specific



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context of problems to solve, to replicate the original learning process, build on the child’s native impulses, and enable children to call on the desired knowledge and skills in order to solve the problem. In order to be able to do this, teachers would require deep subject knowledge and understanding of child psychology and be skilled in devising stimulus and support to guide children. The following examples give a flavour of the extent to which such planning was envisaged in Dewey’s school. The curriculum was based on ‘occupations’ that he saw as activities which reproduced types of work in society, for example, • 4- to 5-year-olds: cooking, sewing, carpentry (activities close to home) • 6-year-olds built a model farm, planted wheat, processed and sold their produce • 7-year-olds studied prehistoric life in caves • 8-year-olds examined explorers – the Phoenicians, Magellan, Columbus • 9-year-olds focused on local geography and history As they get older, Dewey planned for the children to gradually shift away from this historical focus and widened their study to include scientific experiments, political economy and photography. Activities also met the needs of the children, for example, in Dewey’s school 13-year-olds built their own clubhouse, which became a whole school project. These occupations enabled the scientific study of the materials and processes involved and also enabled children to think about their role in society and culture. Such activities also provided opportunities for wider learning across the curriculum subjects (maths, reading, writing, languages, arts). As Dewey explained, The child comes to school to do; to cook, to sew, to work with wood and tools in simple constructive acts; within and about these acts cluster the studies  – writing, reading, arithmetic, etc. ([1896] 2008)

But Dewey was not simply planning elaborate cross-curricular projects. He also related these experiences with the development and internalization of intellectual tools or conceptual knowledge (Nelsen and Seaman 2011): An idea, after it has been used as a guide to observation and action, may be confirmed and so acquire an accepted status on its own behalf. Afterwards it is employed, not tentatively and conditionally, but with assurance as an instrumentality of understanding and explaining things that are still uncertain and perplexing. (Dewey 1933: 235)

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Such a commitment is also evident in the comments of the Committee of the Rights of the Child when they argued, The type of teaching that is focused primarily on accumulation of knowledge, prompting competition and leading to an excessive burden of work on children, may seriously hamper the harmonious development of the child. (paragraph 12)

Ensuring coherence through such a difficult-to-construct curriculum is certainly demanding for the teacher, but as both Dewey and Freinet (and after them the Committee on the Rights of the Child) have argued, the alternative model of simply imposing ‘learning’ onto children is also flawed. While traditional methods tend to focus on everyone competing to do better at the same task, which leads to individualistic motives (e.g. fear, emulation, rivalry), this in turn leads to divisions between students, the weak become inferior, the strong grow stronger. A Deweyan school by contrast would start with the child and build out, provide accessible experiences and support children to engage in structured reflection to build their learning. It would also foster a social spirit of cooperation and a democratic character. Significantly, the means reflect the ends.

Learning Democracy and Cooperation While individual planning and taking personal responsibility for learning represent the child-centred dimension of Freinet’s work, the collective dimension is perhaps an even more important aspect of his legacy. The class is a social group with rules and expectations. These are based on cooperation as both a social and an economic model rooted in a concern for democracy and an expectation that children have agency and can influence their environment. Freinet teachers recognize the essential relatedness of the interaction with the world beyond the classroom and the relationships within the classroom. Leaving the classroom and encountering real-life issues stimulates curiosity and questioning, and they formulate hypotheses that they try to test out. They start to develop more abstract generalizations. In doing so ‘they realise that, like the organisation of their class, the space in which they live can be modified, that nothing is permanent’ (ICEM – Pédagogie Freinet 1984: 39, our translation). As this quotation suggests, the child in Freinet pedagogy is not only an individual learner but part of a group, the class. Children’s freedom of action



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and expression are exercised within the limits necessary to protect the freedoms of the others. To quote Freinet himself, It is through work and life itself that the child should come to feel and achieve freedom. Freedom is not the starting point. Freedom is the result of the new co-operative organisation of the work of the class. (Quoted in ICEM – Pédagogie Freinet 1984: 71, our translation)

In fact, the organization of a class cooperative was a response to the povertystricken rural milieu. A  small contribution from each child’s family, used collectively for the good of the class, could enable each child to have the basic learning materials. Participation in visits and outings could be extended to even the poorest children if the class collectively raised funds. This has become a tradition of the Freinet movement. A cooperative class or school is a way of organizing school life for its members, but it is also a mechanism for enabling enhanced learning experiences based on visits, projects or productions. The cooperative is a semi-legal structure with its own resources. The word cooperative links directly to the international Co-operative Movement and in this sense is considered part of the social economy: The school co-operative should be considered as an enterprise. Not in the sense that it makes a contribution to the national economy, but as an organisation which, having as its object the creation of joint projects, sets up a programme of work, a contract, produces accounts and is dependent on the sound management of its material and financial resources. (OCCE 1986)

In keeping with the spirit of cooperation and democracy, the decision to form a class cooperative is a collective one, though usually at the suggestion of the class teacher. Once agreed, the cooperative requires officers and funds. The teacher helps, suggests and observes but rarely controls. The designation of officers is an introduction to democracy and indeed an opportunity for integrating other areas of the curriculum, such as maths. However, there is an initial question of how to select the officers of the class cooperative. The class can discuss whether it should be by drawing names from a hat; being awarded to those with the best marks; leaving it to the teacher to choose; rotating the offices so everyone in turn has an opportunity to take responsibility; or by voting. When voting is chosen, the next issue is to work on the electoral process, starting with defining the responsibilities of the role holders. Children do not have to start from scratch but can examine a previous job description and

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discuss whether it needs modifying. An election register needs to be established. This can be the class register. Then the precise type of election needs to be determined. If it is to be by secret vote, then ballot papers and a ballot box will be required. Other methods such as show of hands can be discussed. Some maths can be done to consider the advantages and disadvantages of different systems such as first past the post or single transferable vote. The teacher usually acts as returning officer. In short, the whole process is formalized but in such a way that the children make the key decisions (Sabourin 1994). Once constituted, the class cooperative needs to produce a project and formulate its rules. This requires attention to finding collective ways of working that lead to decisions, preferably by consensus, about the programme of work, the organization of time and of the classroom, the rules of this micro-society and the assessment and evaluation of the work produced. While freedom of expression is essential, the freedom of each is limited by the freedom of the others. The group attempts to regulate the expression of this individual freedom within the class (Giroit and Poslaniec 1985). The organization of a cooperative class has remained relatively constant over the years. This classic account from a teacher is still a very workable template. Every morning, in my class … we begin with a short meeting during which pupils can bring what they want and talk about anything. It is often during this meeting that we hit on the research topics that we will investigate over the following days and weeks. Some bring in books, articles, documents that they speak about briefly. Others bring their own writing or drawing or creative work. Several share things that have happened. (Giroit and Poslaniec 1985:  92, our translation)

This daily opportunity, similar to circle time, allows children to set the agenda. This is complemented by a more formal evaluation meeting at the end of the week where the class agrees the following week’s programme, which is always subject to modification if a morning session throws up an exciting opportunity. It is at this meeting that the class considers any problematic issues that have arisen and attempts to resolve them. Such meetings do not necessarily need a record, but decisions about project work requiring the raising of funds do need to be more formal. Such formal meetings are conducted by the elected officers, chair, secretary and treasurer. Children from the middle years of the primary school are initiated into these formal roles. One of the first tasks of a cooperative is to agree the ‘contract for the life of the class’, in other words, the rules by which the class will live. The drawing



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up of the contract may well use as a starting point the contract of the previous year, or of another class, but it will be amended to suit the particular conditions of the new group. Here are some extracts from the contract of a class of 8- and 9-year-olds from a rural school in France: • I respect what others are saying. • I take care of things in the class whether they are the school’s, my classmates’ or my own. • I behave sensibly: people can trust me and give me responsibility. • If I don’t understand, I ask someone. • I never make fun of others for whatever reason. • I have the right to disagree with the teachers and to tell them so politely. • I write helpful suggestions politely and put them in the suggestions box. • If I don’t respect this contract, the group can decide whether to pardon me or suggest a sanction. All decisions are taken after a discussion and a vote if necessary. This contract also included requirements for the teachers, such as teachers agree not to raise their voices, to keep to the timetable and do everything agreed by the class, never to punish without the agreement of the class, to do their utmost to ensure everyone achieves. The contract makes explicit what is too often hidden. The contract, which may seem like a list of detailed rules, expresses the essential values on which the life of the class is based, and in particular the idea that freedom is not about lack of regulation, but comes from an understanding of rights and responsibilities (Aubertin 1996: 18). Typically, a cooperative class will run one major project in a school year. This might be a few days exploring a region on bicycles, a dramatic performance, a class exchange involving a visit abroad and receiving guests, a visit to a nature reserve involving a boat trip. In other words, the class agrees to undertake something beyond the usual curriculum, but in which all are involved. Once the project is decided, funds have to be raised. Parental contributions may certainly help, but the children themselves are expected to make an effort too. One classic fundraising approach is to sell cakes to other students during break or lunch times, another is to make and sell calendars at the end of the year. The major project is an integrated learning experience involving all parts of the curriculum. It is a democratic form of learning in that the participants have real choices and themselves make all major decisions.

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In order to organize a school trip, the (young) officers of the cooperative are responsible for collecting parental permissions and financial contributions, solving any difficulties and then preparing the visits. A  meeting of the whole cooperative discusses ways in which the visit can be reported on and the learning opportunities drawn out (Sabourin 1994). A  cooperative project, whether a major one involving fundraising or a more routine exploration of a theme, is carefully structured. The ICEM teachers identified ten distinct phases of a project, namely: 1. Choose the subject. Make up the project team. 2. Preliminary search for sources of information, including library. Keep a list of sources. 3. Share the tasks in the light of individual strengths and need for support. 4. Understand and assimilate the information. 5. Decide on how the information is to be presented (avoid reading out a text). 6. Make a plan for the presentation. 7. Draw up deadlines working back from the date of presentation. 8. The presentation (including, possibly, posters, other visuals, handouts, video, musical or dramatic elements). 9. Questions and discussion with the class and teacher. 10. Evaluation. A mark awarded on criteria. Feedback. What the team felt went well and what could be improved. Communicating results beyond the school (e.g. to partner schools, newspapers). (ICEM 1984) Formal presentations by children (la conférence d’enfant) can be made at various points in the project cycle and by individuals or groups of children. There is an art and a science of the formal presentation, which may use visual aids including those made with presentation software and including objects to show or handle, photographs, diagrams, accompanying music or poetry. One important consideration is that children rehearse their presentation. Another is that they avoid reading if at all possible. They can also address questions to their audience, which may include children from other classes, teachers, parents and members of the community around the school. If the presentation is recorded it can be shared with classes from other schools. As we have already noted, these project principles are similar to the ideas outlined by Dewey. Another influential tradition of pedagogy that also relates to these ideas is service learning. The rationale for service learning can be derived from a reading of Dewey which emphasizes his commitment to developing



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education (i) through associational ties, which explore the bonds of common humanity; (ii) through reflecting on experience; (iii) which contributes to the common good (Saltmarsh 1996). Through these principles such educational projects foster democracy. Service learning has a long and varied history and includes several different traditions with different emphases. The early focus on community-based internships, which were popular in the United States in the 1960s, had largely given way by the 1990s to a model which seeks to link the service element more explicitly to citizenship learning (Annette 2008). This development is certainly reflected in the following list of common characteristics of service learning, which is taken from an American Service Learning ‘clearing house’ (Learn and Serve cited in Jerome 2012c): • They are positive, meaningful and real to the participants. • They involve cooperative rather than competitive experiences and thus promote skills associated with teamwork and community involvement and citizenship. • They address complex problems in complex settings rather than simplified problems in isolation. • They offer opportunities to engage in problem-solving by requiring participants to gain knowledge of the specific context of their servicelearning activity and community challenges, rather than only to draw upon generalized or abstract knowledge such as might come from a textbook. As a result, service learning offers powerful opportunities to acquire the habits of critical thinking, that is, the ability to identify the most important questions or issues within a real-world situation. • They promote deeper learning because the results are immediate and uncontrived. There are no ‘right answers’ in the back of the book. • As a consequence of this immediacy of experience, service learning is more likely to be personally meaningful to participants and to generate emotional consequences, to challenge values as well as ideas, and hence to support social, emotional and cognitive learning and development. It is claimed that in the service learning model ‘experience enhances understanding; understanding leads to more effective action’ (Eyler and Giles 1999). In addition, service learning advocates also champion the contribution of service learning projects to developing social capital (Howard 2006), improving attitudes towards ‘others’ (Morgan and Streb 2001) and developing moral reasoning (Koliba 2000).

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As such, service learning seems to be aligned with the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s assertion that ‘the overall objective of education is to maximize the child’s ability and opportunity to participate fully and responsibly in a free society’ (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2001: paragraph 12). It seems inefficient and somewhat convoluted to devise a form of pedagogy that works towards these ends without giving young people the experience of such participation. Reflecting the fact that children’s capacity for such action develops over time, it seems sensible that, pedagogically, it should be the balance between teacher support and guidance and child autonomy that changes, rather than withholding real-life encounters as an experience. Such experiences are likely to lead to the development of the ‘basic skills’ of ‘the ability to make well-balanced decisions; to resolve conflicts in a non-violent manner; and to develop … good social relationships and responsibility’ (paragraph 9). Dewey counsels caution about assuming that positive experiences naturally lead to beneficial learning. For him, the process of reflection is the meaningmaking process that moves the learner from one experience to the next with deeper understanding and makes continuity of learning possible. Such reflection is far from an idle moment of remembering after the event, rather he sees reflection as a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. Reflection also often happens most effectively in community, through interaction with others. And such reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and others (Rodgers 2002). As such, there are two dangers to guard against. The first is that the individual may not apply themselves wholeheartedly to the process of reflection and so ‘jump at a conclusion’ (Dewey 1933: 16). The second danger is that an experience may not lead to new experiences: The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely educative. Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other. For some experiences are miseducative. Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience. (Dewey [1938] 1997: 25)

If we can avoid these two problems, not only does experience give rise to some specific insight or understanding, but it also leads us to new experiences. For Dewey, such educational outcomes are also often described as more organic forms of growth. He saw the ‘good life’ as a ‘life of self-transformation and change’ in which ‘the growing, enlarging, liberated self … goes forth to meet new demands … and readapts and remakes itself in the process’ (Dewey [1932]



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2008: 307). And others have focused on the metaphor of ‘growth’ as a central concept in his work: Growth is thus a dynamic and dialectical process of self-transformation and social change. It is the process whereby individuals, in the course of remaking their society, remake themselves. (Carr and Hartnett 1996: 59)

This reflects Dewey’s refusal to succumb to simplified binary thinking  – in educational terms there is no opposition between experience and learning; between doing and knowing; and no tension between individual learning and communal experiences. These are powerful insights that help us think about how to develop a pedagogy for children’s rights, which not only recognizes the limitations of age and context but also plots a clear path to a fuller realization of the individual within a community.

Schools and the Survival of Democracy This stress on freedom through community and cooperation is the fundamental insight that the Freinet movement contributes to developing citizenship and the renewal of democracy. Accepting the proposals of Dewey of schools as models for the good society, the Freinet movement builds from the base up a new vision and practice of democracy that challenges economic inequalities resulting from globalization and the resurgence of far-right identity-based politics. Freinet schools and classes enact the commitment to inclusive community. As a French political philosopher asserts, The school is not just for transmitting a national ideology and a common historical memory through the curriculum. On a deeper level, like the political nation, the school forms a constructed space in which students, like citizens, are treated equally, irrespective of their family or social background. It is a place, both literally and as a concept, which is constructed in opposition to the real and existing inequalities of society and which stands out against the forces of discrimination found in civil society. … By understanding the idea of school as community, children will learn to understand and feel included in the political nation. (Schnapper 1994, our translation)

A French sociologist could be describing a Freinet school when he says, A school whose aim is to strengthen the ability and the wish of individuals to be active and to recognise in the Other the same freedom as in oneself, the same

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right to individual identity and to defend social interests and cultural values is a school for democracy just so long as it recognises that the rights of the personal Subject and intercultural relations need institutional guarantees that can only be gained through a democratic process. (Touraine [1997] 2000)

The ‘institutional guarantees’ referred to by Touraine include international law, the UN, treaties and human rights conventions. At a national level they are enshrined in constitutions and laws, and at local level, such as the school, they are to be found in mission statements, policies and rules. The same system and the same safeguards are found at local, national and international levels.

Part Three

Pedagogy and Practice

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7

The Rights-Respecting Classroom

Introduction In this chapter we start to pull together some of the practices that might form part of a children’s rights education (CRE) pedagogy and focus specifically on the implications of children’s rights for the classroom. Subsequent chapters focus on CRE at the level of the whole school and in the community. The chapter starts with a discussion about knowledge and considers what it means to learn about children’s rights and what constitutes valuable knowledge. The chapter then moves on to consider a number of pitfalls that teachers should be aware of so they can avoid them. Then the chapter resumes its focus on CRE pedagogy by focusing on three important dimensions of practice:  first we consider the role of narratives in constructing inclusive classrooms, second we discuss a CRE approach to behaviour and third we offer some thoughts on how to create a space for democratic dialogue.

Knowledge One serious challenge to human rights educators is to make explicit the view of knowledge that might sit at the heart of a curriculum for human rights education (HRE) or, our focus, CRE (Parker 2018). Around the world, transmitting and creating knowledge is the defining characteristic of schools. The curriculum organizes material into subjects, themes and categories. Textbooks sequence such material, working through levels of increasing complexity and challenge. Examinations and tests punctuate the year to assess the extent to which students have acquired such knowledge. And yet, HRE frameworks often leave this issue relatively open and unexplored. While learning ‘about’ human rights is one of the three defining elements of HRE according to the United Nations

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(UN) Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (the others being learning ‘through’ and ‘for’ – see Chapter 2), there is relatively little detail about what we should expect to be sufficient knowledge. We can address this challenge in two ways. First, we need to consider what constitutes the essential knowledge at the heart of CRE and then, in order to turn that into a credible curriculum, we need to consider how such knowledge might connect to students’ everyday knowledge. Only when we have considered the problem from both perspectives can we start to think about how to build a curriculum that enables students to build their knowledge. This engages with the challenge articulated by Dewey in his 1902 essay The Child and the Curriculum in which he argued against being overly focused on either the child as the centre of all activity or the subject matter. Rather, the challenge of education lies in bringing these two points together (Parker 2018). As we saw in Chapter 6, teachers may exercise considerable creativity in devising the practical pedagogic steps required to bring the curriculum to life for the child, but the taught curriculum also arises from the teacher thinking about how to engage the child in activities that build their understanding of the topic, and so it makes sense if that curriculum is constructed with the child in mind. One starting point for addressing the issue of what kinds of knowledge we are proposing is Aristotle’s categorization of types of knowledge. In formal education the kind of abstract conceptual knowledge that can be learned in a classroom, and which does not easily arise from everyday activity, corresponds to Aristotle’s episteme. This can be contrasted with techne, or know-how. While episteme is evident in the understanding of scientific theory, or in the acquisition of the technical rules of grammar, techne is evident in the expertise of a nurse or builder, whose expert knowledge is revealed in their action. Aristotle also identifies a third form of knowledge – phronesis – which is the ability to make the right decision in particular circumstances. It is a form of practical wisdom, which combines knowledge and action with judgement. Phronesis offers us a way of thinking about political knowledge which is always applied and embedded in a particular context and which draws on technical knowledge within an ethical framework. CRE can thus be seen as developing phronetic knowledge in a way that cannot be easily articulated, described and learned. It defies easy codification. Such phronetic knowledge, embedded in the process of political action, must be practised and subject to critical scrutiny. It must be responsive to context. Certain knowledge about children’s human rights can be distilled and turned into generalizable tenets and principles, and so can be described as episteme.



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Such knowledge on its own may be a useful foundation for a career as a political scientist or human rights lawyer, but in relation to nurturing active citizens, who sustain and reproduce a culture of human rights through their participation, this knowledge also has the potential to be completely inert. Civic education can be dull if it does not engage with learners’ interests and realities. Activists may demonstrate the capacity to mobilize or campaign that could be called techne, but this is insufficient without an informed understanding of the situation they want to change. Being committed to a furious rate of political activity is unlikely to be very effective if the student does not understand the issues on which they campaign, the system they want to influence or the way that power operates. Informed actors will draw on episteme and techne, but they also develop phronesis when these other forms of knowledge are interpreted for a particular purpose, in a specific context, balanced against a broader ethical framework. In terms of CRE this follows from the commitment that we should incorporate learning about, through and for rights. These are not three separate elements; they are merely categories through which we can account for a holistic process. In terms of how to plan such a curriculum, this suggests two approaches: first, we need to think about the relationship between knowledge and our own actions as rights actors (following Dewey), and second, we might recognize the importance of case studies (Flybvbjerg 2001). Case studies are particularly appropriate for conveying knowledge about the social world and exploring action and knowledge in specific contexts, which is the only way we can judge phronesis. In addition to these ideas, we now outline a three-dimensional view of knowledge, which helps to articulate the different ways in which teachers might encourage the development of knowledge and understanding. The first dimension (information) refers to the factual knowledge we want to teach. In CRE this may well involve learning about the history of human rights, the key documents and institutions, and case studies which illustrate the importance of human rights and children’s rights in action. These may initially need to be transmitted as straightforward information. There is a minimum of relatively uncontroversial knowledge that is required as a foundation for enquiries and critical questioning. The second dimension (conceptual knowledge) refers to the substantive ideas that underpin and provide structure to human rights knowledge. All curriculum subjects include core concepts that underpin and structure the subject (Shulman 1998). Here one might consider some general concepts such as citizen, state and power alongside the more specific concepts underpinning human rights such

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as universality and indivisibility; reciprocity and solidarity; equality; dignity; and freedom (Osler and Starkey 2010). While it may seem daunting to some teachers to embark on such abstract conceptual teaching, these concepts can be taught successfully in age-appropriate ways, for example, UNICEF UK (n.d. a) has prepared resources for primary and secondary schools based on what they call the ABCDE model: • • • • •

A – Rights are for ALL children (universal) B – Rights are there at BIRTH (inherent) C – Rights CANNOT be taken away (inalienable) D – Rights DO NOT have to be earned (unconditional) E – All rights are EQUALLY important (indivisible)

When the concepts have been made intelligible, it is possible to relate them to the documents and case studies encountered in the classroom, building children’s understanding and familiarity with them. These mark out the distinctive conceptual territory of CRE as a curriculum area and, importantly, it is these concepts which are likely to enable students to perceive the usefulness of knowledge about rights. These ideas provide a flexible framework through which one can make sense of the world as a space where human rights are realized or denied. This is a more powerful knowledge than the first dimension because it is of more general use and helps us to read the world in different ways. This also relates to some of the ways we can perceive education as transformational (see Chapter 5). Making conceptual connections between our own lives and a struggle for justice on the other side of the world can both help to build genuine political solidarity and also develop a shared sense of humanity. The third dimension (a CRE lens) refers to this broader sense of knowing what it is to engage with an issue from the distinctive perspective of human rights. This is partly related to the notion of the epistemic rules of the game (Shulman 1998). In the context of rights this means grasping what it is to argue, think and act within a political, legal or international relations framework. For example, the topic of global warming can be approached through a scientific lens, through an historical lens or through a human rights lens. These lenses determine the kinds of questions that can be asked and influence what would stand as a convincing answer. Understanding the contribution of each form of knowledge presupposes some understanding of the nature and purpose of each form of knowledge. This forms the third dimension of knowledge because it enables us to understand what constitutes a claim to knowledge or a warrant



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for a political opinion about a situation or a rights problem. This in turn enables us to adopt a critical perspective on the various attempts to convince us of this or that interpretation of, or solution to, a problem. In part the third dimension relates to how one reasons with the concept of rights and how one balances rights claims. Rights become a particular way to frame an issue rather than an answer waiting to be discovered. Because rights claims are often resolved in courts or through political negotiations, the answers to complex problems do not leap from the text of the rights document. The answers are context-related and provisional, like all other political and legal decisions. We can think about how these levels all interact when we are teaching a controversial issue. As an example, we might plan a sequence of lessons around the rights of trans people and the legal status of self-identification. A starting point could be the case against Oxfordshire County Council and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) taken by a 13-year-old girl in 2020. The council issued guidance for schools called the Trans Inclusion Toolkit as part of an anti-bullying programme that included homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. The CPS had issued guidance for schools on LGBT+ bullying. The girl, supported by adults in a campaign called Safe Schools Alliance UK, claimed that the CPS guidance meant that she could be prosecuted for a hate crime if she told friends that she would not date a trans girl or if she asked a boy who identified as a girl to leave a lavatory designated for female students. As a result, the CPS guidance was withdrawn (Hurst and Ames 2020). The case against the Council hinged on the issue that the Toolkit suggested that transgender students in schools and colleges in the county should be allowed to use the toilets of their choice. The girl claimed that this could be extended to include being allowed to choose a changing room or even a dorm and that this made her feel unsafe (Lynch 2020). Whether or not one believes this was a justified action, or the correct outcome, it does demonstrate how rights are often balanced against each other in highly contentious ways. The case study may be treated as a controversial issue because there are diverse opinions, all based on facts, but informed by different political and personal beliefs and values. Students would need to learn from examples about the ways in which discrimination is perceived and addressed (first dimension). They would also need to think about what makes it controversial, and this often involves identifying the framework or ‘perennial issue’ within which this particular struggle is located (Hess 2009). In this case we can consider this particular debate as one example of the more general issue of minority rights in a democracy (second dimension). The process of debating the topic will require participants to balance for themselves their emotional responses, their

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public utterances and the effects they have on others. It is likely that whatever solution is forwarded will be a compromise, rather than a simple assertion of one right answer. Individuals bring with them their own ethical positions, but the political agreement reached together will be an accommodation of different opinions. In finding that position and reflecting on the compromises involved, students learn about the deliberative process people go through to resolve issues of conflicting rights (third dimension) as well as about the specific issue of trans people’s right to self-identify. So far, we have largely considered what might constitute the knowledge underpinning CRE or, rather, how we might account for such knowledge in a curriculum. Now we will address the issue of how a child might engage with this kind of knowledge and think about likely starting points and potential misconceptions.

Rights Talk and the Right Language It may be helpful as a starting point to think about the ways in which we use the words in everyday language and the more specific ways we want to build this concept in CRE. The word ‘rights’ (and indeed the word ‘responsibility’) is common in everyday talk and students may be more familiar with the term in contexts such as getting answers right, learning right from wrong, rightwing parties and the far right. The teacher may need to create explicit planned opportunities to extend their vocabulary for talking and thinking specifically about rights in the context of human rights and CRE, for example, distinguishing between moral and legal rights, positive and negative rights, limited and absolute rights, the relationship between rights holders and duty bearers. Being explicit about the gap between everyday understanding and more specialist language is a helpful first step to think about the learning challenge in the classroom for any subject (Jerome and Bhargava 2015).

Rights and Responsibilities In schools we very often link rights and responsibilities, especially in relation to codes of conduct or behaviour. This enables us to develop a self-regulating moral climate in the school where people respect one another and follow rules of behaviour because they come to see the protection this provides to the community. Alternatively, they may follow rules because they do not want to experience the punishment for not respecting other people’s rights. Punishments



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often come in the form of withdrawing their rights, for instance, to lunch break, to go on a trip, to free time outside. In relation to human rights this is an inaccurate interpretation of the relationship between rights and responsibilities. Individuals have the rights listed in human rights agreements regardless of whether they respect other’s rights. It may well be the case that a rights culture is enhanced if we all respect others’ rights, but that is a general observation and a political process rather than a specific requirement. Failure to uphold others’ rights does not entail a loss of one’s own rights. There may be punishments in law for some infringements of the law, but those are specific and leave many other rights intact. This suggests that teachers will have to carefully teach about the technical and legal relationship between rights and responsibilities, otherwise expectations from the moral and behavioural frameworks in schools are likely to be imported into discussions about human rights.

Rights Holders and Duty Bearers If individuals are not personally responsible for each other’s rights, it is important to clarify for children who is responsible. In relation to international human rights, it is generally the state and the institutions of the state that assume such responsibilities. This means that human rights can be seen as a mechanism for holding the state to account for its conduct. This notion of rights as an accountability mechanism is perhaps less prominent in the literature than an emphasis on rights for individuals. In relation to the UNCRC therefore, children should learn about their rights and the responsibilities that certain adults have for protecting and promoting their rights. These adults are called duty bearers and in schools teachers have a significant role as duty bearers for children’s rights. This is important in many campaigns for human rights because so much of the inspirational action for change is undertaken to demand more of the duty bearers.

Qualified, Limited and Absolute Rights The status of rights claims is important for understanding the extent to which fulfilment of a right is likely or justified. Relatively few rights are absolute. The right to protection from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment is exceptional in having no justifiable circumstances that would condone physical or mental ill treatment. Most rights, such as the right to liberty, can be restricted in law, for example, the state can imprison people. Other rights can be qualified

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for a specific period of time or in pursuit of other rights, for example, freedom of expression is limited in relation to hate speech in Europe, though much less in the United States. Most rights are limited in practice in order to protect the community as a whole. Such restrictions are likely to be acceptable if based in law, for the common good, respectful of other rights and proportionate. Our experience in schools leads us to observe that many students misunderstand rights because they assume they are somehow the final word on any matter. Many teachers are familiar with students’ insincere invocation of their rights as a means for evading some of their normal classroom responsibilities. Simply stating ‘I have a right to …’ says nothing about the likely, or even the reasonable, expectation about what should happen in any given situation. One of us, while splitting up a fight between two boys, was told to step away because they had ‘no right to touch’ a child. This common misperception is interesting, both because it is wrong and also because the child assumed that their perceived right not to be touched was unaffected by the circumstances (in this case, them punching another child in the face). This misplaced use of rights language reveals the common assumption that rights operate as some kind of absolute trump card. To invoke a right (such as not to be touched or to free speech) is sometimes seen as an assertion of some non-negotiable and unfettered freedom. However, any right has to be defined and, through that process, essentially constrained. Here we can see how the episteme of human rights legislation and specialist terms opens up the space for reasoned discussion in which students can consider how such principles might play out in specific contexts, thus encouraging a form of phronesis.

Rights as an Outcome and as a Struggle Sometimes rights are presented as a body of agreed law. They are universal and codified. However, they can also be seen as the result of a process of continual struggle. The resulting codified rights that emerge from this process have been described as ‘crystallized moments of revolutionary spirit’ (Bowring 2012). This means it is equally important to understand the processes by which people come to articulate demands in terms of rights and the processes by which those rights are accepted, codified and then interpreted and implemented. The implementation process is often an ongoing struggle in politics and civil society. So, for example, the UNCRC has been ratified by most states but the only real mechanisms for implementing it include local lobbying efforts to secure legislative or administrative reform and, at an international level, the public



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‘naming and shaming’ process of the regular reports to, and responses from, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (see Chapters 2 and 3). That children’s rights have the backing of international law is a huge achievement, but this legal protection and provision is only as powerful as the moral force of the campaign for justice for children. Local communities including schools cannot rely exclusively on the law to protect children, rather they must use the prestige of the law to evolve voluntary but powerful ways of working that ensure children’s rights and dignity are respected. Coercion should not be necessary when there is consensus, and in the absence of consensus the activities of lobbying groups can make a huge difference. We offer these five considerations as a starting point for colleagues planning a curriculum for CRE. It seems important to codify and organize these ideas and to think about how children might encounter them, because otherwise many children may choose to think about contemporary problems or challenges without referring to rights at all. In a research project conducted with 10-, 14-, 16- and 18-year-olds, most students solved a problem involving a clash of rights by simply asserting whatever they felt was the most important right, or what they felt was the right answer. Very few could reason through an argument using human rights principles (Jerome and Lalor 2016, also discussed in Chapter 3). This suggests a challenge in connecting the child and the curriculum, which we come back to later in the chapter. For now, we close this discussion of curriculum knowledge with a brief case study comparing different curricula to illustrate some of the pitfalls involved in defining CRE. After this case study the chapter moves on to consider some additional pitfalls to avoid when building a rights-respecting classroom.

Case Study 8  Comparing CRE curricula Jerome (2018) undertook a study to compare human rights in the curriculum in several countries. This extract compares the Northern Irish, Irish and English curricula to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each model. The Northern Ireland curriculum includes the most developed account of human rights, using substantive concepts to organize the learning and to help the teacher to think about how content is related to overarching concepts. The curriculum makes it clear that teachers should set out the agreements which establish the foundation for international human rights, consider the ways in which such rights are balanced against one another and study examples where rights are infringed. They should also consider whose responsibility it

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is to act to uphold rights, including government duties and the responsibility of individuals and society more generally. The concept of rights in the curriculum mirrors the complexity of rights in reality, namely, that rights are rarely absolute and have to be balanced in different contexts; that agreeing and implementing rights are separate processes; that rights require somebody to have responsibilities to uphold them; and that such responsibilities may be specific and legal (e.g. state duties) or general and social (e.g. individuals’ responsibilities to respect others’ rights). In this way, the curriculum attempts to present the connections between the content and concepts in a relatively neutral way (making conceptual connections) rather than making normative or ideological interpretations. By contrast, the English curriculum requires that students learn about ‘precious liberties’ and does not reflect any of these elements of conceptual understanding; in fact it draws attention away from the complexity of rights. In Ireland the definition of knowledge in the curriculum refers only to the ‘rights and responsibilities of every person as a citizen’ (NCCA n.d.: 9) which is later explained by the phrase ‘responsibilities go hand in hand with the rights accorded to individuals … Irresponsibility results in … careless actions which can be damaging to other people’ (ibid.: 10). In these two examples we can see how the curriculum distorts or misrepresents the concept of human rights. There is an objective account of the concept of rights, which draws on political philosophy, ethics and international law, but only the Northern Irish curriculum comes close to dealing with that. The other example presents an ideological interpretation of the concept, which obfuscates the real meaning and imposes a narrower reading. This is important because the conceptual structure of the subject provides the basis for claims that such knowledge can be potentially transformational, that is, it can be used to shed new light on any political or controversial problem. A  good understanding of the nature of rights, of the contested nature of democracy, of the problems of securing justice or of the challenge of sustainability can be used to better frame and understand any new issue with which one is confronted, which one might not have studied directly. The absence of this kind of conceptual framework makes the various curricular claims to be promoting rights seem rather hollow since it does not provide a basis on which young people can understand, judge or act. How does one understand a rights infringement, or government laxity in protecting minority rights, if one’s understanding of rights is limited to a sense of personal responsibility or an appreciation of one’s precious liberties? Understanding the complexity of the process of implementation, the political nature of conflicting rights claims and the precise nature of state duties constitutes essential knowledge to underpin a proper understanding and therefore may also be seen as precursors to informed action. All of this means that the way the curriculum frames and interprets human rights is likely to have a significant impact on what children learn as a consequence.



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Pitfalls to Avoid In this section we consider some of the pitfalls that are suggested by the literature and from our own experience. First, picking up the issues from the previous discussion, we note the temptation of ‘curriculum coverage’, with insufficient attention to how students might engage with the material. Second, we consider the risk that CRE remains focused on the ‘other’ and exoticizes suffering in the global south. Third, we consider the relationship between rights and agency, especially in the confines of the classroom where teacher agency is more usually emphasized. Fourth, we consider the problem of inauthenticity, through which the classroom becomes a simulation of a rights-based learning environment, rather than a more genuinely transformed space. The problem of ‘content coverage’ is simply that the curriculum itself takes precedence over the learning and dominates the teacher and student. Once the curriculum has been determined, whether that is a local school decision or a national curriculum decision, the teacher is confronted by the practical timetabling problem of how to fit the content into the time available. This is referred to as the ‘coverage model’ (Sipress and Volker 2011), and the danger is that teachers (and students) feel that they are constantly being driven by the need to cover the required content, at the expense of properly learning it. To overcome this, teachers must set themselves the aim of achieving ‘some sense of mastery over the content not to be cowed into submission by it’ (Jerome and Bhargava 2015: 31). There may be a temptation to cram the CRE curriculum with endless documents and historical case studies. However, we suggest that teachers need to think much more creatively about how to engage more deeply with the core concepts and how to develop more sustained thinking about human rights. A brief discussion of a case study school will provide examples of how ‘coverage’ can distort education (Jerome 2012a). In a secondary school in England, the head of department argued that rights and responsibilities were infused through the whole citizenship curriculum and beyond: I think rights and responsibilities underpins a lot of the work we do rather than we teach it explicitly, we teach it through everything. (Teacher quoted in Jerome 2012a: 171)

When the students were asked about what they had learned, they reported having ‘covered’ rights and responsibilities in class. However, there was little evidence in their responses that they had any clear understanding about this area, and certainly no evidence of political or conceptual understanding being

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developed. There was no evidence that the students had considered the nature of the relationship between rights and responsibilities, nor the ways in which rights are limited. This school illustrates how it has been possible to ‘cover’ rights and responsibilities without any clarity about what the underlying purpose might be. International research indicates that it is relatively unusual for CRE to be included in national curricula (Jerome et al. 2015), and we have already seen that where such curricula exist, the definition of knowledge may fall short of what would be useful (see Case Study 8). The problem of coverage adds yet a further problem to consider, in that teachers can sometimes ‘cover’ the required content without really securing any significant learning about rights. A second pitfall concerns situations where teachers teach about human rights and children’s rights, but with more emphasis on the rights of others in distant places, rather than engaging with rights as a relevant factor in students’ own lives. In the literature it is common to find such charitable fundraising activities highlighted as examples of HRE provision (see, e.g. Waldron et al. 2011, discussed in Chapters 3 and 4). Through this reinterpretation, HRE loses its local relevance and becomes focused on the distant and less fortunate ‘other’. Such an approach to teaching leaves little room for explicit connections between people based on the common experience of being rights holders and instead focuses on the needs of those in poorer countries. It is also likely to fuel stereotypes about the global south. There are two practical responses to this, but both require teachers to become aware of the tensions between charity and rights-based approaches. The first is to devise schemes of work that explore examples of rights within the local community as well as in other communities. This reflects the reality that poverty exists in all communities, as does wealth. This approach was illustrated in the case study in Chapter 5 where we considered UNICEF UK’s resources exploring children’s experiences of poverty in Scotland. Here, rather than focus on overseas examples of poverty, children produced their own resources exploring what poverty looked and felt like in their own country. A second response is to acknowledge that some children are indeed relatively privileged (in comparison to disadvantaged people in their own community, as well as in poorer countries) and to explicitly address their potential role as a ‘coalitional agent’ (Bajaj 2018). For some children who do not face immediate threats to their own rights, an appropriate outcome of CRE might be to develop solidarity with the victims of human rights abuses, with a view to undertaking advocacy or charity. The key difference, from an educational perspective, is how the teacher frames the charitable work. If privileged children simply leave the



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experience having sold some cakes to raise a small amount of money, they may feel a flush of self-satisfaction and be grateful for the opportunity to help. If they come to perceive the more complex ways in which poverty is generated and sustained, and systemically connected to their own lives, they may understand their contribution as a small step in an ongoing struggle for justice. This distinction is also evident outside of education, for example, in major charitable campaigns. On the one hand, the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign in the UK explicitly framed their message as one of solidarity for a good cause. But on the other hand, the 2000 Drop the Debt campaign was explicitly framed as a human rights issue (Osler and Starkey 2010). The issue for teachers is to build the knowledge about human rights consistently around such work, otherwise students may not make such connections themselves. We are not arguing for activities in schools to necessarily have a direct impact on social issues. Rather, the argument is as follows: It is not and cannot be the task of the school to solve the political problems of society. Its task is not to improve the world with the help of the pupils’ activities … These (activities) must be assessed on the basis of … educational criteria. The crucial factor must be what the pupils learn from participating in such actions. (Jensen and Schnack 1994: 6)

While we would applaud classroom-initiated actions having a real-world impact, we would agree that the teacher’s main focus should be on the learning potential of such activities. From a CRE perspective, the teacher has to make an informed choice between promoting charity simply as doing good, with the attendant risks of fuelling stereotypes about ‘unfortunate’ others, or as part of the broader pursuit of justice. The latter approach is both more politicizing and more likely to create a sense of solidarity around human rights. An approach based on the pursuit of social justice is therefore more likely to contribute to a transformed sense of children as agents in a rights-based culture. The third pitfall in CRE is the temptation to focus on teaching about responsibilities rather than rights, in order to regulate children’s behaviour. This has been described as ‘miseducation’ because it simplifies the relationship between rights and responsibilities in such a way as to distort it, and ultimately prevents children from developing a more accurate understanding of the relationship between them (Howe and Covell 2010). One education programme in England was called ‘Rights, Respect and Responsibilities’ (RRR), partly as a way to defuse teachers’ concerns about teaching children’s rights but also effectively de-politicizing the focus on rights. In some schools the teachers

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emphasized responsibilities, in some cases even starting their teaching with the concept of responsibilities and deferring rights to some later stage. This was also linked to ideas about charity where children in the relatively affluent South-East of England were encouraged to reflect on the responsibilities they had towards less fortunate children in Africa. Responsibilities were also frequently derived from rights, for example, one class charter included the following: You have the right to nutritious and healthy food. It’s your responsibility to make sure you eat enough fruits, vegetables, yoghurts, and that you drink enough water. (Howe and Covell 2010: 98)

Unsurprisingly, the children in these schools did not develop any understanding of rights and often thought their rights were entirely contingent on their own good behaviour. At its most extreme, children told the researchers that naughty children do not get their rights. By contrast, the researchers argue that Children who are taught about their contemporaneous rights and responsibilities in classrooms and in schools that respect those rights by allowing meaningful participation are children who display moral and socially responsible behaviours and feel empowered to act. (Covell, Howe and McNeil 2008: 323)

They argue that children who learn about their own rights also come to understand that the power of their claim to enjoy a right is partly that the right is universal, and therefore they have to recognize that others have the same rights at the same time. This simply implies a logical problem if one demands the right to learn, while simultaneously acting in such a way as to deny the right to others. Acknowledging the rights of others is therefore an extension of making a rights claim for oneself, and so children come to appreciate the way in which rights have to be balanced and the ways in which one can act individually to maximize the chances of having rights respected. Importantly though, this kind of intuitive understanding of the relationship between rights and responsibilities does not preclude also learning about the role of more powerful actors as duty bearers. As one teacher put it, some children are ‘weighed down with goodness’ and need to be taught how to assert their rights (Howe and Covell 2010: 99). Our fourth pitfall relates to the misinterpretation of Article 12 and the idea of student voice. We consider this in more detail in Chapter 8 (and below), but here we want to consider one aspect of how this relates to the classroom. It is rather easy to imagine that simply organizing a debate or class discussion functions as an opportunity for students to express their opinions on issues close to their



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heart. However, in reality it is possible for such activities to be added alongside rather traditional manifestations of teacher authority, and therefore student participation ends up being inauthentic. In Freire’s terms, if the classroom still reflects the characteristics of banking education, in which the teacher is the fount of all important knowledge and students’ action is largely coordinated by the teacher, then student-led discussions may well be rather hollowed out. This has been described as a form of ‘ventriloquism’ in which students perform the roles the teacher is looking for (Pace 2015). They guess what is required to appease the teacher, respond to their cues and perform a discussion within all the parameters established by the teacher. But all of this can take place without any authentic participation and without any children risking an opinion which tests their thinking around the topic or the bounds of acceptability. By contrast, the following quotation comes from an experienced teacher and teacher educator, reflecting on what a discussion in a rights-respecting classroom might look and sound like: Some contributions might be extremely inflammatory and I’m not really sure I’d like to see children sitting there, you know, quite politely listening to someone who might come out with that. I  would like children to get quite angry and passionate. (Teacher quoted in Jerome 2012b: 109)

This raises the issue that a genuine commitment to open classroom discussion, in which students have rights, might not always be as calm and orderly as some teachers (and school managers) would hope. Genuine heartfelt discussions about issues one holds dear are likely to be difficult, but by embracing those difficulties, the teacher and the students can learn how to engage in critical conversation together. This commitment sits at the heart of Freire’s culture circle pedagogy and Dewey’s learning to live together democratically. In practical terms it is likely to mean at times we have to recognize some participants will exercise their rights to privacy and therefore fail to ‘perform’ as expected (Osler and Starkey 2005). At other times it means things may become somewhat ‘raucous’ (Segal, Pollak and Lefstein 2017). In this section we have discussed four of the pitfalls that await the teacher trying to introduce CRE without considering how the everyday routines, expectations and roles in their classroom might work against their good intentions. In the rest of the chapter we turn to some of the positive principles of a rights-respecting classroom. We start by considering the classroom as a space for a wide variety of voices to be represented and then we move on to consider two complementary ways in which the classroom can be seen as a safe space,

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first in terms of establishing a framework for behaviour and second as a space to engage in genuine dialogue.

The Representation of Diverse Narratives In diverse classrooms it is important to create opportunities for all students, whether they feel themselves to be in a majority or minority, to share their stories and perspectives. But it is equally important that individuals are not somehow expected to speak up for, or represent, a cultural, religious or ethnic group. The gay child is a member of the class first and foremost, and though it is essential to ensure they are respected and feel able to share their perspectives, it is equally important not to position them as the spokesperson for the LGBT+ population. As research into the Muslim minority experience in the West attests, such pressures to perform as an ideal member of a minority can be experienced as oppressive or intimidating (Kundnani 2014). Regardless of how diverse one’s classroom may be, the teacher therefore still needs to think about how to include a variety of voices and narratives in the learning activities and resources. In this section we share some thoughts about what this means in practice and why it is important within CRE. Narratives operate as an essential way for all of us to make sense of the world (Osler and Zhu 2011). People seem to be driven to construct narratives, through which they can order their own lives and make sense of the complex world around them. We tell stories about our lives and through those narratives we come to create representations of ourselves, and thus also construct our identities and relationships with others. Narratives distil hugely complicated events into manageable and accessible accounts and they help us to understand broad social and cultural change by representing that change through individual lives and events. In schools the scientific mode of explanation often seems to dominate and leave narrative relatively unexplored. This seems out of kilter with how we come to make sense of our everyday world and our social and cultural lives. Since narrative is at the heart of our individual psychological wellbeing and operates as the basis of cultural cohesion teachers need to work at narrative:  ‘reading it, making it, analysing it, understanding its craft, sensing its uses, discussing it’ (Bruner 1996: 41). In CRE we can see that the details of human rights agreements or the case law that marks the boundaries between rights are relatively dry and inaccessible compared to the human stories of how these are experienced (Osler and Zhu 2011). Thus, our starting point for this



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section is that narratives are important aspects of all good pedagogy, and this is no less true for CRE. Another feature of this storytelling in education relates to our earlier comments about the types of knowledge we want to build and the potential role of phronesis. Since knowledge in the form of practical wisdom is always related to the specific context in which actions occurred, trying to generalize from the specific instance can be distorting, because the action is only right in the context in which it works (Flybvjerg 2001). This underlines the importance of case studies in learning, as these can be valuable as source of vicarious experience (Stake 1995). Thus, learning about lots of different case studies is useful because it helps students to understand the nuanced relationship between universal principles such as human rights and the actions of people in specific contexts. Building a CRE curriculum around a diverse range of narratives is a way to represent the diversity of people’s experiences and unpick monolithic national and cultural stories. If the CRE classroom becomes a place where diverse people and their stories and perceptions are encountered, then this builds a sense that one should be wary of single simple narratives that claim to provide definitive accounts of complex social, cultural, economic and political phenomena. This is more than simply a plea for representing diversity or a piece of advice about how to engage students; it actually lays the ground for helping students understand that political explanations are always open to different experience, representation and narration. Simply put, every story provides a part of the whole picture, and every story reflects the position and perception of the narrator. This is important everywhere, but is perhaps felt more acutely in those countries where the government seeks to promote a simplified single narrative in the curriculum to present an approved national history or promote a particular form of national identity. Telling our own narratives and especially those of ‘invisible’ individuals or groups highlights the fact that there are many different histories to be told instead of just one monolithic common national history. Stories told by different people provide spaces for various kinds of discriminations and violations of human rights to be recognized, criticized and eventually redressed. These narratives fill the blind spots in the dominant discourse. (Osler and Zhu 2011: 231)

The incorporation of diverse narratives helps students to understand that the same events are experienced differently, impact people’s lives differently and that they may simultaneously create progress and problems. This represents

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a significant conceptual leap in developing a political world view, in which political problems can be properly understood. Diverse narratives can also help to establish empathy with others, which is a crucial dimension to education for human rights, where we seek to develop some form of identification with others, simply because of our shared humanity. The development of empathy can also provide the impetus for action, as was observed in a project focusing on studying a range of human rights activists around the world, in which students undertook their own related actions (Jerome 2017). These included not only the more predictable actions to lobby the government on behalf of the activists but also straightforward acts of solidarity, including sending messages to the activists explaining how the students appreciated their bravery and wished them well in the continued effort. Such acts of solidarity emerged from reading case studies of their work and coming to appreciate the challenging contexts in which the activists were working. This process of engagement may be helped or hindered by the practical issue of the selection of classroom resources, and in the following case study, an English teacher reflects on two contrasting novels chosen as class reading books, where the issue of narratives as representation comes to the fore.

Case Study 9  Choosing a class reader for diverse narratives In the following case study, an English teacher illustrates how he uses the concept of diverse narratives to inform his selection of reading material for his class. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne, is widely taught to 9- to 12-year-olds. Its narrator, 9-year-old Bruno, lives next to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where his father is commandant, during the Second World War. Bruno is so naïve that he fails to understand the purpose of the camp, befriending Shmuel, a Jewish boy on the other side of the fence, who, aside from physically exhibiting the symptoms of starvation, is identical to Bruno in age, looks and interests. The novel is presented by the author as fable, so its inconsistencies can, to a degree, be overlooked. However, it also represents a trend to de-historicize children’s fiction. The narrative voice offered to the child in this particular novel fails to recognize historical events to an extreme degree. Not only that, but the limited opportunities for dialogue in the novel are nullified; because Bruno and Shmuel are reflections of one another, in a sense they say the same thing. Dialogue is actually monologue. In this retelling, the Holocaust is shorn of all historical content, becoming



    

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a simple representation of the potential for human evil. Young readers are presented with a world lacking in complexity, empty in meaning beyond the simplistic establishment of the opposition of good and evil. As such it becomes difficult for the child reader to engage with this novel beyond mimicking this opposition. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas can still be read critically through exploring what might lead to a de-historicized account of such an event. Such an approach, however, denies the young reader a direct, immediate involvement with narrative voice. This is achieved in another novel, A Little Piece of Ground, written by English novelist Elizabeth Laird in collaboration with Palestinian writer Sonia Nimr. Set in Ramallah, it focuses on the lives of three young Palestinian boys, Karim (the middle-class narrator), his friend Joni (a Christian) and Hopper (who lives in a camp), as they encounter Israeli occupation. A range of narrative voices is generated in the text, as the young reader is offered the opportunity to engage with each of the boys. The reader is also challenged by the content of the novel, which includes strip searches by Israeli soldiers, torture, suicide bombings, the confiscation of land and wrongful imprisonment – all done sensitively for the 9–12 age group. In contrast to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, the novel is packed with contextual references, going right back to 1948. This is not to say that the novel should be read as history; rather, it is to suggest that young readers have opportunities to engage with a range of voices within such literature. They are offered the opportunity to consider and play out roles beyond their everyday experience but integral to an understanding of the complexity of the world, just as the protagonists of the novel play out roles, every one of which requires them to negotiate their own perspective within the context of multiple perspectives. Bringing such a text to the classroom allows the teacher to engage with a community of voices stretching well beyond the classroom door. Source: Text adapted from Jerome and McCallum (2012).

In the case study it is the application of the fable genre to a real context which generates the problems, but that does not mean fables are not powerful resources. The most comprehensive attempt to bring together CRE and children’s literature is the study Human Rights in Children’s Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law produced by Georgia State University law professors Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higginbottom. Concerned to promote children’s rights, they start from the premise that ‘fiction is absorbed by children (and adults) in much more profound ways than nonfiction’ (Todres and Higginbottom 2016: xvi). They point out that many stories for children feature animals and thus avoid the representation of diverse human beings. Because

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children seem to be able to identify with fictional creatures, these stories can provide useful starting points for discussions of issues relating to children’s rights. While stories featuring non-human characters are important, it is worth noting, though, that books featuring children are often still woefully poor at reflecting the reality of diverse societies. In 2017 just 4 per cent of the nine thousand children’s books published in the UK included any characters from black and minority ethnic groups and only 1 per cent featured them as a main character (CLPE 2018), indicating teachers must exercise caution and discretion when selecting texts. Todres and Higginbottom provide many examples, including the work of the American author Dr Seuss, who has written numerous books where the underlying morality is very much in the spirit of the CRC. In Horton Hears a Who (1954) the elephant Horton acts as human rights defender in enabling very small people, the Whos, to be heard. In fact this finally occurs when the smallest of all finds the courage to join in. The whole population is enabled to find a voice thanks to the contribution of the smallest. The illustration of children as citizens is reinforced by the refrain ‘a person’s a person, no matter how small’. In Europe, another anthropomorphic character is the eponymous bull in The Story of Ferdinand (Leaf 1936). Published during the Spanish Civil War, the book was banned by Franco, ordered to be burned by Hitler and praised by human rights proponents H. G. Wells and Mahatma Gandhi. It remains in print and popular. Ferdinand loves peaceful meadows and smelling flowers. Parental pressures encourage him to develop his fighting capacity, but he refuses. When as a result of a coincidence he is taken to a bullring, he still refuses to play the game and fight, eventually being returned to his field. The story illustrates issues of identity and of freedom of thought and conscience. It also illustrates tensions between parental and societal expectations and the right to choose one’s own path. Issues of culturally approved violence and being forced into an essentially violent institution invite discussions of policing and militarization as well as discrimination against non-conformists. Todres and Higginbottom include discussion of many classic Western children’s books, but more contemporary and diverse texts are celebrated by the Amnesty International UK and CILIP (a library and informational association) Kate Greenaway awards (Amnesty International UK 2019a). Many of the most popular books for children are successful because they connect to deep questions about humanity and social justice, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to draw out these themes. One simple example of a classroom resource includes the following questions to apply to any text:



• • • • • • • •

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Whose story is being told? Who is telling the story? Whose voices aren’t being heard? Is there anything you are not being told? What issues are being explored? Who is treated with dignity and respect? Who makes the decisions in the story? Which characters’ behaviour surprises you? (Amnesty International UK 2019b)

Teachers have important practical decisions to make about their selection of texts and the questions they bring to the text to open up issues relating to CRE. By providing students with opportunities to engage in multiple narratives from the same contexts, teachers can illustrate how individual lives are situated in relation to factors such as ethnicity, religion, class, sex, sexuality, disability or political beliefs. Learning about how others experience the world and make sense of it helps us to acknowledge that our own experiences are similarly shaped by our own positionality. It seems then that exploring diverse narratives deliberately and consistently might also help young people appreciate the specificity of their own perception of the world and experience of it. This seems particularly important in relation to efforts to encourage people to see their own privileges, often associated with being part of the majority or more powerful group. A young middle-class person can perhaps only appreciate the power of their financial privilege when they come to see the world through the eyes or words of people living in poverty. White people can come to appreciate the various mechanisms through which microaggressions perpetuate racial inequality when they have opportunities to see these processes from the perspective of a minoritized person. Heterosexual adolescents may come to understand the relative advantages of living in a heteronormative society when they at least glimpse that world as it is experienced by a queer young person. The inclusion of such narratives is important because, as Bhabha (2003) suggests, it implies that the other is recognized. Rather than simply project our own world view onto the lives of others, learning through narrative offers us the opportunity to engage with people as they are, and as they see the world, and us. Failure to recognize others leads us to ignore or become blind to them,

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and ultimately it renders their lives ‘ungrievable’ as we fail to acknowledge their suffering and their death as factors that touch us at all (Butler 2016). A failure to fully recognize the legitimacy of the ‘other’ is evident in our ability to consume images of death, suffering and degradation while leaving our commitment to human rights untroubled. Those societies that turn their back on the right to narrate are societies of deafening silence:  authoritarian societies, police states, xenophobic countries, nations traumatized by war or economic hardship; societies under the boot of death, in the grip of the destruction of freedom. (Bhabha 2003: 181)

Through an act of omission, turning their back on diverse narratives, teachers may replicate these exclusionary and authoritarian tendencies. Perpetuating the silence and exclusion of minority voices is often the default setting in schools. It may therefore be an act of resistance to introduce diverse voices, but doing so offers students the opportunity to recognize others, understand the world through different perspectives and ultimately re-narrate their own lives in the light of these new understandings (Agbaria 2016).

The Classroom as a Safe Environment: (i) Behaviour Management Classroom behaviour is a key concern for teachers and a major reason cited when they leave the profession (NASUWT 2019). This is especially the case for student teachers, for whom classroom behaviour is often the major concern at the start of their training. In this section we reflect on some established principles for regulating children’s behaviour and also consider the experiences from one institution where student teachers were encouraged to adopt a rightsrespecting approach in their teaching (Jerome 2012b). Initially some of the student teachers backed off from traditional forms of authority and punishment but found themselves confused about what alternatives they could draw on. This led to some poor lessons where they felt helpless when confronted by difficult behaviour. One of the university tutors in that programme contrasted successful and less successful lessons taught by her student teachers and concluded as follows:



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It’s not about being soft, it’s not about not daring to tell anybody off … it’s about making them enjoy learning and enjoy coming to your lesson and feeling comfortable in it. (Modern Languages tutor interview in Jerome 2012b)

Another university tutor identified a similar problem and reported that several of his student teachers held back from using sanctions but did not always have alternative strategies ready to implement, especially at the beginning of their training. As a consequence, they simply failed to intervene where problems arose, frozen by the fear that their authority was oppressive. In response he planned training workshops that were more explicit about how to manage this role and how to use, and explain, sanctions when they are necessary. He also discussed the need to encourage student teachers to use their commitment to a rights-respecting framework in the class as a starting point for their own self-critical evaluations of their practice and thus avoid the danger of paying lip service to the rights agenda. It was evident from the university tutors and some of the student teachers’ reflections that the rights-respecting framework is far from providing a straightforward list of practices to implement or avoid. Instead of providing a clear and categorical way to approach classroom relationships the UNCRC is best seen as a set of principles which provide the backdrop to more nuanced decisions which can only be judged in the context of that classroom, on that day, with those children. The capacity to mobilize the CRC as principles to inform everyday decisions is a skill to be developed in professional education. The development by schools of agreed structures and processes for behaviour management is essential to support teachers in their concern to promote learning and well-being. In addition to the need to use rules to regulate behaviour to ensure the smooth functioning of the school, teachers may also use punishments with a pedagogical purpose, to help children develop into considerate moral agents (Hand 2020). There is an important role for rights in identifying the rules, discriminating between those which are liable to attract serious punishment and those which attract minor sanctions, and establishing fair procedures for making decisions and determining punishment. The dangers of a lack of structure are illustrated by Amanda Rose Wilder’s documentary film Approaching the Elephant (2014) which records the establishment of a free school, where adults attempt to reduce their authority to the bare minimum. They hope that a self-regulating community will emerge through the children’s interactions. In reality, the film documents how much time is wasted, how much upset and destruction is experienced and how chaotic

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such a school can become. While the desire to place children at the centre of the educational process is laudable, from a children’s rights perspective an education experiment based on reducing structures is problematic. Children, like adults, can be at their most creative when they work within structures. A  lack of structure in school does not serve the best interests of children as a community since some children are likely to take the initiative to impose their own structure by bullying and dominating their less confident peers. Adults in schools have responsibilities as duty bearers who are required to ensure that the community sufficiently protects all its members, and one of the fairest ways to do that is to uphold some basic rules. A child rights perspective on behaviour management requires adult authority to be exercised, but in a way that respects the rights of all members of the school community. The right to participation means participation within agreed structures and not that children must be in charge. Children’s rights are perfectly compatible with rules, authority and punishment. In fact, the nature of human vulnerability, perhaps particularly acute for children, requires a system of rules. Since we all depend on others for our well-being, ‘rules operate as constraints on individuals for the good of the collective’ (Fineman 2016; Osler 2016: 113). But, at the same time, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child observes that ‘children do not lose their human rights by virtue of passing through the school gates’ (UNCRC 2001: para. 8). In other words, rules and behaviour management policies must be respectful of rights to equality, dignity and participation. According to General Comment No.1 on the UNCRC, children should not be subjected to corporal punishment, nor suffer any treatment that fails to respect their inherent dignity. Nevertheless, the use of such punishments is still common in many parts of the world. Research in Nigeria has confirmed that such punishments are often used because the teachers see them as part of their duty of care, reflecting the fear that sparing the rod spoils the child: If parents or teachers fail to discharge this duty of care to the children, society will blame them if children grow up with those bad behaviours. (Teacher quoted in Emejulu 2018: 181)

Such beliefs are reproduced among some children who are the victims of physical punishment: It helps us to behave better, also helps us pay more attention to our studies and honestly, it promotes respect and obedience in students. (Student quoted in Emejulu 2018: 222)



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While cultural attitudes towards morality and adult authority partly explain the persistence of such activities, it also reflects a fear that there is no effective alternative. Advocates of children’s rights thus have to pursue two lines of argument. The first is to criticize the use of violence against children as inherently unjust and also acknowledge that ‘the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world’ (Arendt [1969] 2013). The second line to pursue is to demonstrate the positive alternatives available to teachers. In outlining some alternatives, we start with Janusz Korczak, an early advocate of children’s rights, who established a range of progressive practices in his orphanage in Poland before the Second World War. He acknowledged that children had a right to be children above all, and that this requires adults to understand that children will behave in ways which are sometimes rather odd (compared to adults). He urged adults to shift their focus: We train our attention and ingenuity to prying into wrongdoing, searching, sniffing, stalking, seizing red-handed in the act, full of suspicions of mischief … One banged the door, another didn’t make his bed properly, another mislaid his coat, still another ruined his note-book. We scold and nag instead of being glad that these are mishaps that happen only singly. (Korczak [1929] 2009: 38)

In recognizing the adults’ role in this process, he also points out that they have the capacity to generate many of the problems they then feel duty-bound to resolve: We know the way to success; we give directions, advice. We develop virtues, stamp out faults. We guide, correct, train. The child – nothing. We – everything. We order about and demand obedience. Morally and legally responsible, knowing and far-seeing, we are the sole judges of the child’s actions, movements, thoughts, and plans. (Korczak [1929] 2009: 25)

In one empirical study, where the researchers observed classrooms and then interviewed children about their behaviour, the researchers concluded that teachers might usefully reflect on whether they try to maintain control over the classroom too tightly. Following Korczak, the more you go looking for trouble, the more you will find, and the more time you will spend dealing with it. The researchers’ observations suggested that this may lead students into routine minor forms of resistance or subversion, and that teachers may inadvertently undermine their long-term goals of supporting children’s development of moral autonomy (Halstead and Jiamei 2009). This leads to some observations about

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behaviour management in schools. The first concerns the rules, which are there to govern the classroom and might reasonably therefore be drawn up between those who have to abide by them: the teacher and the students. The second is that the more rules one draws up, the more opportunities for infringement one creates. A  primary school in England, for example, has just three school rules: (1) be kind, (2) be safe, (3) be responsible. When there are many rules, such as those covering appropriate dress and personal appearance, teachers may be tempted by default to look for infringements of the rules. An alternative is to shift their focus to promoting adherence. While there are few easy answers, a long-term solution to behaviour management probably resides in creating rules the class believes in, seeking to promote those rules consistently and sharing responsibility for creating the kind of classroom culture that all members of the class want. As with all systems of rules, establishing a process for dealing with conflict and misbehaviour is essential, but this is just one element of the overall framework for promoting behaviour. In the following paragraphs we take each of these elements in turn, to consider how they might be developed. UNICEF UK (n.d. b) has provided a useful starting point for how teachers can involve children in reviewing and establishing the rules, through the creation of a classroom charter. They recommend that a charter can exist alongside more traditional behaviour policies and codes of conduct at the outset, in the hope that eventually everyone can build confidence that the classroom charter can replace such top-down policies. They point out that the process of discussion and negotiation itself reflects Article 12 of the UNCRC, and that through engagement with other articles students can reflect on how children’s rights apply to their everyday classroom interactions. For example, given that Article 28 states discipline systems should respect the dignity and rights of children, this might make a good starting point for reflection, namely, to consider the extent to which existing rules achieve this end. In addition, they recommend that students think about the different roles of adults and children, for example, in relation to Article 12, what should teachers do to respect children’s right to be heard and what should students do? Such a discussion helps all members of the class to think about the nature of teachers’ authority and how exercising it helps to uphold the principles of the UNCRC. The idea of positive reinforcement of rules does not directly derive from the UNCRC, but we suggest it here because it is a useful way for teachers to think about the problem of behaviour management and because we believe



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it is effective. Ultimately, if teachers are to build a positive culture where rights are respected and more fully realized, this has to be built on a positive vision, rather than simply one which only focuses on spotting problems and infringements. This is not to suggest that teachers only focus on the positives, but it is to remind them that neither should they only focus on the negatives. A systematic review of the evidence for behaviour management interventions concluded as follows: It is notable that the included interventions focused on largely positive responses to the challenge of misbehaviour, training teachers to positively encourage learning behaviour and putting in place reward systems, rather than a focus on punitive measures. (Moore et al. 2019: 97)

What this means in practice is taking responsibility as the adult duty bearer. In relation to Article 12, for example, a teacher with a negative mindset could start a class discussion and feel obliged to intervene by reproaching every child who speaks out of turn, talks over another, is rude to a classmate or is disrespectful to a minority group. A positive approach would be to set up the rules for this class discussion, remind students about expectations and why they are important, explain what this might look like in practice and consider what the pitfalls might be. Then the teacher can positively reinforce the rules by thanking students who engage in the discussion appropriately, reminding students of expectations if they veer off the agreed standards of behaviour and saving sanctions as a last resort for deliberate disruption. Not only does this throw the focus onto what behaviour is desired, but it creates a more positive atmosphere in which the teacher says more positive things than negative. But even here, there is a problem when the behaviour management system becomes fetishized and so an elaborate rewards system runs alongside an equally elaborate punishment system, where the recording of points in the ledger becomes a major time-consuming activity. This creates a ‘one-size-fits-all system’ assuming that the same punishments or rewards will work equally for all children regardless of their circumstances (Durrant and Stewart-Tufescu 2017). It also risks recycling a basic form of behaviourist manipulation which sits in opposition to the vision of CRE we have developed in this book. At its worst, such a system can actually undermine its own intentions as the good behaviour is ritually bombarded with stars, the very disposition to so behave is corrupted by subordination to the disposition to gain reward and recognition – itself a dangerous habit. (Skillen 2002: 377)

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As Korczak might remind us, the child must remain central to our concerns, because all sound ideas can be distorted into bad ideas, if they take priority over our relationship with individual children. Ultimately, if the teacher does need to use punishments, even this can reinforce the rights-respecting culture of the classroom as the sanctions are used in the name of the charter and the culture of the class, rather than as a personal punishment from the adult in authority to the naughty child. This shift in language is subtle but can make a significant difference. Rather than acting in a manner that can be seen as somewhat arbitrary, the teacher acts to defend the rights-respecting norms of the classroom. This describes the teacher as judge, acting in a defined role on behalf of the community, rather than as dictator, free of accountability. On this view it is useful to reflect that even Korczak was ‘sued’ by children in his orphanage children’s court for stepping out of line (Hartman 2009). Rather than seeing it as diminishing his authority, he saw it as reinforcing the legitimacy of his role. Just because the teacher, as the adult duty bearer, has responsibility for ensuring the classroom operates in a fair and productive way, it does not follow that they must act alone in this role. The rights-respecting teacher’s role is as much about working with students and coordinating their efforts. Peer mediation schemes provide a good example of how this can work. Students volunteer to be trained as peer mediators and make themselves available to deal with disputes between peers that might otherwise lead to arguments and disruption that would constitute behaviour management problems in the classroom. In Sheffield in the UK, where several external organizations have been training young people in peer mediation in schools across the city, students reported very high levels of appreciation for the programme and teachers saw it as supportive and felt it reduced the number of incidents they had to deal with (Hagel and Brooks 2013). Similarly, a review of mediation and restorative justice in Finnish schools argues that such programmes enable participants to learn useful social skills, contribute to an atmosphere of trust and prevent minor problems escalating into more disruptive misbehaviour (Gellin 2018). Such programmes require young mediators to ‘recognise bias and identify what is important to each party’ and to ‘take account of different viewpoints without becoming an advocate for one side’ (Hagel and Brooks 2013: 14). It works because it acknowledges children will be children and engage in boisterous play, get worked up about mistakes or simply lash out for a moment. Peer mediators can engage with these incidents without judgement and without silencing children in the rush to an apology or a hastily sought solution, as a busy teacher might be tempted to do.



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Other mechanisms have also been developed, for example, the use of circle time discussions in class or school council restorative justice hearings in year groups or across the school (Alderson 2000). Whatever the process, the principles are consistent, according to one head teacher: The school’s systems for dealing with offences must be known to be fair and be based on fundamental principles of rights and responsibilities. Being sure of the facts; working for reconciliation and reparation; allowing students to explain themselves; these are very important expressions of a school’s and society’s values. (Cunningham 2000: 134)

As Korczak recognized, the mechanisms of a court (in his case in an orphanage, in our case in a school) do not preclude generosity or forgiveness, but they also ensure no one can readily exploit anyone else, and they model justice. We would add the observation that this discussion of positive alternatives to violence and punishment has addressed the three dimensions of CRE, namely, education about, through and for children’s rights. On this view, the systems and procedures established for a rights-respecting behaviour policy are worthy of the investment of time and training because they also have an educative function in the school’s CRE programme. Before leaving this discussion of classroom rules and behaviour we want to note, and briefly respond to, a line of criticism that seems potentially significant. Foucault has emerged as an increasingly significant figure in educational research and scholarship and his ideas have opened up new debates about how schools operate and how power works through institutional practices to shape (and constrain) the lives of those affected. In general terms this enables us to retell the history of state education as the extension of a form of power that measures, categorizes, labels, divides and judges young people and in doing so creates forms of subjectivity which render individuals more governable (Ball 2013). More specifically, in relation to school rules and class charters, Foucault has been used to argue that the co-option of young people into the formulation of rules that will constrain and subjectivize them is merely a superficial variation in strategy, because the rules ultimately continue to work in the same way (Drew 2019). Our response is partly theoretical and partly pragmatic. Theoretically, we would argue that just because all institutions work to reproduce forms of dominant discourses (such as how to be a good student, what is valued and what is rewarded) it does not mean that all manifestations of those discourses and all processes of subjectivization are equally oppressive. We cannot imagine

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a school, operating in any kind of recognizable way, surviving or flourishing without rules. To some extent the very existence of an institution with a hundred staff and a thousand children suggests that the participants cannot all be free – they must be constrained, there are roles to inhabit, processes to comply with and expectations to be met. Dismissing these as all coercive or manipulative may be intellectually satisfying, but it does not move us forward (if we assume we are operating within such institutions). The pragmatic question is then, what forms of subjectivity, what roles, what processes are pursued? Who is involved in the decisions and what criteria can they use? What latitude is possible in the decisions, and what room for manoeuvre do individuals have? This leaves us arguing that the involvement of children per se is not the sole marker of a CRE approach. Rather it is the impact of the children’s involvement and the nature of expectations that emerge. We do not expect schools to entirely liberate children from the routine exercise of power, but we do recognize that there is scope for things to be done differently and for new possibilities to be explored for ‘being a student’ or ‘being a teacher’. CRE creates a space for exploring those possibilities. Ultimately we should not aspire to the absence of rules. The whole notion of rights requires some mechanism for upholding expectations and constraining some actions.

The Classroom as a Safe Environment: (ii) A Space for Developing Informed Opinions Talking is an essential element of a successful CRE classroom. Children have the right to develop and share informed opinions; they need to find ways to learn about diversity and engage with others to develop empathy and resolve conflicts; and if rights have to be balanced against each other and related to context, then the development of phronesis requires opportunities to engage in public deliberation. The notion of the classroom as a ‘safe space’ is important here, but that does not mean a charmed space where children are protected from the harsh realities of a politically divided world. Rather it means that teachers need to work towards establishing norms and expectations which create a sense of psychological safety for students in classrooms where they can encounter and think about the range of controversial, sensitive and emotive issues that are bound up in contemporary political debates. This is a recurrent theme in writing about controversial issues



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pedagogy and the role of teachers’ professional knowledge and expertise in responding flexibly to their context: It is simply not possible to lay down hard-and-fast rules about teaching controversial subject-matter to be applied at all times. The teacher has to take account of the knowledge, values and experiences which students bring with them into the classroom; the teaching methods which predominate in other lessons; the classroom climate … and the age and ability of the students. (Stradling, Noctor and Baines 1984: 3)

Creating a safe classroom requires good relationship between teacher and class, and this will often build up over time, with students feeling progressively more able to discuss matters of personal sensitivity. It is important to build routines for sharing and discussing opinions and not just reserving controversial issues for times when significant events happen and emotions may be strong. Such routines can help teach students to build their classroom as a deliberative space, so that urgent issues can be readily accommodated within an established framework of rules and processes. In exploring the relationship between CRE and the creation of a safe space for discussion, we have drawn on a framework of pedagogic principles developed by Osler and Starkey ([1996] 2018a, 2010). Each of the following principles is derived from the articles of the UNCRC.

Dignity and Security (Articles 19, 23, 28, 29) The first principle of creating a safe space is to ensure children’s dignity is retained. At a very basic level this means establishing ground rules to ensure people are protected from ridicule or mockery. In practice, this is an area of teaching skill that develops over time as some children (and indeed teachers) are tempted to use humour and put-downs to gain control of the space and win over others to their position (Baxter 2002). Part of building a classroom culture together requires the teacher to draw these processes out into the open and to explain the unintended side effects for those on the receiving end. This is particularly important when specific students are likely to be affected personally by the discussion or are in vulnerable minority groups. Ultimately, the extent to which teachers can guarantee the security and dignity of these students may be a limiting factor on the kinds of discussions they are able to manage with a class. In Germany, the Beutelsbacher Consensus has emerged as a set of guidelines for teachers when teaching controversial issues. This addresses another aspect of

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the dignity of the child, by focusing on their right to develop their own opinions about ethical and political issues. One of these principles is a prohibition against overwhelming the student, which states that the teacher should not set out to entrap students intellectually for the sake of promoting ‘desirable opinions’ because that hinders the formation of independent judgement (Kloubert 2019: 199).

Participation (Articles 12, 13, 14, 15, 31) There is a debate among education professionals about whether some issues should be out of bounds for classroom discussion and whether certain issues should be considered controversial. In coming to their judgements teachers may need to consider the criteria being used to define an issue as ‘controversial’, the value or quality of arguments used and the potential harm that might be caused by the discussion (Levinson and Fay 2019). However, factoring in a children’s rights perspective reminds us that children also have a right to learn about issues of relevance to them, and that their interests may be best served by allowing them to talk about issues in the relative safety of the classroom, under the relatively benign supervision of their teacher. While teachers may feel the need to be cautious, being overly cautious may mean they end up having relatively safe and consequently unimportant conversations in the classroom, while young people are prey to others manipulating them or only offering partial accounts when they talk about them in other contexts. We would therefore recommend that teachers involve children in identifying the kinds of issues they want to talk through and explore. It may well be that the teacher does not adopt a completely open-ended moral position on some issues, and it may also be inappropriate to try to have lengthy debate-style discussions. If young people feel something is important, we would generally assume the teacher should find a way to focus on that topic in class. We observed an interesting example of this during a day of activities where students from different schools were being trained in debate techniques in a debate organization. Part of the day involved students selecting the topic they wanted to discuss and a group of boys from a Catholic school immediately selected gay marriage as the topic they wanted to focus on. Their teachers were generally aghast at the idea, but it seemed to us that this was precisely why the children had taken their opportunity to discuss the issue while they were on relatively neutral ground. While the adults were uncomfortable with this turn of events, it seemed to illustrate the following argument:



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Learning how to deal with sensitive controversial issues in a structured setting … can be a rehearsal for dealing with more immediate controversy in the playground, home or community. It’s also part of preparation for living in a democratic society where controversial issues are debated and discussed without recourse to violence. (Claire and Holden 2007: 7)

If children have a right to participate in these discussions, then it makes sense to ensure they resonate with their own lives.

Identity and Inclusivity (Articles 2, 7, 8, 16, 23, 28, 29, 31) The teacher needs to reflect on their own position and underlying beliefs, and on the dynamics of the class, especially where there is a majority group and a minority. Even when a discussion is set up in a way that the teacher judges to be fair, members of a minority may still feel marginalized and under scrutiny. Debates and discussions are opportunities to recognize the full range of legitimate alternative opinions around an issue. While some students will be confident and happy to provide a voice for those minority perspectives, the teacher should also consider how else they can ensure a wide range of opinions are included and recognized. Strategies include inviting in external speakers, representing different opinions through classroom resources or inviting students to engage in role play to think about the issue from different perspectives. Here it is also important to set up the discussions as exploratory and deliberative, rather than competitive. The explicit learning goal is to search for a better understanding of the issue and why it is contentious, not to win an argument or find a consensus about the best way ahead. Sometimes a consensus might be possible, but it is equally valuable to simply learn to appreciate the reasons why there are irreconcilable differences between people and use that as a foundation for thinking about how people can live together with such differences through a rights-based democratic system.

Freedom (Articles 12, 13, 14, 15) Freedom of speech and conscience are important aspects of children’s rights, but students are not born knowing how to handle controversy and need to develop and practise the skills of listening, stating their case and preparing to change their minds or rethink their views if necessary. Expressing an opinion sounds simple, but in order to make a judgement about when and how to do so, we need to think about how we might be perceived by others, how they will interpret our

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words and how those ideas resonate with political traditions. A recent research project examining how secondary school students engage with rights-based dilemmas found that many children were perfectly happy to curtail their own freedom of speech in order to protect other people’s feelings. Through debating the principle of freedom of speech and thinking about how it applied within the classroom, the students were able to articulate their own view about how they balanced it against other considerations (Jerome, Liddle and Young 2020). Teacher and students also need to be clear about what is allowed and what gets ruled out. For example, in a discussion about racism, the teacher may have to explain why some opinions are unacceptable in the context of the school, especially where the school, as in the UK, has a legal duty to promote equality and challenge prejudice. However, some comments that cause offence may have to be tolerated, and here the teacher may choose to focus on helping the person exercising their right to speak to be aware of the consequences for themselves and others. Those who feel they have been offended, belittled or ignored will in turn judge the speaker and this may have consequences for future relationships. There is a price to pay for living with freedoms and this includes the possibility of being offended in some contexts. Citizens in a liberal democracy do not have to agree with or accept all opinions, but they have to think about the need to live peacefully with those who hold different opinions. In the context of giving, taking and thinking about offence, humour can play an important part in managing the complex dynamics of the classroom (Davies 2008). The classroom cannot be a place where views are censored to too great an extent. If we deny too many opinions from being aired, then our teaching becomes censorship and is likely to be counterproductive as an educational enterprise. The correct place to draw the line is not when an opinion causes offence but rather when it causes harm, or indeed when it is illegal, as in the case of inciting racial hatred (Davies 2008). The teacher therefore has to make these judgements in their own context, for example, a discussion of immigration policy may cause emotional distress to students whose family members have been subject to separation in what has been created as a hostile environment (Grierson 2018). A  teacher may judge that discussion should be curtailed on those grounds. Students can usefully be involved in reviewing the rules and decisions about what is and is not acceptable, to help them develop their reflection on what constitutes the acceptable boundaries to freedom of speech. By engaging in discussions about these issues, teachers can also acknowledge that the issue of freedom of speech has itself become controversial and they can reiterate that most rights are not absolute.



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Access to Information (Article 17) Children have a right to access a range of information, which places a duty on teachers to think about the range of material on offer in the classroom. But this is not just a right that should be seen in isolation, because access to a wide range of material also implies that students have access to a wide range of perspectives and opinions about the topic under investigation. Schools have a legitimate role in ensuring that narratives presented in the media can be scrutinized and challenged (Scarratt and Davison 2012). Such a range of materials and ideas is essential to help children develop their own informed opinions and to explore the ways in which individual issues are connected to other issues and political beliefs. Young people are often inundated with access to various sources of information, but these may well be linked so as to create self-enclosed and distorting information bubbles where content is generated to provide clickbait and reinforce certain positions. As one secondary school student reflected during a project on terrorism, Before I didn’t know, I knew what was going on the news, but I didn’t know how to understand it. (Student quoted in Jerome and Elwick 2020)

The proliferation of media sources and the ease with which students can access them means that this principle is growing in importance over time. One role for the CRE teacher is to help students look behind the headlines to better understand the issues being considered. This requires the deliberate teaching of critical media literacy skills as an integral element to CRE. It also requires that teachers help students appreciate how issues are framed within political debates, so they can come to a fuller appreciation of the significance of specific discussions. As society changes certain issues become less controversial in a way that has been likened to a tipping point in cultural and political change (Hess 2009). In many European countries the banning of smoking in public places was highly controversial at the beginning of the twenty-first century but quickly became accepted and is at the time of writing unlikely to be disputed. On the other hand, the issue of access to sex-segregated public toilets became salient around 2020. On one reading, this is a very specific debate on which a young person may feel they have a personal opinion, but a truly informed opinion would recognize that this issue is often seen as totemic in the broader discussion of trans rights and debates about self-identification (Levinson and Fay 2019).

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Privacy (Article 16) The Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated clearly that the right to express their views is a right and not an obligation, and so children may freely choose not to disclose their opinions (UNCRC 2009: para. 16). Some students experience schools as hostile places, especially when it comes to revealing deeply held values and opinions, and even more so if such discussion positions them in a minority (Sohal 2007). Students often dislike being singled out in discussions to talk about personal beliefs or experiences, particularly without warning or if this marks them out as different. Teachers should always be aware of the possibility that topics may be sensitive or painful for some. Sometimes a private word before a lesson can be helpful. Equally, a judgement may need to be taken that a class is not yet ready to discuss some issues or that activities need to be carefully structured if they are not to be hurtful or damaging. Teachers must remember schools are public places and students’ right to privacy should be respected as well as their right to speak out. It is important to remember that the research in this area shows that children from primary age onwards are capable of dealing with political issues and developing an understanding of political concepts including power, authority, law and order (Ross 2007). They can also develop the skills to manage participatory debate and democracy in the classroom itself. Where children’s concerns such as climate change, poverty and terrorism are addressed, such discussions help the children to be less pessimistic and have a more positive outlook (Alexander 2010). This was reflected in a study in Northern Ireland in which secondary school students became more optimistic about the future after meeting and interviewing political ex-prisoners (Emerson, Orr and Connolly 2014). In that context, it is difficult to imagine anything more controversial than sending ex-prisoners, some of whom were convicted of terrorism-related offences, into schools. However, the young people and their teachers were capable of engaging with the controversy, learning from it and becoming more optimistic. By contrast, shielding the young people from the difficult issues would be likely to leave their relative ignorance intact.

Conclusion In this chapter we have identified some attributes of a classroom for CRE. We have argued that teachers should avoid the pitfalls and problems associated with



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some of the established ways in which classrooms operate. And we have also suggested some positive approaches to developing a rights-respecting classroom. CRE has implications for the content of lessons, the selection of resources, the learning activities that are used and the relationships that are nurtured. In pursuing these suggestions, we believe that an individual teacher can go a long way to developing effective CRE practices. However, we also recognize that teachers work in the broader context of the school, and so in the next chapter we turn to consider some of the implications of CRE for planning and processes beyond the classroom.

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Introduction In this chapter we explore practical strategies that have been used to promote aspects of children’s rights in education not just in individual classrooms but across the whole school. One prominent strand of the literature on children’s rights and of school improvement is the variety of approaches loosely referred to as ‘student voice’. We contend that when student voice is associated with Article 12 of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) then it can be considered as a children’s rights approach. In other words the reason for ensuring student voice is heard in the school community is that the CRC provides the basis for our claim that children are citizens with a right to have their opinions considered. However, we very much contest an approach to student voice that is merely associated with consumer feedback that serves to inform school decisions on efficiency. In this case student voice is not conceptualized as a right, but merely as part of a management tool that cannot be considered as having any emancipatory purpose. Consequently, this chapter discusses how apparently similar practices can be aligned with different ideologies. We show how student voice is frequently used to co-opt children into managerialist projects within a culture of performativity rather than empowering children as is their right. We examine some explicitly children’s rights-based projects, such as Amnesty International’s Human Rights Friendly Schools, UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools (in the West) and Child Friendly Schools (in the South). We consider the practical ways in which whole school systems can be built on a foundation of promoting children’s rights and how these systems may be sustained. In so doing we draw attention to some of the pitfalls that may limit the extent to which such projects promote children’s rights education (CRE).

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Article 12 UNCRC Article 12 is one of the most influential of the articles in the CRC. While no article can be taken in isolation, the implications of its prescriptions have encouraged many institutions that work with children to overhaul their traditional ways of operating. This applies particularly to courts, hospitals, care homes and schools. We have mentioned this article several times in previous chapters, and we now give it close consideration. There are two paragraphs to this article and the full text of Article 12 reads as follows: 1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. 2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

The first paragraph recognizes that adults’ authority over children is not absolute and that children have agency. Even very young children are capable of forming views on whether they are being treated appropriately or have needs at a particular time. A baby’s screams communicate a need for attention. From a children’s rights perspective, even where children may be largely dependent on the support of adults, they have the right to be treated with dignity and for their view to be listened to with respect. The paragraph suggests that once the view has been expressed it must be considered. That said, the phrasing is that views should be ‘given due weight’ and that this may be a variable dependent on ‘age and maturity’. It implies that older children are more likely to be persuasive. Nonetheless, younger children also have the right to express opinions and attempt to influence situations. They too have the right to an intergenerational dialogue with those adults who have considerable power over them. Such conversations, if genuinely reciprocal, are a democratic process as John Dewey and Célestin Freinet among others have advocated. The second paragraph of Article 12 refers to formal proceedings, such as a court, tribunal or disciplinary hearing at a school. Children have a right in these circumstances to put their own case, and this must be factored into the procedures employed. In such a formal context, great sensitivity is required



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to encourage young people, whether witnesses, victims or accused, to express themselves candidly and without fear of arbitrary or unjust consequences. This may involve engaging a supporting professional or parent. In the case of a school disciplinary process preliminary conversations with children in trouble and witnesses may help in compiling a rounded picture of events including both triggers and consequences. In summary, Article 12 guarantees two rights, namely the right to express a view and the right to have the view taken seriously. The conditions for fulfilling these rights, neither of which is absolute, have been theorized in a very influential paper by Laura Lundy. She proposes a model in which four factors interact. These are Space, Voice, Audience and Influence. She summarizes her argument in a diagram based on the following brief definitions: Space: Voice: Audience: Influence:

Children must be given the opportunity to express a view. Children must be facilitated to express their views. The view must be listened to. The view must be acted upon, as appropriate. (Lundy 2007: 933)

Her model also draws attention to the interaction, not only of these four elements but also of other rights in the CRC such as Article 2 on non-discrimination; Article 3 on the best interests of the child; Article 5 on the right to guidance from adults; Article 13 on the right to information and Article 19 on the right to be safe. Although Article 12 now has considerable influence on the conduct of formal proceedings involving children, it has major implications for the daily life of schools. In some contexts, such as Freinet movement classes, consultations are built into the weekly routine of the cooperative class. Other formalized opportunities include the widely practised circle time where everyone in a class group gets an opportunity to share news or issues that concern them. In such cases it is crucial to build an understanding and expectation that ideas and concerns are expressed tactfully, politely and appropriately in the situation. Care must be taken to favour positive expressions and encouragement and concern for others. Where there is anger, disappointment or frustration about conditions or processes, emotion should be directed to identifying solutions. Time will always be limited, so speakers are required to be thoughtful of others and allow time for the maximum number of contributions. Other spaces for expressing views include evaluations of learning sequences or projects. In this case the expression of views can be in graphic, artistic, dramatic or musical forms. Formal school councils have a potentially valuable

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role in schools when well organized and having real decision-making powers, including having a budget and the opportunity to make spending decisions. In many schools, council members take responsibility for receiving visitors to the school and are often involved in the appointment of staff. This may involve observing candidates teaching and possibly interviewing them. Providing a space for the expression of views, or voice in Lundy’s model, is insufficient to fulfil Article 12 if there is no support and training in communication skills. Such skills require practice and so regular opportunities for participation are essential. However, the communication is not just a theoretical exercise or a game. It requires an audience. This means people to listen and take notice. The result should be significant influence. The effect of proposing solutions to issues of concern should be visible changes. An illustration of explicitly reporting back to the school community was seen in one of the secondary schools we have visited which uses a notice board outside the library to encourage what it labels as a Great Wall of Ideas. Students are invited to write their contributions on sticky notes and post them on the wall. They give their ideas on how the school can better meet their needs and expectations. From time to time teachers and students meet to discuss the ideas and feed them into the agenda of the school council. Key ideas are also summarized on a poster that can be read by passers-by within the school. On our visit this read: What students want from their school Freedom not license Teachers who help To have choices To be part of a family

Clearly this is a consolidation into four key ideas of many individual contributions. In this case students are demanding a democratic and rightsbased school environment. The first two of the demands are very much linked. Teachers are in a position of authority in schools and the way in which they use this authority has a determining effect on the climate of the school. This may be authoritarian, where the emphasis is on control of students, or it can be democratic and encourage creativity and engagement. Other schools have used a simpler ‘You said, We did’ board where they list the points children have raised and how they addressed them. Whether this is simply a response to consumer feedback or part of a willingness to take children’s views seriously



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as part of a concern for democracy and children’s rights depends on the ethos of the school. When teachers exercise democratic authority in schools, they are perceived to help. This authority is aimed at ensuring all students have equal entitlements to learn and to flourish. It is based on persuasion and negotiation, and it is used to ensure a supportive context for students rather than the anarchy that sometimes develops when there is too little structure (Dahl 1989; Knight and Pearl 2000). It avoids excessive emphasis on protection but ensures that protection is in creative tension with provision and participation. In other words, the CRC provides a comprehensive framework for thinking about democratic authority in schools. The third demand in the poster (‘to have choices’) aspires to the fulfilment of Article 12. Having choices is a complementary dimension of a school that aspires to be democratic and rights based rather than authoritarian and duty based. The fourth demand is about belonging and identity. The metaphor is that the school community should be like a family in the most positive definition of that term. Namely, the school should value all its members equally, should seek to include them and ensure that they flourish. Different members of a family have different roles, but, in principle, they all have the best interests of the family community at heart. Most importantly perhaps the family is a prime source of identity. Families have traditions and a history, as have schools whose members often take pride in their association, for instance, celebrating alumni. In England belonging to a school is often symbolized by a common uniform. This does not need to be conservative and unchanging but may evolve following proposals and suggestions from students. Article 12 is controversial as it challenges authoritarian models of schooling that are strongly present all over the world. Authoritarian schools exist alongside schools that aim to be democratic, and indeed schools may have elements both of democracy and of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism distributes authority through a hierarchy where power is concentrated in the hands of an Education Ministry, carrying out the policies of a government. School leaders are expected to deliver education in a way that conforms to the policies of the day. They may choose to do this by using their power to closely constrain teachers, leaving them with few choices and little capacity to exercise agency. The authoritarian model of schooling fails to fulfil Article 12 on three grounds. First, an authoritarian school places students in a subordinate role, for instance, by referring to learners as pupils. This is a feature of the ‘ideology of immaturity’ (Grace 1995) that ascribes labels of child, pupil, boy or girl to learners rather

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than accepting them as citizens entitled to dignity and rights within the school community. This authoritarian or paternalistic model of schooling denies learners the capacity to contribute meaningfully to deliberations about their education ostensibly because of their lack of experience. Second, an authoritarian mindset is fearful that allowing students to express their opinions may undermine the hierarchical structures in place. There is a concern that, deprived of an authority based on their ability to punish, teachers will lose control and the result will be anarchy. The third objection to student participation is that a democratic way of working requires time and effort and that these would be better deployed in enhancing preparation for testing. Such attitudes appear to be counterproductive. Authoritarian schools notoriously have high levels of exclusions. Numbers of students react so negatively to the school culture and environment that they challenge the system in such a way that they cannot be accommodated within the school family. Even more widespread is a lack of enjoyment in schooling and students feeling that their dignity is not respected. In such situations, students are unlikely to learn well and achieve. A number of research studies testify to this situation. In a paper entitled ‘We are People too’ involving hundreds of student essays and focus group discussions Virginia Morrow concluded that the most pressing concern of the students in her study was ‘being accorded little dignity or respect, and having little opportunity to simply have a say and contribute to discussions’ (1999: 166). Their demands were not great. They simply wanted to have a say in decisions though not necessarily the last say. Lundy’s own research confirmed this. She reports that ‘not having a say in the decisions made about them was the single most important issue to children in Northern Ireland’ (2007: 929). She includes examples of statements from students such as an 11-year-old girl who said, ‘Sometimes school can get on my nerves cause I don’t think children get enough respect from teachers and caretakers and I think some children are scarred [sic] about speaking their mind in case they get shouted at’ (ibid.). These examples of perceived lack of respect suggest that school has an emotional impact on students who are treated in this way. The shorthand for this in the quotation above is ‘school can get on my nerves’. One concrete expression of this emotional pressure is being ‘shouted at’. A  study in a primary school heard from a boy who had been summoned to the head’s office and then made to listen as the head phoned his mother. The boy reported, ‘When talking to his mother on the phone the head had used a “nice voice” but as soon as she had finished on the phone she started shouting’ (Wyse 2001: 213). In fact, this study



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concluded that children were particularly concerned by what they saw as unfair treatment by their teachers. This stemmed from teachers making fair treatment conditional on good behaviour rather than being a right and a given. As well as being an act of violence in itself, behaviour such as shouting by teachers has a chilling effect as students are then too frightened to express themselves. Another participant in Lundy’s study felt that ‘teacher’s opinions always come first’ and this is reinforced in the article with a cartoon drawn by one of the students and depicting a male teacher shouting furiously: ‘Shut the hell up. I’m always right.’ This deliberately intimidating vignette is brutal in its failure to respect the student’s dignity and totally inadmissible in any school that aspires to be rights respecting and democratic. In an extensive study of student views on their schooling in a local authority in central England, Audrey Osler found many telling expressions of ways in which students would like their relationship with teachers to improve. This may be as simple as teachers giving praise rather than ‘pick up on the tiny things we do wrong’ or avoiding ‘teachers dictating to the students’ (2010: 77). Focusing on mistakes is often a fall-back position for teachers and it simply reinforces their power and control in the very short term. Giving feedback that is positive and supportive to students’ learning is an important skill to cultivate in democratic and rights-respecting schools. Osler’s research participants, all of them aged 14–15  years, gave many examples of where they wished that their voice was heard more strongly and their opinions acknowledged. Their examples often concerned rather pragmatic aspects of teaching and learning. For example, one young man wanted to do business studies but instead was obliged to do Spanish. Clearly there are likely to be limitations about what any school can provide, but there are often ways to work round cases like this. Listening to students means possibly having to develop imaginative ways of responding. Another student wished for his teachers to listen in advance of starting to teach a topic and for the teachers to understand and appreciate what students already know. This suggests the importance of teachers focussing not just on their input (their teaching) but as well to encourage and monitor the building of knowledge (learning). From the statements collected and reported, the students in Osler’s study demonstrate a strong sense of what a rights-respecting school should be, and they judge the behaviour of their teachers accordingly. At its most basic this is expressed as, ‘We should have equal rights (teachers and students)’ (2010: 82). They see this entitlement as being violated when teachers too readily contradict or undermine students. They hope for reciprocal respect but often find instead

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shouting, arbitrary sanctions and collective punishments. They also perceive bias and discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity and previous expressions of dissent. Far from seeking to undermine the authority of teachers and the school, students in Osler’s study strongly advocated more structure and less anarchy. They expected the teachers to seriously address the issues of disruptive students who undermine their opportunities for focused study and learning. They identified the root of the problem as students not respecting the teachers. The antidote to this is to promote a culture of mutual and reciprocal respect. When seen through a human rights lens, both teachers and students have obligations to be respectful that extend to everyone in the school community.

‘New Wave’ Student Voice We have previously noted that student voice, while a key element of a rights-based approach to education, can also be co-opted for purposes of governmentality and the evaluation of market-driven school priorities. Schools often operate several different approaches to student voice simultaneously, and a useful classification and analysis of four different types of student voice has been provided by Michael Fielding (2004) and elaborated from a specifically sociological perspective by Geoff Whitty and Emma Wisby (2007a). Fielding notes the predominance across the world of what is often called a neoliberal agenda that focuses on so-called standards (measurable examination results) and attainment (examination success). Preparation for competitive examinations, whereby students are graded and compared with each other and whereby collectively schools are also compared, requires teachers to attempt to evaluate and measure progress in learning. In this context students are scrutinized rather than listened to. Their experiences as consumers of education are measured in a way that can possibly be described as minimalist student voice or ‘students as data source’ (Fielding 2004: 201). Where students are the data source teachers are expected to use evidence from assignments and test papers to evaluate student progress. Where learning and results are insufficient teachers may treat the data as a warning and engage a feedback loop that may involve adapting their teaching style. Such action may benefit the students, but because the interaction with the students is not reciprocal any changes to pedagogy are unilateral and not the result of any negotiation or dialogue. The changes may involve greater intensity of input or



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more frequent testing or more extensive notes to learn by heart. While there may be benefits to students, in that such methods may lead to examination success, the formula is not guaranteed to succeed since it may result in a passive and accepting approach to schooling as purely instrumental. It is unlikely to contribute to a rights-respecting culture across the school or to empower children as rights holders. Sometimes such policies work against the views of the student, narrowing consideration only to the single metric of exam success, rather than allowing for the fact that young people may well have other competing interests and priorities. Where teachers listen to students, as in the suggestions in the discussion on Article 12 above, students become, in Fielding’s terms, ‘active respondents’. There will be opportunities for discussion of the teaching approaches; lesson objectives will be explicit; sequences of work will be evaluated together. Fielding proposes that this level of attention to student voice can also be promoted through a formal school council. Like Freinet (see Chapter  6), Fielding suggests that a higher level of participation in schools is possible where students are researchers. Students may be co-researchers with their teachers when, following a discussion and dialogue, they agree on issues that need investigation and actively seek answers. Students are very well placed to gain quality information from their peers. Student-led focus groups can produce rich information because the discussion and investigation are in a peer-to-peer context and not subject to the possibly inhibiting presence of a teacher or external adult researcher. This is certainly the case when discussing the impact of teacher behaviours including suspected bias or racism (Kellet 2005; Bland and Atweh 2007). Students may also wish to discuss the differences between the approaches of their various teachers, something only they can know about and that may otherwise go unnoticed (Jerome 2012a). The benefits of working with students as researchers have been developed into a rationale based on six principles: 1. Young people can act as ethnographic researchers. 2. Young people can design child friendly research instruments. 3. Young people have easy access to respondents. 4. Young people can bring insights to the interpretation of data. 5. Research serves an educational purpose for the young people involved. 6. Research honours Article 12 of the UNCRC and recognizes student voice. (Jerome 2012a: 146)

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Examples of how such an approach can be implemented include students devising and administering a questionnaire for their year group (Jerome 2012a) and peer-to-peer online discussions (Osler 2010). Since formal ethnographic research is unlikely to feature in the daily curriculum of schools, a first step when engaging with students as researchers is to provide training. Jerome trained groups of students in questionnaire design and noted that the students greatly improved his original questions because they had a better feel for wording that respondents would be likely to understand. In an example of what has been called pedagogical research (Starkey et al. 2014) Jerome worked in one secondary school with three focus groups of students who were interested to investigate ways in which citizenship education was developing in their school. Supported by the researcher they were able to collectively devise a questionnaire that was distributed across years 7–10 in the school. The questionnaire achieved a very satisfactory 50 per cent response rate with nearly three hundred completed. It was in three parts, one of which elicited personal information about age, gender, ethnicity and religious belief. Some items were closed such as asking respondents to rate a statement on a Likert scale. These items could be statistically analysed and presented back to the student researchers in the form of graphs and pie charts. All twenty items in the main questionnaire had space for students to write in comments and these were transcribed by the visiting researcher. The first section of the instrument asked for opinions on the ways in which citizenship education was provided in the school. This included how enthusiastic they rated their teacher, how much they enjoyed Citizenship classes and what suggestions they had for improving the subject. The second section was entitled Citizenship Beliefs and focused on political issues, voting, engagement with the community and contributions within the school. Jerome worked with the student researchers on a summary of findings and a series of recommendations. The students presented this formally to a meeting of the senior management team at the school. They intended to influence policy and practice within the school. The recommendations, based on the evidence of student perceptions, included the following: • The Citizenship department should review the choice of topics covered in each year, to try to engage younger students more. • Students appreciate specialist teachers and believe they teach the subject well. • The school could teach about diversity and racism more systematically to raise awareness of what is and is not acceptable.



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• The school should develop more opportunities for direct involvement in the local community. • The school should communicate more effectively about what the student council does and achieves. • The school should consider the balance between focusing on individual rights and responsibilities and political rights and responsibilities. In another example of students working as co-researchers, Audrey Osler’s (2010) study of year 10 students across a local authority included a peer-to-peer online discussion board. Building on evidence from the analysis of nearly two thousand completed questionnaires, the researchers identified eleven topics that served as departure points for an online discussion between students. The discussions were anonymous, but participants were protected, and the risks of abusive behaviour minimized, by ensuring that access to the password-protected discussion site was available only to those who had registered through their schools. All topics had relevance for democratic and rights-respecting school cultures, and students were able to use this platform to articulate concerns and make suggestions that could contribute to the recommendations to be made to the local authority as funder of the research. Triggers for the online discussion included the following: • • • • • •

Ideas for improving school rules and the process of agreeing them Flexibility in the timing of the school day How to create a school environment free of bullying and discrimination Achieving greater mutual respect between teachers and students Making school councils more effective Ensuring greater consideration for the cultural diversity in schools and acknowledging different cultural and religious communities

All of these are issues that all schools should review periodically, ensuring the informed input of students to the process. In order to maximize this potential role for Article 12, it is important to ensure that the students whose voices are included are drawn from the whole student population. In a further example of a collaboration between a university and a school (Czerniawski et  al. 2009), the university designed an ambitious research project that aimed to enable school students to investigate aspects of the life of the school in order to contribute to improving the school. This was framed in terms of a desire to

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• Ensure that all learners, irrespective of their class, gender, ethnicity, and ability, were involved in decisions about how, what and when they learn, with whom and the type of environment in which this occurs. • Ensure that students were involved in school improvement strategies and the co-construction of policy making with teachers. (Czerniawski et al. 2009: 23–4; Czerniawski and Garlick 2011: 280)

The school arranged for the election of three representatives of each form group. These researchers were then arranged in three strands of work that ran across all classes in the school and focused on, respectively, teaching and learning; behaviour; and the environment of the school. In this way 92 students participated as researchers, representing the 840 students in the school. The student researchers received training from the university that included the successful conduct of meetings and groups; gaining confidence in voicing an opinion; listening skills; research skills; and research ethics. Each researcher then convened a focus group to discuss their particular topic. They collected data by questionnaires, recorded observations and interviews. By the end of the school year each strand produced a collective charter to be discussed with the senior management of the school. It is significant that in both these examples, the students identified issues of equity and social justice. For example, in Osler’s research, students highlighted the ways in which school processes marginalized children in poverty. In Jerome’s research children identified an everyday form of racist banter as an ongoing problem in the school. This illustrates how involving young people in such investigations and discussions can elicit information about other rights-related issues that might otherwise go unnoticed by the adults in the school. In the same way that education is seen as a right in itself and enabling right, opening access to other rights, so we contend that Article 12 functions as a right in itself, and as an enabling right, helping schools to improve the realization of children’s other rights.

Hart’s Ladder of Participation A well-known attempt to theorize the participation of children in contexts of unequal power relationships is Hart’s (1992) ladder of participation, published by UNICEF. This was derived from an influential paper on citizens’ participation in urban planning that introduced the metaphor of the ladder (Arnstein 1969).



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Hart proposes eight rungs to the ladder. The bottom three are considered non-participation and therefore exploitative. The lowest rung is manipulation with examples such as toddlers being given political placards to provide a cute photo at a political demonstration. Another non-participative activity labelled decoration is when children are given coloured t-shirts and perhaps asked to dance or perform at what is essentially an adult gathering. The third rung is tokenism and an example is when children are put on a conference panel in a context where they have had no involvement in the preparation and little support in appreciating this opportunity. The positive end of the model suggests five degrees of participation, the most modest of which is ‘assigned but informed’. Hart’s example is a scout group sent to clear up litter. If the participants are briefed about the reasons for the clear up and therefore volunteer readily this can be considered as participation, albeit a modest example. The criteria proposed for an action to be considered participation in this analysis are as follows: 1. The children understand the intentions of the project; 2. They know who made the decisions concerning their involvement and why; 3. They have a meaningful (rather than ‘decorative’) role; 4. They volunteer for the project after the project was made clear to them. (Hart 1992: 11)

The next two rungs are for adult-initiated participation and the top two rungs are child initiated, with the very top rung being shared decisions with adults. The model is a heuristic, a way of helping to think about participation, not a prescription. In attempting to use the model, it is often difficult to place an example neatly on a rung. Nevertheless, Hart’s model does stimulate our thinking about the extent to which participation is genuine and effective.

School Councils and Student Councils The projects outlined above demonstrate some of the ways in which student voice can be realized through research collaborations to address issues of social justice and equity. However, each of those examples was also a one-off project and so in this section we turn to consider some of the more routine processes developed in schools. Schools typically have some formal processes to ensure that students have opportunities to influence priorities and agendas

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in a school context. In some jurisdictions it is compulsory for schools to have a school council or student council. A school council brings together members of the school community with different roles including students, teachers, administrative and maintenance staff, parents and governors or members of the school board. Across Europe education authorities in all countries encourage the formal participation of students though it is rarely a legal requirement. School and class councils provide a mechanism for consulting students on issues such as rules, excursions, projects and equipment, but they are less likely to be asked to contribute to discussions on the curriculum and pedagogy or be involved in the appointment of new staff (Bozec 2017; European Commission 2017). In some countries, students are represented on the school board of governors. For example, in England the Education Ministry regulations allow for students to be associate members of the governing body so that their specific knowledge and expertise can inform decisions. School or student councils have both a symbolic and a practical function (Alderson 2000). Symbolically they demonstrate that schools are committed to democracy and a concern for children’s rights. In practical ways students’ contributions to school-level decision-making undoubtedly help to ensure better decisions. Policies and practices introduced by senior staff and governors are more likely to be well and comprehensively implemented if they have been scrutinized by and approved by representative students. Detailed evidence of the ways that school councils operate in practice was gathered and analysed for a government-funded report Real decision making? School councils in action. The findings were based on visits to fifteen schools, primary and secondary, in England (Whitty and Wisby 2007b). The authors confirm previous findings that almost all members of school councils are chosen by election. The councils often meet during curriculum time when the council members leave their lessons for what is considered a school priority event. Other councils meet during the lunch break, but this then loses the prestige attached to the class time meetings. Council meetings tend to be held three to six times a year, though in some schools it is more often. Meetings are usually attended by a teacher with specific responsibilities for the council. In most cases this is a senior member of staff. The agenda is set in most cases by the students who bring issues from their class council meetings. Although issues directly relating to teachers are considered off limits, school councils in England do increasingly involve their members in the appointment of new staff.



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The School Councils in Action report provides details of some imaginative and carefully thought-out practices in the case study schools which are named. The longest established council identified was at Nailsea School in Somerset. It meets fortnightly in the lunch hour, chaired by two school presidents elected by students and teachers. Each year group elects two council members who are responsible for communicating the decisions and debates from school council meetings to tutor groups. The presidents attend governing body meetings and also represent the school at area meetings where school council representatives from a number of schools have an opportunity to network and compare notes. An example of the work of the council, provided in a school newsletter from December 2019, illustrates the way in which students led the agenda on climate change and arrived at a constructive solution. The school’s Climate Group was concerned that school meals were served with disposable plastic cutlery that immediately became plastic waste. Seeking a more environmentally friendly solution, the school council invited the premises manager to meet with them to discuss options. Their research suggested that reusable metal cutlery was the least polluting option. However, in the past metal knives and forks were not always returned and were relatively expensive to replace. Research also suggested that bamboo cutlery was preferable to plastic, but it is also currently more expensive. The student council agreed with the school that bamboo cutlery would be offered with a small supplementary charge. Any surplus generated from this would be given to the school’s Climate Group. Diners are also welcome to avoid the charge and the waste by bringing their own camping set of metal cutlery. Another approach to ensuring that all students have a chance to exercise influence is illustrated by Sydney Russell School in outer London. At the time of the report, every computer in the school had a Student Voice facility which enables students to offer suggestions, requests or other feedback on their experience of school life that will be seen by a senior manager. Personal issues are referred to appropriate staff for follow-up or resolution. Issues relevant to the wider school community are sent to the school council for inclusion on its agenda. In a further concern to provide effective communication a daily news bulletin is circulated across the school (Whitty and Wisby 2007b). The school council at The Blue School is not elected but formed of members of volunteer teams who agree to tackle issues raised from an annual whole school online survey of the state of the school community. The school council produces a five-year development plan and the school leadership set up a Governance Support Team to facilitate the discussion of key development targets and their incorporation into the school development plan. Teams working at the time

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of the report included transport, toilets, waste and recycling, dyslexia support, Africa link and garden and poly tunnel. Some teams successfully applied for grants to support their work in refurbishing bike sheds, promoting healthy lunches and recycling. The previous examples are from secondary schools, but there are many primary schools with flourishing student councils. One identified in the School Councils in Action report is Hampton Wick Infant & Nursery School in outer London. At the time of the report it included almost all children in year 2 (6- to 7-year-olds) who met voluntarily with the head teacher at weekly lunchtime meetings. With experience the school decided to expand the council and include year 1 students as well from 2017. The council provides an opportunity to volunteer for special roles that help to ensure an integrated and friendly school community. One such role is Peace and Harmony Counsellor. Volunteers are required to make a speech outlining their suitability for the role and they are appointed following a vote. They are given a high profile with their photo displayed in each classroom and they perform their duties at break times when they wear a special tabard so as to be conspicuous. Their role is to help isolated or sad children find playmates and to attempt mediation when there is a difficulty. They hold the role for about six weeks. Members of the school council also help new arrivals at the beginning of the school year, and they show parents and visitors round the school. While these examples of children’s involvement are positive and compelling, it is also important to recognize that there is a weakness in such models deriving from the notion that students can act as conduits of ‘the student voice’. In reality, student voice work in schools can be divisive, separating off the confident and articulate students from those who are unlikely to be listened to because of their ambivalent or antagonistic commitment to the school. From this perspective, ‘student voice work may itself become part of a disciplinary discourse which uses students’ (and teachers’) voices to promote, maintain and reproduce institutional and social inequalities’ (Taylor and Robinson 2009: 167–8). Solutions to these challenges might include (s)election processes to ensure a diverse representation and the adoption of more direct forms of participation, perhaps favouring direct democracy over representative democracy (Sanderson 2018).

Whole School Programmes for CRE Many of the more ambitious programmes for developing children’s rightsfriendly schools are undertaken with the help and support of external agencies



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such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Examples from England include School Councils UK which provides training and support for school councils; UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools programme; the Child Friendly Schools initiative of UNICEF itself and Amnesty International’s Human Rights Friendly Schools programme. All of these are explicitly children’s rights focused except for Schools Council UK, which nonetheless helps schools to promote participation, and Article 12 of the CRC. UNICEF Canada also promotes Rights Respecting Schools in tandem with its Global Classroom programme.

UNICEF’s Child Friendly Schools (CFS) Programme UNICEF’s Child Friendly Schools (CFS) programme, launched in 1999, provides a framework of principles that can be taken up by individual schools or by school districts and other education authorities (see also Chapter 3). The principles and guidance are set out in a manual published by UNICEF Global Headquarters in New  York (Wright, Mannathoko and Pasic 2009). Schools and authorities may be supported by staff or consultants attached to UNICEF regional offices and education ministries are encouraged to incorporate these principles into legislation or at least guidance. Most of UNICEF’s work can be characterized as part of a development programme and so CFS is mostly implemented in developing and post-Soviet countries. CFS principles, based on human rights standards, provide a language that enables children to challenge gender inequality and patriarchal norms, the continuing use of corporal punishment and discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity and language (Clair, Miske and Patel 2012). CFS principles complement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and particularly SDG 4 on quality education. While the adoption of this goal has increased the number of children in school, the overall quality of education has often declined because the infrastructure of classrooms and teachers has lagged (Shaeffer 2013). The CFS framework is based on the three interrelated principles of child-centeredness, democratic participation and inclusiveness. Child-centredness implies a child-centred as opposed to authoritarian pedagogy and a healthy, safe and stimulating educational environment. Democratic participation includes active participation in decision-making. Inclusiveness means protection from discrimination and the promotion of gender equity so that the school is welcoming of students from all backgrounds (UNICEF 2009; Godfrey et al. 2012).

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While CFS principles intend to promote children’s rights through education, the conditions under which schools in some parts of the world operate mean that securing quality education is a huge struggle. Evaluation visits to rural schools in South Africa to gain evidence of the effectiveness of implementing CFS standards included some stark realities (Viviers and Kunda 2008). Children were at risk from intruders and their school gardens ravaged by animals because the schools cannot get permission from landowners to erect a fence. The journey to school, sometimes up to sixteen kilometres, was also fraught with risk of attack or rape. Schools sometimes have difficulty in enforcing bans on guns, knives, alcohol and drugs. Many students start the day hungry. In addition, class sizes may be very large and teacher absences frequent. In spite of these challenges, further evidence from South Africa suggests that the adoption of CFS principles challenged local cultural norms and expectations and led to conflicts that may be creative. Although corporal punishment is banned by law, the evidence from the visits is that it is probably still widespread and that teachers had few ideas of how to ensure orderly behaviour without using this sanction. CFS principles therefore need appropriate teacher education to be effective. In one school a number of alternative sanctions had been introduced. These included cleaning windows, picking up litter, cleaning classrooms, additional homework, reading in the library, discussing discipline problems with the learner’s parents. Working in the school garden growing vegetables is sometimes perceived as a privilege, but ironically it is also in some cases used as a punishment. CFS principles also promote gender equality. The South African evaluators noted an expectation that cleaning and other tasks around the school would be left to females. The visitors reported that even where an agreement was in place that boys would take their share, there was little evidence of this actually happening. One approach that was reported as relatively successful was the creation of Girls’ Education Movement (GEM) sections in the school. Although initially framed as promoting girls’ education, once the movement is established in a school it can become more inclusive. Members of GEM known as GEMers proudly organize school cleaning rotas. They take responsibility for public information in the school such as displaying signs about prohibited activities. They check that doors and windows are locked at the end of the school day in order to ensure security from break in. They help to develop the learner code of conduct that aims to ensure an orderly environment for learning. The CFS initiative is significant in promoting international normative standards that are intended to help to achieve quality education for all at



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individual school level. A parallel initiative is known as the Abidjan Principles on the Human Rights Obligations of States to Provide Public Education and to Regulate Private Involvement in Education (Skelton 2019). These principles focus on national education systems as a whole and are intended to guide and pressurize governments, particularly those of countries with limited state budgets, to focus on their international obligations in human rights law to provide quality education. A major thrust of the campaign is that governments should ensure that the public education system is not starved of resources because of subsidies and tax breaks to chains of private schools. The Abidjan Principles were drawn up following a three-year consultation process (2015–18) organized by a consortium of NGOs including Equal Education (South Africa) and the Right to Education Initiative (RTE), a global human rights initiative founded by the first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Katarina Tomaševski. RTE is actively supported by Amnesty International, Save the Children, and Action Aid, who provided the administrative support for a series of participatory regional, thematic, community and online consultations involving policy makers, private sector, civil society, communities and academic experts. There are ninety-seven detailed principles with commentaries clustered under ten overarching principles starting with the following:  states must respect, protect and fulfil the right to education of everyone within their jurisdiction in accordance with the rights to equality and non-discrimination. It remains to be seen the extent to which states are susceptible to the kind of moral and legal pressure that the Abidjan Principles are designed to exert. What is highly relevant for this book, however, is the fact of a coalition of NGOs using an explicitly human rights framework to campaign for quality education for all. The main thrust of the campaign is to avoid scarce resources of money and personnel being diverted from the mainstream state-funded education sector into private, for-profit school chains. Such schools rely on a significant number of the parents of their students being prepared to get into considerable debt in order to pay the school fees. While for the parents this may be an investment in the future prospects of their children and hence to enhance family income in the long term, the immediate beneficiaries are likely to be the shareholders of the school-owning private companies and the providers of loans. Since quality education is a right for all children, it is a legitimate struggle to contest the amount of state support, including funds from aid programmes, being diverted away from the mainstream provision. The framework and everyday practices that have emerged from the CFS movement and the Abidjan Principles illustrate another theme across this book,

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that CRE must be responsive to the context. Each of these actions, from school cleaning rotas to security checks, is significant in the context, and each helps to secure children’s rights to and within education. The challenge is to involve children throughout and, once preliminary steps have been taken, to continue to use the CRE framework to challenge practices and devise new innovations. These examples illustrate how children’s rights translate into everyday mundane practices but that, cumulatively, these can transform children’s experiences. A further challenge is how to ensure young people are as involved in decisions about the curriculum and teaching and learning as they are about the problems with the institution.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Friendly Schools In 2009, following three years of preparation, Amnesty’s International Secretariat launched its Human Rights Friendly School (HRFS) programme in fourteen countries across the world with the support of national sections. Amnesty defines a human rights–friendly school as follows: A school that embraces the potential of human rights as core operating and organizing principles, [and] that fosters an environment and a community in which human rights are learned, taught, practiced, respected, defended and promoted. It is a place in which all are included and encouraged to take part, regardless of status or role, where cultural diversity is celebrated. In short, a human rights friendly school ensures that equality, dignity, respect, nondiscrimination and participation are at the heart of the learning experience and present in all major areas of school life. (Amnesty International 2009: 12)

This hopeful idealistic vision provides inspiration for schools to examine their whole curriculum. By partnering with Amnesty, schools receive written guidance and support from education support workers engaged by the national Amnesty section (Amnesty International 2012). Although Amnesty is an explicitly political, though determinedly neutral, organization, its prestige is such that schools trust that its motives in promoting human rights education are altruistic, widely acceptable and non-threatening to the school’s overall objectives and goals. Indeed, the expectation is that the partnership will enhance the school’s capacity to meet its aims. The HRFS programme is based on ten global principles that should be applied across the school but especially in the four areas of governance (the way the school is run); relationships (interactions between members of the community);



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curriculum (how human rights are taught and learnt); and environment (the context of the learning and teaching). Three of the principles are about inclusion such as equality, non-discrimination, dignity and respect in all aspects; human rights being respected and promoted in the learning environment; inclusion as a guiding principle throughout the school. Two further principles concern participation and two more accountability. The set is completed with three principles about empowerment through the curriculum, the final one being a feeling of membership in a global community based on human rights. This is sometimes referred to as a feeling and practice of cosmopolitan citizenship (Osler and Starkey 2005). One of the first designated human rights-friendly schools in this global programme was a secondary school in England. The ways in which the school adapted to the programme were carefully documented and evaluated by a researcher who had helped to devise the HRFS programme and was committed to its success. The evaluation revealed tensions between the drivers of the prevailing neoliberal policy context of school development in England and the HRFS programme with its commitment to critical forms of education. In this case, by engaging in a formal partnership with Amnesty, the school, concerned to enhance its reputation with parents and the local community, sought to project an image of outward-looking internationalism and explicit commitments to equity and human rights. The school was able to balance its commitment to examination success, and consequent narrowing of the curriculum, with a project that was intended to broaden horizons and emphasize a moral purpose. The school also expected that the project would be helpful in addressing issues of behaviour and develop prosocial attitudes (Mejias and Starkey 2012). By adopting the HRFS project the pilot school willingly embraced the opportunity to move the ethos of the school towards explicit commitments to human rights and equity. The school management recognized the potential and the power of a common language that all members of the school community including students, staff and parent could use to discuss issues such as perceived and actual discrimination that can give rise to resentment and reaction. The school’s intake was remarkably diverse in terms of nationality, ethnicity and religions and the school leadership saw the adoption of a human rights framework as enabling cohesion and feelings of belonging. Given the numbers of students from refugee backgrounds, the school leadership may also have wished to demonstrate empathy with families who had experience of severe human rights abuses.

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The school leadership wished to use the HRFS project to address issues of behaviour and they therefore ensured that human rights education also explicitly referenced responsibilities. In other words, the HRFS project provided a normative language whereby perceived antisocial behaviour was deemed to impact the rights of other students and so be subject to sanctions. That said, some students were inclined to use their acquired knowledge of rights to imagine themselves in a community where they could talk back to the school’s mechanisms of control and invoke their individual rights irrespective of time, manner or place. While the HRFS project did promote the understanding of human rights as an everyday consideration in the pilot school, the programme has not been strongly disseminated in the UK, though it is now taken up in schools in twenty-two countries across the world. It is possible to perceive these tensions as representing teething issues, as students start to experiment with their new freedoms and push against new boundaries to test the limits of their voice. However, in this case the tensions led to the school leadership abandoning the framework. This provides a salutary reminder that CRE represents a challenge to established institutional processes and patterns of authority. There is a balance to be struck between those who deride such initiatives as tokenistic and those who urge pragmatic steps towards improvement. While the management of the school can be criticized for reasserting their authority to end the experiment, we might also learn from the ways the students were inducted into their new roles. Encouraging young people to see CRE as an all-or-nothing agenda risks defeating reform. Such changes to the way power operates in schools is an intensely political process and the young people involved need a political education to enable them to understand the dynamic negotiations underway as these new roles and expectations are hammered out.

UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Award The Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA) is a UK-wide national award scheme started in 2004 that aims to embed the principles and values of the UN CRC in the ethos and curriculum of schools. The programme aims have been summarized as follows: Everyone in the school learns that children and young people have rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and that everyone is responsible for respecting the rights of others. The ethos created



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demonstrates to children the inclusiveness of a rights-respecting school and paves the way to greater participation in the life of the community. (Sebba and Robinson 2010: 8)

The award is the main programme of the UK Committee for UNICEF, known as UNICEF UK. Given the scope of the programme, namely that it has been adopted in around four thousand schools attended by 1.4  million children, the NGO employs professional advisers covering the main regions of the UK to support the schools. The programme developed in parallel with a similar programme in Hampshire that was evaluated by Canadian researchers who concluded that such programmes can overcome educational disadvantage (Howe and Covell 2005; Covell, Howe and Polegato 2011). Schools can work towards bronze, silver and gold awards depending on how well integrated rights are within the school. Schools demonstrate that they have implemented the CRC comprehensively and this is shown in relation to three strands. A: Teaching and Learning about Rights The UN CRC is made known to children, young people and adults, who use this shared understanding to work for improved child well-being, school improvement, global justice and sustainable living. B: Teaching and Learning through Rights – Ethos and Relationships Actions and decisions affecting children are rooted in, reviewed and resolved through rights. Children, young people and adults collaborate to develop and maintain a school community based on equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation; this includes learning and teaching in a way that respects the rights of both educators and learners and promotes well-being. C: Teaching and Learning for Rights – Participation, Empowerment and Action Children are empowered to enjoy and exercise their rights and to promote the rights of others locally and globally. Duty bearers are accountable for ensuring that children experience their rights. In making judgements about the level of the award, UNICEF UK’s school support staff look for evidence that reference to the CRC is to the text of the Convention itself and not a dubious simplification as can be found in some published materials.

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The rapid expansion of the scheme, more than doubling the number of schools involved between 2010 and 2016, together with positive evaluations by academics (Sebba and Robinson 2010; UNICEF UK 2015) and inspectors suggests that this supported approach to developing a school ethos based on children’s rights is attractive to many heads, teachers and governing bodies. An evaluation report based on research in nine schools identifies elements of good practice. Since the award is essentially about establishing a strong rights-based ethos in a school, the evaluators note that a focus on children’s rights supports both schools with a religious foundation and those without such a history. In other words, a rights-respecting school can build on existing values and traditions in the school. The evaluators observe that schools are likely to adopt the award scheme in the expectation that it will positively influence behaviour and relationships. They quote a school principal who sees the scheme as ‘a more positive and preventative approach to addressing challenging behaviour that encouraged mutual respect and empowered children’ (UNICEF UK 2015: 10). Improved behaviour and respectful relationships throughout the school are very desirable ambitions. However, there is evidence to suggest that perhaps in the initial stages of implementation where not all implications have been thought through, some teachers may emphasize responsibilities to respect the rights of others as a way of exerting moral pressure to conform to pre-existing rules and expectations. We have noted earlier in this book that rights are not conditional. That is to say that it can be misleading to draw up lists of rights and corresponding responsibilities if this implies that rights must be earned by responsible behaviour. This approach has been characterized as miseducation (Howe and Covell 2010). That said, we have also noted that rights are not absolute but contingent and that claiming them must take the context into account. We have suggested that thinking about time, manner and place in terms of claiming rights can give insights into the appropriateness of making the claim. Rudely interrupting a teacher or speaker at an assembly cannot be justified as a claim to freedom of speech. There are good reasons why libraries have rules about keeping low voices and any exception to that, in rights terms, would need to be justified by a claim based on, for instance, security and public safety. RRSA schools are provided with publicly available resources to explore tensions between rights and the complexities of taking a rights-based approach (UNICEF UK 2012).



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In putting RRSA into practice, schools in the evaluation study recommended multiple opportunities for student participation in addition to formal school councils. Examples include eco-committees, clubs, peer mentoring and buddy systems, involvement in staff appointments and evaluations of lessons, assemblies and the curriculum. One feature of RRSA schools is the concern to keep rights on the agenda. In one school the planners provided for students include a quote each week linked to an article from the UN CRC. Another example is the identification of an article on a topic of current or controversial interest that is discussed in tutor groups so that all students get a chance to express an opinion and listen to the views of others. Many schools will have RRSA display boards around the school and keeping these updated is a responsibility of designated students. Additionally, many schools will display posters on children’s rights. Some schools organize a termly or annual rights-respecting week where students devise imaginative activities to celebrate successes or draw attention to instances of denials of rights. Such activities are coordinated by a member of the senior leadership team who also ensures that the RRSA is mentioned in meetings and briefings for teaching and support staff. The criticisms of RRSA programmes often focus on the risks that the rights element of the programme can be depoliticized and domesticated within notions of good behaviour and rule following. This is evident in some of the earlier programme evaluations which focused on other benefits, such as behaviour, attendance, attainment, rather than measures of children’s understanding of human rights. While this will always be a risk, and teachers may always reinterpret such frameworks to suit their own more traditional preoccupations, it is also useful to note that UNICEF UK has been making knowledge of the CRC more central and is exploring ways to collect evidence of this. As a minimum they expect children to understand that: • Rights are universal, interdependent, inalienable, inherent and unconditional. • Children are rights holders and there are duty bearers (and who they are). They also expect to find evidence that children can name a wide range of rights and talk about what they mean and why they are important and that they can talk about local and global rights issues and discuss sustainable development. Whether such programmes can move beyond relatively modest impacts relies on teachers pushing the CRE agenda further, as much as it relies on the programme itself. In the context of England though, one remarkable feature of

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this programme is that it has kindled a new enthusiasm for CRE against the ambivalence of prevailing education policy.

UNICEF Canada’s Global Classroom Programme The RRSA programme in the UK is just one example of initiatives aimed at ensuring that children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled in schools and that children are enabled to develop perspectives that emphasize global connectedness. UNICEF Canada promotes a Global Classroom programme that aims to ‘educate and promote action on social justice, humanitarian issues and human rights  – especially the rights of all children’ (Guo 2011). The Global Classroom programme encourages democratic pedagogy, based on the work of Covell and Howe (2005) and defined as ‘creating a space where children’s rights are modelled, upheld and respected and the learners are active participants in the classroom’ (Guo 2011: 21). Guidance for schools includes a practical guide for Global Citizenship (Guo 2011) and a further guide on incorporating a children’s rights approach in schools (MacDonald, Pluim and Pashby 2012). The Canadian global citizenship guidance promotes a pedagogy based on head, heart and hand. Teachers are encouraged to help students develop intellectual curiosity (head) and help them to engage emotionally with their inquiry activating a sense of compassion, responsibility and social justice (heart). Such projects should also include opportunities to take action (hand). The guidance makes the parallel with learning theory, attributed to Rousseau and Pestalozzi, based on a cycle of learning that moves from exploring to responding to taking action. This approach is also similar to Freinet pedagogy (see Chapter 6) and elaborated in Osler and Starkey ([1996] 2018a) (see Chapter  2). UNESCO also advocates this approach as the underlying conceptual driver for global citizenship education. In this case the terms are cognitive (knowledge, understanding, critical thinking and awareness of interconnectedness); socio-emotional (‘a sense of belonging to a common humanity, sharing values and responsibilities, empathy, solidarity and respect for differences and diversity’); and behavioural (acting effectively and responsibly ‘for a more peaceful and sustainable world’) (UNESCO 2016: 8). Kolb’s learning cycle (1984) is acknowledged by UNESCO, but his four-step model avoids the emotional dimension.



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Evaluating Rights-Respecting Schools In this chapter we have described some of the models adopted for developing children’s rights at a whole school level. There are a variety of tried and tested programmes, including conceptual frameworks, training, resources and ongoing support for schools. But all of these are flawed and susceptible to adaptations which can both tailor them to context and remove the teeth of CRE (by depoliticizing rights and restricting the scope for applying them). Rather than dismiss such programmes as inherently flawed, teachers’ agency is required to maintain a critical perspective on how things are developing in schools and to devise realistic next steps to address weaknesses and promote greater depth of engagement and criticality in implementation. To help with this process there are a number of approaches to evaluating the extent of and the effectiveness of a programme of children’s rights and education in schools. David Shiman and Kristi Rudelius-Palmer developed Taking the Human Rights Temperature of Your School (1999) that has been disseminated by Amnesty USA and has been translated into several languages. This self-evaluation instrument is based on compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The authors have invited and welcomed adaptations of the questionnaire. Respondents are invited to consider the extent to which each of twenty-five statements is achieved in their school on a scale of 1–4: 1 – no/never; 2 – rarely; 3 – often; 4 – yes/always. Assuming ‘yes/always’ is the best answer, it is possible to calculate a score out of 100 which is then considered the temperature at that time. Comparisons can be made over time, between schools or between evaluators. In any case the exercise should generate discussion. A similar instrument, adapted from a francophone-Canadian questionnaire (Commission des Droits de la Personne du Québec 1984), was developed by Osler and Starkey (1998) who focused specifically on the rights of the child. The items are clustered under the headings of provision, protection and participation. They have been revised and updated since and we have edited them further for this volume. This is not a research instrument but rather a discussion starter that can be used in teacher education and staff development programmes and perhaps also with students. We end this chapter with the questionnaire and invite readers to use it or adapt it for their own contexts (Figure 3). In the next chapter we move on to consider some of the initiatives that might support CRE beyond the school gates.

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Figure 3  Questionnaire – does your school environment give everyone a chance to enjoy their rights? Revised from: Osler, A. and Starkey, H. (1998), ‘Children’s Rights and Citizenship: Some Implications for the Management of Schools’, International Journal of Children’s Rights, 6 (3): 313–33.) Students and staff can both experience the denial of their rights and freedoms. The list below will enable you to judge quickly and easily whether the spirit of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is followed in a variety of situations in your school. PROVISION 1. Students and teachers have opportunities to learn about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and to consider its implications for the school (Article 29). 2. Girls and boys have equal access to all activities, sports, subjects, lessons and clubs in the school (Articles 2, 28, 29, 31). 3. All tests take account of cultural differences in the school population (Articles 2, 28, 29.1c, 30). 4. In the teaching of national history, due weight is given to women and minorities and to their versions of history (Articles 2, 13, 28, 29.1c & d, 30). 5. Extracurricular activities organized by the school are available to all regardless of ability to pay (Articles 2, 28, 31). 6. The school is accessible to people with disabilities (Articles 2, 23, 28). 7. Care is taken that students’ names are recorded and pronounced appropriately (Article 7). 8. The school devotes resources to ensure regular attendance (Article 28). 9. The school provides opportunities for students to express themselves through art, music, drama and other creative media (Articles 13, 14, 29, 31).

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PROTECTION 10. Staff and students are careful not to cause physical or emotional harm (Articles 19, 28.2). For example,    Within the school, including indoor and outdoor areas, the following are considered unacceptable:     aggressive shouting     insults      jokes that make fun of individuals or groups     bullying     physical violence 11. Students’ lockers are considered to be private property (Article 16). 12. Any personal files on a student kept by the school can be inspected by the student whose file it is and the parents, if appropriate. The file can be checked and corrected if necessary (Articles 5, 16, 17, 18). 13. The contents of any files, whether personal or vocational, may not be communicated to a third party without the permission of the student and her or his parents if appropriate (Articles 15, 16, 18). 14. Any person receiving information from a school file accepts that they are bound by confidentiality (Article 16). 15. No posters, images or drawings of a racist, sexist or discriminatory kind may be displayed anywhere on school premises (Articles 2, 17, 29.1b, c, d). 16. People encourage each other to be respectful, particularly of those who appear different (Article 29). 17. When there is an incident that may lead to the exclusion of a student or disciplinary action, an impartial hearing is organized. In other words, all those involved get a hearing (Articles 28.2, 40). 18. A student accused of breaking the rules is presumed innocent until proven guilty and carries on with classes (Articles 28.2, 40). 19. Where a student has infringed someone’s rights – student or adult – reparation is expected (Articles 2, 19). 20. Adults infringing students’ rights are also expected to make reparation (Articles 2, 19).

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9

Children as Citizens

Introduction In this chapter we consider some of the ways in which schools can connect with the broader community to encourage the development of children’s rights education (CRE), and specifically, children’s participation rights. As children’s participation rights apply to them before the formal age of majority, this leads us to consider children as citizens now, not simply in the future. We start by situating participatory experiences within the tradition of experiential learning, to clarify the relationship between community-based activities and CRE learning. We then move on to consider three possible pitfalls that teachers should try to avoid, these include the temptation to depoliticize action, the tendency to fuel ‘white saviour syndrome’ and the tensions inherent in enlisting students in compulsory volunteering programmes. Then the chapter moves on to discuss actions that are aimed at improving children’s own access to rights and those that are focused on improving others’ lives. The chapter ends with two specific issues of contemporary significance, first the role of the internet and the need for digital rights, and second the implications of the school strike movement. Overall the chapter seeks to illustrate the rich range of practices through which children can learn to be citizens and rights holders, and the role of schools in making the most of these opportunities for CRE.

Experiential Learning and Real Life School systems have formalized and institutionalized the process of learning, so that it is largely dependent on activities designed by adults. Policy makers predetermine the learning outcomes through curriculum and examination specifications, and then administrators, school leaders and teachers set activities

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that enable young people to make progress towards those goals. These activities tend to be time specific, adult initiated and purposefully designed for learning. When we consider CRE as education about, through and for children’s rights, it is entirely possible to imagine such adult-designed and supervised activities as providing the processes through which CRE outcomes are achieved. These may include the more mundane classroom activities of completing a textbook exercise, reading an article for homework or discussing a topic with other students. They may also include other activities across the school, such as student council, whole assemblies or school-wide awareness-raising campaigns. We saw in Chapter 6 that Dewey considered this kind of curriculum planning to be one of the most challenging and creative aspects of the teacher’s craft. To take a series of desired learning outcomes and translate that knowledge and skills into a planned sequence of engaging activities is a real intellectual and practical challenge. However, such deliberately planned activities are only part of the picture for CRE pedagogy. One can learn through a much wider range of activities, including those which exist independently from formal schooling programmes. Before schools were constructed and formalized, people still learned; and when our formal education is over, we all continue to learn. We do not want to question or dismiss the usefulness of such school-based, taught activities, but in this chapter, we want to draw attention to the wider range of activities through which children can learn about rights. In this regard we can take inspiration from grassroots community groups which are perpetually in learning mode – learning about the best forms of action to undertake, learning about their organization and members, learning about the political context (Choudry 2015). In these processes, learning emerges from the experiences of activists, not automatically but through reflection and critical discussion. In addition, some learning in community groups is more deliberate and preparatory – investigating an issue or organization to work out a strategy. And some learning is theoretical, in that applying certain concepts such as critical race theory or neoliberalism to critically read a situation opens up new insights and suggests new ways forward. It is common to think about such experiential learning as a cycle. In its simplest form, this can be referred to as the ‘plan → do → review’ cycle, in which the learner engages with an experience and reflects on it to evaluate the extent to which they achieved their original goal and identify what they have learned from the process that they can apply in future planning. Kolb (1984) popularized a form of this experiential learning cycle by adapting the work of Lewin and Dewey (Gogus 2012). Kolb’s main contribution was to suggest that people may have a preference for different stages of this cycle, for example, some seem more



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An experience Experimenting & testing hypotheses

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Figure 4  A Deweyan experiential learning cycle.

adept at reflecting and theorizing, while others relish getting into the action and might be less open to reflecting and evaluating what happened. The key insight to take from these various models is that one can indeed learn some powerful lessons through experiences which have not been devised or undertaken primarily as learning experiences. Figure  4 outlines an experiential learning cycle based on Dewey’s discussion in Experience and Education (Dewey 1938). Such an approach to learning liberates the teacher from having to invent endless activities (they are already out there) and liberates the learner from only experiencing activities which have been devised to lead them to predetermined learning outcomes. This means both the teacher and the learner are free to explore a wider range of possible learning from real-life experience. But of course, pedagogically, it also entails a rather different set of roles and approaches to learning. The teacher is more likely to undertake the roles of gatekeeper and facilitator, and the student is more likely to combine learning with other roles, such as participant or helper. But, as Dewey pointed out, just because learning can take place as a result of experience, it does not mean the two terms are synonymous. Nor does it mean all learning deriving from experience is particularly helpful, or even better than other forms of learning: [A person] may jump at a conclusion without weighing the grounds on which it rests … he may take the first ‘answer’ … that comes to him because of mental sloth, torpor, impatience to get something settled. One can think reflectively

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only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching. (Dewey 1933: 16)

This implies a rather different role for the teacher as facilitator. Here they might usefully guide students through reflective processes, helping them to identify important aspects of the experience, analyse them and then try to distil some insights from them. This is likely to combine a variety of approaches: sometimes this requires a focus on the emotions that accompany the experience; at other times we might provide useful ideas or information to help set the experience in context or to frame the experience; we might also usefully prompt students simply to move on to ask different questions of the experience to guide them through the cycle. This also requires students to adopt a rather different attitude towards learning. One thing students learn from schooling is that they can generally achieve the required learning goals in the duration of a lesson, or perhaps a short project. The teacher can also be relied on to recognize and validate their learning, because they knew what the desired outcome was all along. But with genuinely experiential learning students are often working to a different timescale, and the learning is more likely to be emergent and more subjective. This requires a rather different mindset, and students need to be helped to manage the openendedness of such experiences. Aspects of this experiential approach to learning can be seen in the worldwide tradition of Service Learning, where schools and colleges arrange for their students to undertake projects in the community by means of placements with community organizations. Service learning offers ‘an experiential approach to education that involves students in meaningful, real-world activities that can advance social, emotional, career, and academic curricula goals while benefitting communities’ (Wilczenski and Coomey 2007:  viii; see also Chapter  6). The experiential learning derived from experience in the community provides another route to learning through rights that complements more traditional curriculum-based learning. Working in the community can provide insights into social and economic contexts, such as the prevalence of poverty and inequality or obstacles to justice. Where host organizations, such as those addressing homelessness or providing food banks, engage with political solutions, those on placement may acquire skills of active citizenship (Jerome 2012c). By immersing young people in the rich associational ties in the community in order to explore the common good, service learning can focus on the kinds of gradualist democratic change envisaged by Dewey (Saltmarsh 1996). From a Freirean



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perspective it may seek to pair critical consciousness aims with concrete social action (Deans 1999). In this regard, Freire said ‘the best thing possible is to work in both places simultaneously, in the school and in the social movements outside the classroom’ (Shor and Freire 1987:  39). While the framework one adopts may make such an approach more or less radical, at root they share a commitment that learning through experience can be transformational, and that each perspective also represents the process of education itself as a utopian vision (McKenna 2001). Here, that utopian vision is not a predefined political outcome, rather it is a process in which collaboration, experience and learning combine to enable people to find ways to understand the world around them and tackle the problems that constrain them. For Dewey, this is how democracy works, and for Freire, this is the root of the struggle against oppression. But for any CRE educator, the process can be incredibly powerful, both as a way to appreciate the significance of rights and the importance of learning how to act in ways which align with human rights. In seeking the right balance between connecting to established groups and movements, and learning to be critical, we might heed the advice of Michael Freeman, an influential advocate of children’s rights: The institutionalisation of human rights may … lead, not to their more secure protection, but to their protection in a form that is less threatening to the existing system of power. The sociological point is not that human rights should never be institutionalised, but, rather, that institutionalisation is a social process, involving power, and that it should be analysed and not assumed to be beneficial. (Freeman 2002: 85)

Teachers need to guard against activities which have been rendered so safe and uncontroversial that they effectively depoliticize the actions. On the other hand, teachers also need to be alert to the risk that they may put themselves or their students in danger. In pragmatic terms, we might see Dewey and Freire as representing two points on a continuum of criticality and risk, and thus draw on them both as useful at different points and for different purposes. UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative is an example of a programme to promote opportunities for participation in a rights-respecting framework (UNICEF 2020). The framework incorporates all of the stages discussed in this chapter, from research, alliance building, advocacy and child participation. Examples from around the world demonstrate the various steps that are being taken towards realizing children’s rights more fully. The monitoring and evaluation frameworks also provide a pragmatic tool for teachers and children

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who want to evaluate their current work and plan for next steps. This recognizes Freeman’s demands that we evaluate our practices critically to ensure that child rights initiatives actually involve children meaningfully in power structures (UNICEF 2018b). Among examples of actions in Child Friendly Cities, the Children Uprooted initiative has led to many cities guaranteeing the right to education including in the early years to undocumented migrant children. Local councils and community organizations have also responded to this initiative by demanding an end to immigration detention. There have been many cases across the world of school communities protecting children from deportation.

Pitfalls In this section we consider some of the pitfalls that teachers should try to avoid in CRE. The first risk is that they seek to make the experience so safe and uncontroversial that it becomes depoliticized and therefore largely pointless. At its worst such projects can mask the fact that teachers have devised activities in the community with little or no involvement from the young participants themselves. While Hart’s (1992) ladder of participation recognizes that sometimes it can be meaningful to inform and assign a role to a young person, it also suggests that a more participatory role would involve negotiation with young people, or even involve them in identifying issues they care about. The risk is that excessive adult control leads to tokenism or manipulation, and thus leaves the young people busy, but essentially deployed as window dressing for school-promoting community relations work. This distinction is especially important in the light of debates about the erosion of social capital in some modern societies (Putnam 2000). One might want to encourage young people to participate in community-based projects because they will get to know groups within the community; they will build relationships with people from another generation; they may feel the satisfaction of a job well done and enjoy helping out; and it may also serve to boost their sense of self-esteem and their appreciation of others (Jerome, 2012c). Through these outcomes the project may build ‘bridging social capital’ (Putnam 2000), and it seems to resonate with the Deweyan definition of democracy as a form of ‘associated living, a conjoint communicated experience’ (Dewey [1916] 2002: 93). That said, there are also more challenging and critical dimensions to explore through community projects. In his classic essay In Defence of Politics, Crick explained it as follows:



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The more one is involved in relationships with others, the more conflicts of interest, or of character and circumstance will arise. These conflicts, when personal, create the activity we call ‘ethics’ … and such conflicts, when public, create political activity. (Crick 1982: 10)

So, we would argue that teachers need to enable young people to understand the role of conflict in such community-based experiences. This includes the everyday institutional politics of working together, and the broader political conflicts that arise between community interest groups, or between the community activists and those in authority, of whom they are making demands. Working in a soup kitchen warming the soup might help young people develop in some ways, including building social capital, but being part of the discussions with service users about what causes their poverty, or with the organizers about securing adequate funds, is likely to be more politically instructive, and thus more directly relevant to an education for human rights. A second risk is that students’ engagement with people in the community exacerbates established processes of othering or fuels stereotypes about groups of people. Sometimes projects or short-term placements can be criticized as a form of ‘poverty tourism’ (Matthews 2017). This may leave the students feeling guilty as they are parachuted into tricky situations without adequate preparation. Or if they are less self-aware, it may leave them feeling that they are providing a charitable intervention because the recipients are in some sense inadequate rather than oppressed. This risks fuelling a kind of ‘white saviourism’ (Flaherty 2016; Walsh 2020). Privileged individuals may be encouraged to see themselves as having a responsibility to help others, but they may not have the communication skills to listen to those they aim to release from suffering, poverty or oppression. Their sense of entitlement may be bolstered by a colonialist mentality that positions those of white European heritage as inherently superior. Given the persistence of colonialist myths in many countries, and certainly in the UK, some community and charitable projects may well be underpinned by saviourism (Tomlinson 2019). Ensuring a political perspective and avoiding saviourism will enhance the students’ ability to engage with the people or the processes and enrich the learning that takes place. The preparation for such experiences is crucial, for example, ensuring that young people are properly involved in the research and planning phases. It also requires the teachers and students to negotiate useful roles with the people already involved in the projects. This is yet another reason why such projects fall outside of the usual routines of school and classroom,

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because the timescales are so different and because the preparatory phase can be so significant. Both Dewey and Freire foresee the problem here. Dewey warns that some experiences can be mis-educative, where they have the effect of ‘arresting or distorting the growth of further experience’ ([1938] 1997: 25). Here, one might argue that by reinforcing already established and distorted narratives about others (that they are helpless, in need of charity or lacking agency) or about ourselves (we are deserving of our good fortune, hard-working and powerful) such projects close off the opportunity for further growth, because they do not demand further investigation, nor do they trouble existing assumptions about how the world works. Freire by contrast might simply observe that through a lack of criticality, the truth of the situation remains hidden. Young people may be immersed in the social world, but this in itself does not enable them to develop an informed political reading of the situation (Stevenson 2012). A third risk is that, in the rush of enthusiasm for such educational projects, teachers compel young people to participate in the kinds of political activities that would never be demanded of others in society. Here we might remember that children have participation rights through the CRC but that they are not compelled to take them up, least of all because an adult has decided that they should. Participation is a right, not an obligation. Volunteering ceases to be volunteering when it becomes compulsory. This point echoes a critique developed in the field of international development, where practitioners have asked whether the mantra of participation might sometimes operate as a form of ‘tyranny’ over communities who are the object of development policy (Cooke and Kothari 2001). On this line of argument, participation is imposed on people when the shape of a project is already established. Consequently, the participants are at best being enlisted to sketch in the details of planning, while the broad decisions about roles, resources and outcomes are predetermined. Here the dream of ‘empowerment’ is distorted into a form of managerialist recipe, in which ‘participation’ is essentially symbolic. There is a fine line to be struck here, as a teacher may well want a young person to experience something because it is potentially interesting, it might open their mind to new understandings or help them develop new skills. Perhaps the key issue here is that such an experience is not an example of a student’s participation rights if it is imposed on them. In that sense, it is just one more example of the kinds of educational activities imposed on children day in and day out in school. That is rather different from offering young people the opportunity to participate. Here we take inspiration from Korczak’s empathy



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with children. While they have rights, they also have the right to childhood and to adult supervision and protection. They are not compelled to participate in the achievement of their rights, but they should be afforded the opportunity to participate, and with that, they should be helped and encouraged. In Chapter 7 when we were extolling the value of free speech and deliberation in the classroom, we also noted students’ rights to privacy and silence. Here, while extolling empowerment and participation, we also remember that students have a right not to participate in particular projects in the ways envisaged by adults.

Taking Action to Defend Your Own Rights So far in this chapter we have introduced the tradition of experiential learning, to provide a theoretical context for understanding children’s participation as a route to learning. We have also identified a few risks to avoid. Now we turn to the substantial issue of seeing young people as human rights defenders. In this section we consider how children can take part in actions designed to promote the achievement of rights in their own lives and local communities, then we move on to consider actions aimed at securing the rights of others. There are many different traditions that teachers draw on, from traditional human rights campaigning, such as with Amnesty, to more locally grounded community networks, where the issues might be much more specifically related to neighbourhood problems. We start this section with a story from Dan Firth, a community organizer, to share some of his passion and expertise about working with and through schools.

Case Study 10  Community organizing, Dan’s story In 2012, I set up a community organizing alliance in Shoreditch, right in the heart of the richest square mile in the world. The City of London, or Corporation of London as it is really known, is surrounded by the thirteen poorest wards in the country. I was tasked with building an alliance of civil society organizations that could tackle child poverty in the area. I spent the next six months bringing together a diverse set of civil society organizations from Kurdish community centres, churches, mosques, charities, primary schools, secondary schools and sixth form colleges. By the end of six months I had brought together twenty-nine organizations who set out to collectively build enough power to make change happen.

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Each organization had its own priorities related to poverty, for example, in one school I visited the parents were literally queuing up to see the school social worker to get help writing letters to the housing provider to ask for their housing problems to be fixed. They were most often ignored, which made everyone feel totally powerless. The month I  learned about these housing problems I  was launching the Citizens Alliance and we planned to bring together five hundred people from across Shoreditch to launch our campaign. I said to a number of the parents, including Alev Aksu, a mum who had never seen herself as political and had never done public speaking, ‘If you can stand on stage with other parents, tell your stories together. Everyone will be with you and we’ll win this campaign.’ In front of five hundred people that day Alev took the stage with other mums and children and also the three head teachers from the schools. Together they gave the most powerful testimony about the impact damp was having on their children’s health and also talked about the letters that had been ignored for too long. Alev then said, ‘If Hackney Homes won’t come to us, we’ll go to them.’ It was electric. Five hundred people stood clapping, crying and moved to act together. But for me what was so exciting was we had identified an ‘angelic troublemaker’. Two days later over a hundred parents marched to the town hall. We had set up tables for a public enquiry into damp housing. And each parent queued up to hand in complaints. We had the local press there and we almost immediately received a phone call from the head of housing requesting a meeting. Four days later we took a team of parents and head teachers to meet with the housing team. And we took a set of well-crafted, ambitious but not unreasonable demands. We had formulated clear, specific and measurable demands. The parents shared their stories. And we also built relationships with the directors, by asking them what brought them into housing so many years ago. Our main demand was that we wanted the housing blocks around the schools to be cleared of damp by Christmas. Within ninety minutes the parents had negotiated a victory and the housing association committed to investing £1.5m to eradicate the damp. This was obviously a massive victory for the parents, the teachers and the school. But the biggest victory for me was seeing parents, like Alev, feel like they had some power. That they could change things by organizing together.

And what about the young people? At the same time as these parents were building their political agency and collective power the young people from the school were involved in an



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organizing campaign to reduce violence against young people in the area. Many of the young people and their older siblings in neighbouring schools were being robbed on their way home from school. Children who lived five minutes from school were getting buses home and having to travel an hour just to avoid being robbed. Working with other schoolchildren from local secondary schools and local community groups they actually managed to get an 85 per cent reduction in children being robbed. And it was quite simple. The police’s relationship with young people was so poor that they didn’t know this was even an issue, because the young people weren’t reporting it. So, the school students took the police on a tour of the area and mapped out the places young people were getting attacked and at what times. Within days the borough commander had put resources into the area to ensure there were police officers around when after school club finished.

Summing up

    

The story I am trying to tell is that schools can be places of radical political change. And we should encourage it. Schools are at the centre of every neighbourhood. But they should be at the centre of every community. Parents, primary schoolchildren, secondary school students impacted by inequality and poverty should not be passive recipients. In every school I have ever been to I  have found parents and young people who step up to become leaders hungry for change. They are angry about the economic and social system that traps them and their friends and families but are often without the means to address these problems. And that is why Community Organizing can be so powerful. It is not really about campaigns; it’s not about activism or protesting. It is about harnessing the collective power of communities to make change happen, by unleashing the political leadership potential in every community. But to do that we must have angelic troublemakers in every community. Source: Adapted from Firth (2019).

This case study introduces a number of features that are distinctive about the tradition of community organizing and which help to explain how schools can be integrated into local action for social justice, often related to rights, such as housing, safety and education. Before we go on to consider how one teacher used this approach in her school, we sketch in a little detail about what the model entails.

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Saul Alinsky developed his model of community organizing primarily in Chicago during the 1930s. Alinsky’s model has been influential in the development of community organizing in the United States, with his training institute, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), becoming one of the key organizing networks in the United States (Warren and Mapp 2011: 16). Alinsky’s model of community organization is based on attempting to empower workingclass people, through developing their collective capacity to effect change. This is achieved through the building of ‘People’s Organizations’, essentially networks of local and faith-based groups that respond to common issues through varying forms of action. This model can be seen to embody some key principles, broadly summarized as follows: • The development of a more direct form of democracy that facilitates the participation of the masses in decision-making and real power. • An ongoing process of dialogue between cross-community groups to identify problems and possible solutions in endeavours to bring about change. • The facilitation of ‘native leadership’, drawn from across the different groups represented, but guided by the will of the people. • The deployment of effective (and somewhat professional) community organizers who can support and guide communities in establishing ‘People’s Organizations’ which mobilize a mass of people and encourage evergrowing participation by people. This reflects the view that effective power flows from strength in numbers. Through community organizing, Alinsky saw benefits for the poor and wider society alike. Community organizing develops the skills of democratic participation that Alinsky saw as an important end in itself, irrespective of the issues that may affect communities in different ways: After all, the real democratic program is a democratically minded people – a healthy, active, participating, interested, self-confident people who, through their participation and interest, become informed, educated and above all develop faith in themselves, their fellow men and the future. (Alinsky 1969: 55)

Developing political literacy through mass participation could be motivating and intellectually, socially and economically rewarding. Alinsky argued that People’s Organizations should become a medium of political education, but this situation could only be achieved if people could see the relevance of learning



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about the issues in the context of their own lives (1969: 165). Political literacy should be achieved through action and will develop a cycle of knowledge, skills and dispositional development that would help communities to achieve power and change. For one teacher in North London, her school’s membership of the local community organizing network provided the framework for a sustained series of projects aimed at empowering the students in their school to tackle the issues that affect their lives (Doona 2019). She quotes a classic definition of community organizing as ‘the process of supporting individuals to come together to improve their communities by putting pressure on institutions, businesses and governments to act … by developing campaigns … about local issues’ (Hothi 2013). Three of the underlying principles are: • Never do for others what they can do for themselves. • Understanding self-interest – what’s in it for them? • Building relationships. Finding out about student, staff and parents’ concerns is central to understanding the community and making change. This reflects Freire’s commitment that the first stage of any meaningful teaching relationship is to learn from the community where one is teaching. Community organizing starts with intense ‘listening campaigns’ to unearth the issues that have the potential to bring people together and improve their lives. In the case of the London school, this began with a whole day of reflection for an entire year group. When we started our listening campaign, we identified the school’s self-interest in building relationships with our neighbours as well as tackling some of the negativity around the schools’ image. Two hundred, year 8 students were involved in a Community Organizing themed day; discussing, negotiating, analysing local newspapers and websites and reaching a consensus … This day was used to build a team of 15 students who became the core team focusing on road safety. (Doona 2019: 22)

This smaller team was trained in teamwork, listening and creative campaigning. They then undertook a week of intensive listening campaigns, including lunchtime listening stations, form-time activities, attending a parents evening, waiting at the school gate each morning to canvas ideas and leading a staff listening campaign for over eighty staff. The team were then able to use this data to identify the key issues. This led to a number of campaigns, ranging from building more positive relationships with local shop owners to engaging in

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global actions. But, importantly, it built the capacity of a group of students to respond to local issues as they arose. This is vividly illustrated in the following case study.

Case Study 11  Hendon School’s mental health SOS Stamp Out Stigma campaign In August 2014 a tragedy rocked our school when our head teacher sadly committed suicide; this loss and the school’s need to recover from this tragic incident was the catalyst to create the mental health and well-being team. As the school came to terms with what had happened, one student completed his work experience at another school. They had their own mental health team and he returned to Hendon enthusiastic about what he had seen. He then set about finding other students who might be interested in being part of the team. Initially the students invited to become part of the team were members of the student council and had been involved in previous projects or identified as good public speakers. A team of six students initially signed up. The team set about asking the other students what they wanted to do and overwhelmingly it was about raising awareness and reducing the stigma that some people said that they faced. The SOS – Stamp Out Stigma – campaign was born. Then fate seemed to intervene when we learned about an opportunity to apply for funding for a social action project and the idea for a conference took shape. Holding a number of listening campaigns, students reached out to friends in other schools, and in total they listened to over four hundred people. A common theme they identified was personal testimonies about long waits, a lack of provision and the difficulty in navigating what is available in the area. The team decided that as well as an awareness-raising conference, they wanted to improve services for all young people. They spent a great deal of time researching who the power players were. These included the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the Council Health and Wellbeing Board, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), and Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust. The students divided the research, each taking on the challenge of researching the power players, finding out their selfinterest and then contacting them to discuss the project. In the first year, there were many highlights:

• Students met with the council’s Voice of the Child coordinator to discuss issues around mental health and made a film to be shown at CAMHS highlighting current issues that young people faced.









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• After much chasing, students were also able to have a number of regular meetings with the Chief Executive of the local Mental Health Trust able to raise issues, gain funding for a local mental health app and secure their signature for the youth mental health charter. • In relation to the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board, students gained support from the chair of the committee, who spread the message of their work and made introductions to relevant people. Students attended the annual council meeting, where they were able to submit questions and received positive responses. • Students also secured agreement from the leaders of the council and opposition to prioritize mental health and meet regularly with the team and wider organizations. They agreed in principle a number of areas they could work together on improving, many going further than in their initial commitments. It appears that everything went smoothly for the team, but it didn’t always, which is when some of the best learning took place. However, nothing phased the team as they worked to overcome obstacles. The signing of the Charter was most problematic, it was to be the centre piece of the conference. The Head of the local Mental Health Trust would not initially agree to sign the charter. The students were undeterred, but after endless journeys to her office with flowers and cakes, she still did not agree. Then with just a few days to go, she said that she was unable to attend! The students organized another cake trip and negotiated that she would attend for just thirty minutes, but she would not sign the charter. Quickly, to ensure that she couldn’t change her mind, the students tweeted that she would be attending. On the day, again undeterred, some of the team spent an hour negotiating with her to sign the charter. With just ten minutes before the launch, she finally said yes! The team has grown in number and impact. They have hosted their third conference and now have a voice in local and London-wide mental health work. The team have earned a reputation for themselves, they have won a number of individual and team awards, including local, national and European awards. These are the icing on the cake; they have helped the team to get the ‘power players’ to engage and highlight their commitment to the issue. What the student leaders say: Being part of the team is an exceptional opportunity to learn amazing lifelong skills! (Jose) Being on this team has enabled me to understand the effect mental health has on people’s lives. Being part of the team able to host the conference was exciting and nerve-racking. I’m glad to see change happening, to see

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the effect our work and raising awareness has done for us as students, the team and our school. (Chika) Being part of the team has enabled me to gain a plethora of skills. This student led project has made a significant impact on our local community. Being able to do something about this issue has changed my life and I would like to think I have done something to support others. (Soufia)

    

The students want to continue to tackle issues such as stigma through their SOS – Stamp Out Stigma campaign. They consider themselves the guardians of the legacy that the suicide of our head teacher brought. They believe and can talk about their experiences that young people can be a catalyst for change, they are all leaders in their own right; with these young people in charge, actively organizing for change in their communities, they have been on a journey of self-discovery and organizing for change. Source: Adapted from Doona (2019).

These examples demonstrate that children and young people can be centrally involved in community-based political activity, that they can work alongside adults and also assume leadership positions themselves. For such activities to be valuable as CRE pedagogy, the key point is not so much that they succeed (in terms of securing the political outcomes they want) but rather that the participants learn about political activity through their experience and build their sense of self-efficacy. This means building the idea that they are the kind of people who can take action and make a difference. That is very different from assuming that they will secure what they want every time they act, but it is a vital element of CRE. Questions remain from Doona’s example, as to which students got involved and which students were excluded or excluded themselves, and what processes of selection and recruitment occurred. We may also query the extent to which the listening campaigns were fully inclusive and how the leaders shaped and narrated the information they gathered to turn it into their priorities for action. These and many other questions are vital to ask in the spirit of pushing our efforts to be more genuinely inclusive, but here we are also inspired by Smith’s reflections on embracing the imperfections associated with action: I think people theorise themselves and they end up in a position of not acting because to act can be very messy. There is no purity in it … but you can influence



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change if you act … Part of learning to act, is learning that when you act things happen. (Smith 1999: 184–5)

Within this approach there has to be commitment to learning from experience so that the next time one acts, one applies the prior learning. Ensuring that we evaluate the process as well as the outcome, using human rights as a guide, resonates neatly with Dewey’s commitment to education as ‘growth’ (Pring 2007). If we simply repeat the same (flawed) procedures time and time again, we have ceased to learn or to grow as people. To be engaged as learners means to critique our performance and to search for ways to improve. This applies to CRE in the same way it applies to all political movements. As Choudry expresses in his book Learning Activism, ‘the success of organizing to fight injustice and create a better, fairer world depends on taking … knowledge and learning seriously’. That requires us to create spaces where ‘people can come together to act and learn collectively, and appreciate the unfinished nature of popular struggles for social and political change’ (Choudry 2015: 1). Starting with selfinterest and listening to those living alongside us in our own communities is a valuable starting point for a CRE approach to promoting rights. But of course, human rights exist beyond our own immediate contexts, and we may be moved to act with and for others further afield. In the next section we consider some aspects to CRE action in a broader context.

Taking Action to Defend Others’ Rights We have been alert, both in this chapter and in Chapter  7, to the possibility that actions undertaken in the name of others’ rights can risk reinforcing inequalities. Too often, action is undertaken as a charitable act, reinforcing stereotypes and marginalizing political interpretations of rights. But that does not mean young people cannot be meaningfully involved in actions to protect or promote the rights of others. Indeed, young people’s strong sense of anger at injustices around the world is often described as the distinctive characteristic of their political participation. Young people’s anger was invoked as a major factor behind the increased participation rates characterized as a ‘youthquake’ in the UK 2017 general election (Sloam and Henn 2019). This reflects previous findings that ‘cause-oriented political action’ is a defining feature of youth politics (Norris 2004).

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In one sense solidarity provides a sound foundation for young people to undertake action in defence of others’ rights (Canlas, Argenal and Bajaj 2015). This is likely to be enhanced by an appreciation of the universality of human rights, which reinforces the idea that if I  want to appeal to human rights agreements in my own name, I  have a vested interest in defending human rights for all. Very often, those whose rights are most threatened are least able to undertake political action and, therefore, finding allies who are themselves less vulnerable can be the only way to achieve progress. A lower-caste child in India facing discrimination or a girl being coerced for a bigger dowry are not well positioned to challenge authority and doing so may pose real threats to their safety. However, others can challenge the behaviour of their family and peers. For example, children in higher caste families can become effective advocates against caste prejudice within their privileged families; boys can refuse to go along with harmful forms of gender inequality (Bajaj and Pathmarajah 2011; Bajaj 2011b). One of the organizers of an human rights education (HRE) project argued as follows: Human rights education cannot be imparted [only] within the four walls of the classroom. It has to be learnt, out in the world, in the midst of people, particularly among victims of injustice and rights violations. It cannot stop with acquiring information, but should lead to courageous and collective action in solidarity with victims. (Devi 2010: 46)

This indicates that it is essential to learn about the life of the victim of such injustices and to understand the situation and how one might act to intervene. Such a commitment means that the person undertaking the action is working with the person they want to help, and through investigation, communication and alliance building, they develop a deeper relationship with them. This is quite different from the ‘white saviour complex’ discussed above and has been described as a form of ‘coalitional agency’ (Bajaj 2018) in which children come to appreciate that they are, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, ‘caught in an inescapable network of mutuality’ (Bajaj 2018: 13). Such deep engagement is often facilitated by engaging with individual stories so students can understand the specific struggle they are trying to help with. This both helps to establish a genuine connection and also enables the student to think about what actions might help. Perhaps the best-known example of such a project is the Amnesty International Urgent Actions, where members of school clubs take part in coordinated actions to lobby on behalf of named prisoners around the world. Another school-based project used resources produced by



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the Robert F.  Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights to focus on the lives of human rights defenders (Jerome 2017; see also Chapter 3). The resources include written and video material showing the human rights defenders in their own context. Students learn about their life history, the country they live in and the people they work with, as well as the human rights issue with which they are involved. Rather than being directed about the kind of action that might follow, some students were inspired by the materials to campaign on similar issues in their own schools. Some tried to raise awareness among fellow students, some sent messages of solidarity to campaigners and others got involved in direct campaigning, for example, by writing to politicians who could help. Several students who participated in the focus groups to evaluate the project commented on Kennedy’s metaphor of individual actions creating small ripples of change. They were building a sense of political efficacy not because they thought they could change the situation single-handedly but because they could see how they were contributing to a network of activities that kept the issues alive and contributed a small part to a bigger struggle. Although it is not a prime purpose of such involvement, it is useful to be aware of the virtuous cycle that often accompanies such forms of engagement. Research into young people participating in Amnesty youth groups records how involvement may start for a whole variety of reasons, but once young people are participating, they often develop a stronger sense of efficacy and come to identify themselves as the kind of person who gets involved and tries to make a difference (Montague and Eiroa-Orosa 2017). The more they participate, the more they develop strong social bonds with fellow activists and therefore start to feel connected to others through their commitment to human rights. As the researchers argue, such social bonding or relatedness is often seen as an essential element of psychological well-being. Participation does not simply help to achieve the political goal, nor should it only be valued because it generates valuable political learning, but it should also be appreciated for contributing to adolescent well-being.

Digital Citizenship For increasing numbers around the world, childhood is experienced through online activities as well as those taking place in the physical world. For many young people, reference to their communities will imply connections to people whose lives are close online but physically distant, as well as more traditional

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connections to people in their neighbourhood. This aspect of the internet alone opens up radically new possibilities for young people to develop identities and relationships beyond their geographical and cultural contexts (Asthana 2017). Children have rights in the online world as well as in the physical world, but the way these translate into their digital childhoods is not always obvious as the CRC itself was written before such childhood experiences could be fully imagined. One way to think about children’s online rights is to take the commonly used 3P’s shorthand to describe the CRC as including provision, protection and participation rights. There are clearly some basic issues relating to provision, as there is a well-documented ‘digital divide’ which mirrors established patterns of socio-economic inequalities, both within and between countries. Access to the internet has been adopted as an indicator (17.8.1) in the United Nations (UN)’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2020) and in domestic monitoring, for example, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (2019) reported that 12 per cent of 11- to 18-year-olds had no internet access at home from a computer or tablet. This figure became more significant during the school closures resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when children increasingly relied on the internet for access to teaching. But beyond these emergency uses, the internet is increasingly used to access government services and information and is thus becoming important for all citizens. In ordinary circumstances, schools have a potentially significant role to play in providing access to the internet for children who do not have such access at home, but there is also a need to ensure that when children do access the internet, they find resources there that reflect and value cultural and linguistic diversity (Livingstone 2014). When provision has been established, protection often tends to trump participation rights, especially in risk-averse cultures where even children ‘have inherited a popular discourse that is characterized primarily by fear  – if not moral panic [which] potentially inhibits their capacity to imagine and articulate the opportunities digital media affords them’ (Third et  al. 2014:  40). This can be seen when the EU adopted the General Data Protection Regulation in 2016. While in general terms it aimed to protect citizens’ rights over their data, it also added the requirement that those under 16 must have verifiable parental consent to access ‘information society services’, effectively banning many from social networking sites, online gaming, health forums and more (Livingstone and Third 2017: 264). The capacity of computers and other mobile devices to monitor usage and record the ‘digital breadcrumb trails’ of users also means that many of the aspects of teenage social/sexual life that would traditionally have



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been kept from adults’ view have now become visible and therefore open to new forms of regulation (Livingstone and Third 2017: 264). This leads Livingstone to argue that ‘children must be given the freedom to use the internet and protected from the dangers associated with it, the balance depending on their capabilities’ (Livingstone 2014: 23). Here the word ‘capabilities’ invokes Sen’s capability approach, which stresses that they are not predetermined but rather can be developed to some extent through education and through facilitative structural adaptations (Stoecklin and Bonvin 2014). Livingstone emphasizes that even protection rights for children online must be balanced and realistically limited by children’s participation rights. Here she notes that the internet is a space where children can access information, express their opinions, associate with others and participate in struggles for social justice. The corresponding need to protect them from exploitation, oppression or manipulation places responsibilities on the adults, as well as for the children themselves. In the future, children’s digital rights may well be used to limit the freedoms of the big internet companies to harvest their data and bombard them with advertising and exploitative messages (Zuboff 2019). But in the meantime, Livingstone warns teachers to tread a careful line between the protection perspective induced by the moral panic discourse and the equally fallacious line that young people can take care of themselves because they are digital natives. Rather we need to negotiate with them how to use the internet to ensure they are protected while using it for a range of ends.

School Strikes It would be difficult to write about children as citizens in the year 2020 without acknowledging the significance of the School Strike for the Climate movement, led by Greta Thunberg. One purpose of the movement is to raise awareness of the climate emergency as a way to increase the pressure for action. At a very basic level the increase in student activity and the resulting media attention have led to a huge rise in public awareness, as reflected in the numbers of people searching the internet for information on the ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate crisis’ during the strikes (Thackeray et al. 2020). One group of researchers note that this movement seems to have achieved ‘a level of global attention that no previous youth movement has ever received’ with global media attention and invitations for Thunberg and others to participate in international fora (Wahlström et al. 2019: 4).

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Importantly, this movement is predominantly young (14–19) and female and includes many first-time protestors. Most of those in the movement reported that they were primarily encouraged to participate because of the influence of other young people, either their direct peers or Greta Thunberg acting as a role model. About a third of the respondents said they found out about the marches through social media and the internet, but over half found out through direct contacts in school. While few participants reported being recruited by, or participating with, members of their family, it was common for participants, once recruited by friends, to recruit others to participate. This suggests ‘the emergence of a new generation of climate activists’ and a distinctive youth-led movement (Wahlström et al. 2019: 4). The School Strike movement represents children taking action to criticize adults who have failed to understand the scale and urgency of the problem, and thus failed to act. It has, however, tended to include specific groups of students, often those relatively privileged, either because of their positions within unequal societies or because of their positions in an unequal global hierarchy. Consequently, the large marches that have taken place in the West have often been largely white (McKnight 2020). While the message of the activists is framed clearly within a commitment to universal rights to a positive future, this suggests the movement will need to reflect on the implications of these disparities, as is common in parallel adult-led movements (Webb 2019). And indeed, there are signs that climate activists are drawing on intersectional and postcolonial analyses to ensure they develop strategies to combat the phenomenon of the ‘white green movement’ (McKnight 2020). For CRE educators, one challenge lies in the frequently expressed sentiment that children are ‘temporarily sacrificing our educations to save our futures’ (ibid.: 54). For teachers who are clearly committed to young people’s educational success, this implies at the very least that they may feel some conflict about how to work with their students. Clearly there are tensions between children’s rights to participate, adults’ duty to protect them from harm and judgements about what is in their best interests. Such negotiations and judgements also have to be weighed up in specific contexts, where legal requirements and consequences may be rather different. In 2003 there was a spate of student walkouts in the UK as a result of the invasion of Iraq. While some schools simply banned students from participating in rallies and punished them for not attending school, others engaged with the students to negotiate the way ahead. Some schools found that there were compromises that could be worked out and these have led to lasting changes that acknowledge that students’ agency may require changes in school



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organization and staff activity (Mead 2010). In fact, the phenomenon of school strikes has a long history, for example, in 1889 in Britain, participants in the ‘children’s rebellion’ marched out of their classroom demanding ‘shorter hours, lighter work … and better teachers’ (Cunningham and Lavalette 2016: 58) and in the aftermath of the social upheavals of 1968 school students went on strike on numerous occasions to demand school reform and democratic governance. More recent strikes have tended, as with the Iraq invasion and climate change, to focus on issues outside of the school, and one might perceive that these leave more room for negotiation than the kind of strike action that directly opposes teachers’ authority. Such negotiations are bound to be sensitive and controversial, and this may be exacerbated by the fact that the teachers and young people are not entirely free to agree to a solution between themselves. Parents, politicians, local administrators, the media and members of the public will all have conflicting opinions about what should happen. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of labour, or of ready compliance with adult authority, is a perfectly rational response for a group of people who have no right to vote and who feel silenced or marginalized in other democratic processes. Taking a broader political perspective, this may be seen as an example of acts of ‘everyday resistance’ or ‘constructive noncompliance’ (Tsai 2015). In contexts where formal democratic channels are missing or restricted, such acts are seen as a legitimate form of feedback to the government on badly framed laws. More broadly still, even in societies where democratic routes are more open, citizens express themselves through conspicuous acts of omission, for example, conscientious objectors refuse conscription; consumers, performers and sports people boycott companies or countries; others simply refuse to comply with unjust laws by bending the rules or ignoring them. School strikes therefore offer an important opportunity for young people to learn about, through and for rights, and in doing so they underline the challenges posed by children’s agency to traditional ways of organizing and managing schools.

Schools as Institutions within Communities Schools employ a lot of people and therefore have a direct impact on the local economy. Schools also enable a lot more people to go to work, knowing their children are well-looked-after, therefore having an even greater impact on the local economy. Schools also use resources, source food, use local services, provide accommodation for local community groups and respond to local needs.

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In many local areas schools may well be the biggest single institution having an impact on the local environment, community safety and civic life. This is not what schools are primarily for, but it is an inevitable consequence of schools existing. Therefore, teachers, as members of the school institution, play a part in this civic life of the institution, including choices the school makes about employing local people on fair wages, sourcing local food, setting up local partnerships to tackle social problems (parenting support; healthy eating; retraining opportunities; adult literacy; community cohesion), using green energy, reducing waste and recycling, sharing resources such as school facilities with the wider community. If schools take seriously the decisions they make about their own processes and their impact on individuals, they can model responsible corporate citizenship and involve students and community members in those decisions. Gramsci argued that while teachers might like to imagine they are independent of government, in reality they often serve to perpetuate ‘commonsense’ assumptions about how the world works, which tend to reflect the interests of those who benefit from social inequality. He argued that genuinely aligning our work with local communities and organizations can enable the teacher to become a more organic element of the struggle for social justice. On this reading, fulfilling our professional ambitions cannot be fully understood outside of the community context in which we are working. CRE is not just about preparing for future citizenship, rather it can be achieved through citizenship experiences in the here and now, both within the curriculum and as part of school culture and life in the community. If we aim to equip young people with the knowledge and skills they may call upon later in life, it is counter-productive to ignore their (and our) actual lived experience as citizens in the community. Young people are increasingly aware of the environmental challenge we face and they play an active role as consumers, recyclers, polluters and also activists. Young people also experience the social and economic inequality that persists in our society; some lead affluent comfortable lives, while others experience poverty and hardship directly. As such, young people are citizens who are directly influenced by these broader political and social factors and who have agency to address these problems. It seems strange therefore to bypass these real lived experiences in order to teach some abstract, textbook or simulated version of citizenship. Rather than imagine we can treat school as a realm of life entirely separate from the outside world, teachers should reflect on their experiences as citizen-teachers and connect with their students’ experiences as citizen-students.

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Conclusion: Towards a Pedagogy for CRE

Principles and Practices In many ways the ‘magic’ of children’s rights, and of human rights more generally, is that they are transcendental (Levitt and Merry 2009: 457). Activists, legislators and practitioners often adopt the language of human rights precisely because they recognize the value of such universal standards and because they want to connect their efforts to broader networks and to use some of that ‘magic’ to give their message more power. But, while those human rights standards are drafted at an international level, there are few mechanisms for enforcing them at the global level. Rather, the legislative, institutional and policy instruments that realize human rights generally operate at national or subnational levels, and often at a very local level. As those universal standards are translated into specific cultural, political and economic contexts, they evolve and transform. This process is more than simply a technical question of policy implementation, it is a more active process of ‘vernacularization’ (Levitt and Merry 2009). This means that the global standards are interpreted locally. This carries not only the promise of realizing rights in children’s diverse lives but also the risk that the practices end up diluting or distorting the intentions of the standards. Those local actors frame their actions in different ways, for example, they may use human rights to think about children in education, but they may also rely on other ways to frame childhood, perhaps prioritizing economic development, or learning patriotism, or promoting traditional family structures. This multiple framing can also be thought of as children’s rights being coupled and recoupled to other agendas, and in the process acquiring different meanings and emphases (Bajaj 2012b). While purist legal scholars may baulk at the dilution or confusion that arises from these processes, it is an inevitable process if we are to enact human rights around the world and avoid human rights existing only in the sphere

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of international law (Hopgood 2013). This does not mean that simply using human rights language provides a trump card for any reform or practice. Such claims have to be subjected to scrutiny, deliberation and evaluation to ensure that they do go some way to promoting human rights and are not being used as window dressing for other agendas. This is a political process, in fact a process that is at the heart of Dewey’s vision of a pragmatic, deliberative democracy. This book has been largely exploring the implications of such a process within the education sphere and has illustrated a number of principles that we summarize here.

Journeys to Children’s Rights Education Don’t expect a quick change – it’s a slow burn with more resistance than you’d ever believe possible. (Teacher, England)

One can view human rights as a form of utopian vision and, following Dewey, one might qualify that as a form of ‘process utopia’ where the guiding vision is not some universal end state but rather a process of living together and making decisions together that embodies the ethical standards we value (McKenna 2001). To achieve this requires education, characterized in a UNESCO report as a ‘necessary utopia’ (Delors 1996). At one level this means, as argued above, that children’s rights education (CRE) might look quite different in different contexts depending on the nature of the education system already in place, the way children are allocated to different schools, the way teachers are trained, the resources available and the prevailing cultural norms that shape schools. The examples we have provided throughout the book illustrate the diverse manifestations of CRE and illustrate how CRE can help to inform educational decisions, whether the local priority is the physical safety of children in refugee camps or LGBT+ inclusion in religious schools. Adopting this pragmatic approach means we have to judge practices by what is currently possible. We can only take one step at a time, and if we make ill-informed idealistic attempts to go too far, too fast, then we may end up undermining our own efforts. This is not an argument for conservatism, but it is an argument for humility and respect for the local knowledge needed to make political decisions. Sometimes a change of government, a popular uprising or a reform of the system might open up opportunities for quite revolutionary changes, but at other times, there might be limited opportunities



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for reform and teachers may even be at risk for pursuing certain practices. Hart’s ladder (see Chapter  8) indicates that some forms of participation are more complete realizations of children’s rights than others, but that does not mean other forms of participation are not valuable. Similarly, some teaching practices might seem fairly basic and limited in one context, but may actually be the most reasonable next step in another context, where the prevailing conditions are less favourable. As Michael Apple reminds us, teachers ‘must make their own lives and must make their own decisions based on how much they can risk’ (Apple 2013: 22). Importantly, each step in the right direction, once it is established and accepted as reasonable, opens up new possibilities for realizing children’s rights. In a school system where children are never asked for their opinions, just starting to consult them is a CRE advance. Once the system has adapted to this change, then such consultations might be regularized. Once they become routine, it becomes feasible to imagine that children may move towards shared decision-making with adults on some issues, and then perhaps on more issues, and then perhaps children may be able to make some of their own decisions with adult consultations. Once that is established, new possibilities open up for student involvement in staff appointments, evaluations, curriculum design and other key elements of provision. If such processes become routinely accepted then an entirely new form of education might be envisaged, incorporating practices that we have not described in this book, because they do not yet exist. By embracing the idea that CRE is a journey over time, alongside the acknowledgement that CRE requires a process of vernacularization, it is inevitable that CRE will look rather different in different places. If human rights guarantees people’s rights to live diverse lives, then it must follow that CRE will look rather different between societies and, within those societies, it will vary between different communities and over time. On this view it would be pointless imagining what the ‘perfect CRE school’ might look like, because diverse children living diverse lives would make them look different.

Teachers’ Agency Align yourself, or get connected to a marginalized community whose children go to your school. Get to know the community and those ‘movers and shakers’ within that community … Do all that you can to ensure that parents or the

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care-givers have input into what you’re teaching and demonstrate that you care. (Teacher, Canada)

In Chapter 4 we discussed teachers’ agency as being an essential factor in realizing CRE. We understand this as ‘ecological agency’ (Priestley, Biesta and Robinson 2015), which is to say that the agency arises from the teacher interacting with others in specific contexts. It can be tempting to imagine that teachers begin with some form of absolute agency, where we are all free to do whatever we want, and that this agency is reduced gradually as we encounter problems and obstacles. But an ecological approach to agency recognizes that agency is actually a result of an individual working within an institutional context. Rather than seeing agency as a personal quality, it is better seen as an achievement, to be negotiated and produced within a context. Teacher agency is not a capacity that individuals possess, it is something they achieve through action. This is another good reason why treating CRE as a blueprint to be implemented does not work, because some teachers will never be able to achieve that vision, because they do not yet have the expertise, insight and support or because the conditions in which they work do not allow it. An ecological approach to agency reiterates that teachers can make a difference, but they have to work on themselves and with others to maximize their agency (Apple 2013). This involves some serious self-work to think about one’s default assumptions and priorities and to ensure one thinks afresh about additional perspectives and alternative practices. It also means teachers should invest in building relationships with other colleagues who share their commitment to CRE and with broader social movements and community organizations. These are all forms of expertise, support and practices from which individual teachers can learn and to which their CRE practices can contribute. It also means building relationships with children which foreground their rights, so that they can help their teachers imagine new ways of working and also to read the possibilities for action within specific contexts. When we were preparing this book, we asked a number of colleagues to share some advice for colleagues who wanted to develop CRE in their school (some of their words start each of the sections in this chapter). The commitment to join together with others emerged as one of the most frequently mentioned actions. This included joining a union (to mitigate personal risks), building alliances with members of school management (reflecting the micro-politics of working in an institution), building alliances with parents from marginalized communities and connecting with broader social movements pursuing social



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justice. We have argued in this book that CRE is inevitably a political issue, and the realization of rights is inevitably a political process, involving, as it does, challenging inequality and injustice. It would seem politically naïve to shoulder both the burden and the risk alone, when there are others with whom teachers can work. Such collaborative work provides teachers with a source of support and strength, as well as a source of inspiration and practical ideas. As such, a teachers’ collaborative network functions to enhance their ecological agency.

Children’s Agency Teachers underestimate the power of their students to change the world … We need to start understanding that children can be catalysts for change and that, as teachers, we need to listen to them and respect their differences. (Teacher, Canada)

This commitment to ecological agency for teachers also applies to thinking about children’s agency. Article 12 of the CRC states that the views of the child should be given ‘due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’ and we have noted that for some adults, this can be read as a kind of loophole, enabling them not to give much weight to the opinions of younger children or young people who are deemed not to respond in a sufficiently mature way. But an ecological approach chimes with the CRE approach to build children’s capacity to exercise agency. Children’s capacity to act does not derive from their age or level of development, it is produced through interactions with those around them. Adults can boost children’s agency by providing them with opportunities to engage, building routines that become habits, ensuring they have access to appropriate information, supporting them to develop informed opinions and genuinely demonstrating how they can have an impact. The CRE approach does not assume children have all the information and capabilities required to exercise agency effectively in all matters, rather it works with children to nurture and develop their agency. It follows that, in schools where children cannot exercise their agency, the fault lies with the adults, and therefore the adults can redress the situation. The realization of children’s agency is as much part of the journey of CRE as all the other dimensions discussed in this book. Commentators on children’s agency sometimes veer between adopting ‘overprotective or paternalistic’

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conceptions of children on the one hand and a ‘tendency to consider children as competent agents regardless of their age’ on the other hand (Stoeckelin and Bonvin 2014: 65). Assuming that agency is binary (either it is achieved or not) creates a never-ending reason for teachers to berate themselves. The question to ask ourselves as practitioners is rather, have children been involved in the decision-making process? And if they have, to what extent? And, if to a substantial degree, with what level of success? And what can we do better next time to make the answers more positive? We think of children’s agency as a sliding scale from minimal to maximal, but where an individual child sits on that scale depends as much on the adults and the institutional context as it does on their own innate maturity or level of development. At the time the UNCRC was being written and ratified, sociologists of childhood were shifting their analysis of children from ‘becomings’ to ‘beings’, which is to say, from people who had things done to them and who were studied as objects, to people who acted within their social contexts, and with whom one might undertake a study of childhood (James, Jenks and Prout 1998). Childhood and schooling provide two formidable social structures within which children have to negotiate their agency, but, like teacher agency, it is useful to perceive their agency as a practical achievement rather than a starting point. On this view we can perceive children’s agency as exercised within peer cultures (they can help others to build agency through their relationships); through playing along with our expectations, or refusing and resisting; and by seizing the moments when adult control slips and building their own capacity to act (Oswell 2013). But these are the forms of agency that children will exercise anyway. Teachers are generally happy with the idea that, through scaffolding experiences, they can help students make progress towards levels of achievement that are beyond their current attainment. Similarly, Putting children at the centre stage and recognizing them as rights holders, as well as social actors, implicitly highlights the necessity of building their capacities to participate, promoting capable agents and enhancing critical, creative and caring thinking for active citizenship. (Sarojini Hart, Biggeri and Babic 2014: 263)

CRE teaching has children’s agency as an explicit objective and a powerful pedagogy, but teachers have to incorporate this in their planning and practice, otherwise they remain at the level of rhetoric.



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Classrooms and Communities Q. What have you taught about children’s rights? A. Lessons on the right to life, which have included debates on ethical issues such as abortion. Lessons on child labour and the impacts this has on community and individuals. Lessons on abuse, what it is and the way children can access help / help others. Verbal references within all lessons to rights they have. References within behaviour expectations to rights e.g. you have the right to learn. (Teacher, UK) Be intentional otherwise it won’t happen. What are you willing to give up teaching so you can cover this? (Teacher, Canada)

The examples discussed through Chapters 7–9 include a range of activities and teaching approaches that reflect the principles of CRE. This chapter is not the place to repeat the arguments and ideas there, but it is worth reiterating that there often seems to be no end to the obstacles including lack of time, lack of status, lack of resources, lack of training, lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, other priorities, an unhelpful curriculum, unsupportive management. But taking an ecological perspective reminds teachers that they can always take some action within their classroom, across the school and with their local community to develop CRE. The central argument of this concluding chapter is that it is better to start small with something meaningful than to defer CRE until the conditions are better. As we saw in Chapter 3, if CRE does not flow from the top-down (in policy terms) then it can develop through a bottom-up process. One powerful example of this is provided by UNICEF UK’s work in Scotland where, with no particular policy impetus from government, more than half of all schools have become Rights Respecting Schools through word of mouth and a programme of local support (Jerome et al. 2015). The definition of CRE as learning about (knowledge), through (process) and for (purpose) children’s rights should not be read simply as three separate elements to teach, but as three aspects of the same process. Powerful projects often incorporate all three types of learning, and so developing programmes or projects where all three aspects are identified may be particularly useful. Similarly, teachers make decisions everyday about the selection of resources and their pedagogy that may be supportive of CRE, even though they are ostensibly focused on other educational outcomes. For example, the hard-pressed teacher

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of an exam class on language and literature can adopt a narrow model of direct teacher instruction with a narrow selection of resources or they can select a syllabus and plan their classes to build habits of independent research, consider a range of narratives about single issues, introduce a range of perspectives through and about the texts they study, and develop a political understanding of contemporary issues. This double counting, or planning at two levels, is an important skill of the CRE teacher. In some of the most challenging circumstances, teachers find ways to do the job they are required to do by those in authority and supplement it with additional activities that help their students develop a wider understanding of the world and their role in it, which is more closely aligned with CRE (see Chapter 4 and Jerome 2018). As we saw when we reviewed the evidence in Chapter 3, there are some studies that indicate fairly significant advances can be secured through relatively modest practices, such as using a new teaching approach (e.g. Philosophy for Children) or adopting new resources (e.g. better textbooks). This may well be the case because such experiences open children’s eyes to alternative ways of being and doing, which may in themselves be transformational (see Chapter  5). But research in England into the longterm impacts of active citizenship education in secondary schools also indicates that the impacts of some positive active approaches can be shortlived. Tracking young people into their 20s showed that the most significant outcomes on attitudes towards active citizenship and actual levels of participation in political and community-based activities were linked to the kind of educational experiences they had at school and the frequency (Hoskins, Janmaat and Villalba 2012; Keating and Janmaat 2016). Simply put, these studies suggest that the more, the better, which is little surprise. There is also some evidence to suggest that the impact may be greater for those children who come from deprived backgrounds, where there is often a participation gap mirroring other forms of inequality (Hoskins, Janmaat and Melis 2017) also known as the civic empowerment gap (Levinson 2012). CRE is a complicated and nuanced enterprise but at its heart, like most of education, is the teacher devising coherent plans that incorporate meaningful activities, with clear learning intentions, which build over time into deeper knowledge, more effective skills and positive habits.



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Contemporary Challenges Make sure it is not just theory but children are able to put theory into practice. (Teacher, Spain)

As we write this conclusion there are two significant events happening and so we close by reflecting briefly on these. In this closing section we try to illustrate how the arguments in this book can be used to think about contemporary issues and to demonstrate how a CRE approach opens up space for critical reflection and creative solutions.

Covid-19 As governments around the world took the decision to enter some form of lockdown, schools have closed and many of the assumptions that have informed our professional practice have been disrupted. Teachers have tried to work remotely, often mediated through the internet, but often through traditional printed resources as well. Children may have engaged with others through technology but have often been left to work independently. In these processes, existing forms of inequality are being reinforced as those with space, resources and better educated parents find themselves effectively locked down with a qualified tutor, while those whose parents did poorly at school, or where space and resources are scarce, might find themselves studying less often and with less supervision and guidance. Clearly a CRE approach cannot solve these problems, but it can help us think through them. The Children’s Commissioner for England provided several reasons from a children’s rights perspective to be critical of the UK Government’s delay in reopening schools after lockdown (Lennon 2020). At a very basic level she argued that this reflects a failure to prioritize children’s right to an education (Article 28) and she further argued that the inadequate arrangements for home study failed to realize children’s rights to develop their potential to the full (Article 29). In addition, because the disadvantages are more likely to accrue to children in disadvantaged groups, then these failures fundamentally contravene the principle of non-discrimination (Article 2). Ultimately, she argued that the decision to ease lockdown by opening shops, zoos and religious buildings means adults have once again asserted their interests ahead of the urgent interests of

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children, and that therefore the whole policy reflected a failure to prioritize children’s rights alongside other agendas. By contrast, a policy that prioritized access to schools for the most disadvantaged children would honour children’s rights. We would add that the failure of many schools to consult with young people about how to manage the transition back to school reverts to a model in which protection and provision are prioritized but where participation is completely ignored. In some other countries, teenagers have been consulted (with their families) about what their personal preferences and priorities might be to ensure that the school is able to work in the best way for individual children. By contrast, the focus on provision and protection leads to a focus on the agency of adults to provide for and protect children, once again sidelining young people’s agency and making decisions about them, rather than with them. In addition to these broader issues about provision and participation, the pandemic has also been accompanied by an ‘infodemic’, defined as ‘an overabundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources’ (WHO 2020). Given that young people in the UK are less likely than adults to be able to differentiate true from false stories (NLT 2018), more likely to use social media sources (Ofcom 2020a), more likely to develop news fatigue and avoid Covid-19 news (ibid.) and less likely to follow public health advice (Ofcom 2020b), there are grounds for concern that children may well be more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. Half of 12- to 15-year-olds use social media as a source of information, including a fifth using YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. But, despite the fact that teachers are among the most trusted professions, and there is a long tradition of media literacy education to draw on, only 17 per cent of 12- to 15-year-olds reported getting information from teachers about these issues during the lockdown (Ofcom 2020a). This reflects another failure of the education system to engage with young people’s experiences and concerns. This is a very sharp illustration of what it means to say that education is a right in its own terms and also an enabling right, giving children better access to other rights. In this case the failure to teach children about the infodemic is likely to compromise their right to access and understand the information available to them, which in turn might compromise their health.

Black Lives Matter At the same time as the Covid-19 crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement gained new momentum as people responded to yet another police murder of



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a black person in the United States. The eight minutes and forty-six seconds it took for the policeman to kill George Floyd on 25 May 2020 was filmed and watched by millions and the anger led to protests across America and then around the world. Viral videos on social media and images on mainstream media have reflected these protests as variously including peaceful gatherings where social distancing and face-mask conventions are maintained to protect against Covid-19 spread, to rioting and looting. They have also documented counteractions by far-right protestors and a range of responses from the police and other authorities, including the use of plastic bullets, pepper spray, physical assaults and live rounds against the protestors. The involvement of young people has been widely discussed in relation to these protests. Larissa Kennedy, a Trustee of the British Youth Council (and president of the National Union of Students 2020–2), stated as follows: Young people have repeatedly made demands for political action on this issue and yet we have not seen any meaningful changes. From the police brutality that has taken Black lives, to the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment that has destroyed Black communities, it is clear that change is needed. (BYC 2020)

But young people have not simply participated, they have also led. In Bristol in the UK, a Black Lives Matter protest was organized at short notice by five young people, between 16 and 21 years of age (Devaney 2020). Liza Bilal, one of the organizers, reflecting on their achievement, said, I think that we not only achieved our goals of showing solidarity with the rest of the UK and the US by creating a conversation, we surpassed them. The tearing down of the Edward Colston slave trader statue, by some courageous individuals, has created ripple effects across the globe that we could never have imagined. (Ibid.)

And that toppling of the statue, long an object of political debate in Bristol, did indeed breathe fresh life into the Rhodes Must Fall Movement and shortly afterwards Oriel College, Oxford University, announced their intention to remove their statue of Cecil Rhodes and a celebratory plaque. While we are still in the midst of events (as we write), the protests have already led to a number of arrests of police officers who murdered black people and declarations in some American districts to remodel their policing system; statues have fallen that undermined the dignity of black people by celebrating colonizers and slave traders; and all of this has given fresh impetus to the wider debate about decolonizing the curriculum (Zembylas 2018; Ahmed 2019). This

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reflects the commitment to nurture a movement, not focus on individual acts of protest: Liberation is not gained by the outcomes of a singular political event or destination, its roots live deep inside us and in all of our relationships. We know that our politics is revealed in our practice, in our intimacy and communication with one another. (BLM 2018: 10)

In other words, the organizers are conscious that how they do their politics is as important as the purpose of the political action. It is not coincidental that the same philosophy runs through CRE, because it is also a form of action for social justice, where pedagogy has to embody the principles of children’s rights as well as provide a mechanism for teaching about them. Taking a CRE perspective, there are several implications for teachers. First, some of the young people participating and leading in Black Lives Matter and also the Climate Change movement are of school age and already experiencing significant agency and responsibility. This reinforces how strange it can be for such young people to then engage with adults who are still steeped in traditional expectations of teacher authority and control. These young people therefore represent a challenge to teachers about how to perceive and engage with young people, but they also remind us that there are times when students can become the resource from which others learn, including us. Second, while some young people will participate after careful thought and analysis, others might dip in because they are swept up in the moment. But they need to learn about activism from someone to help them move towards informed decisions. In a similar situation, one teacher, teaching about protest in her local community, became aware that a missing element of their students’ education concerned the consequences of breaking the law (Jerome and Elwick 2016). This is especially so where the movement is diverse, and where some people will be arguing for protestors to break the law, vandalize property, or even use violence, or where counter protests are likely and where clashes might occur, demanding split-second decisions about whether to flee or stand and fight your ground. For this teacher, her role was to ensure her students were fully informed about the legal situation and what might follow for individuals after they have made their decision about whether to break the law for a cause. Taking unsanctioned or illegal action has often been required to achieve change and resist oppression. The umbrella movement in Hong Kong in 2014 is an example of a nonviolent protest, aspects of which were made illegal. However, before engaging in such actions it is important to be aware of and weigh up the risks. The teacher in this



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example worked through scenarios and by examining the legal situation, she was able to help her students think about the decisions they might have to make and to start to make informed judgements while they had time to think things through. Third, one notable aspect of the Black Lives Matter protests has been the demographic mix. One of the five young organizers of the Bristol protest argued, ‘I know I  have to use my privilege and my voice as a white male to stand up to the oppressors and fight for change’ (Devaney 2020). But this raises complex questions of white privilege, white guilt, becoming an ally and working in solidarity with others (Hajela and Italie 2020). This reflects our earlier discussion about the distinction between sympathy and charity, on the one hand, and empathy and coalitional political agency, on the other. In this example, the organizer, Sam Little, drew on the history of the gay liberation movement, citing the influential role of black activists in the Stonewall riots, as an inspiration to him for his own activism. These events happened over thirty years before he was born, but clearly a political and historical perspective has informed his contemporary understanding of politics and his self-perceived political identity. These events underline how important it is to develop an appreciation of the nature of diversity within our story of universal rights. Without fully appreciating this, it is difficult to imagine how to become politically effective.

The Last Words Education is much more than an entry to the job market. It has the power to shape a sustainable future and better world. (Ban Ki-Moon, when UN secretary general)

This book started as an attempt to pull together some evidence and arguments that might help a teacher to engage with CRE and to think through some of the implications for their own practice. We wanted to draw our ideas primarily from other educationalists, because those are the people who understand the peculiarities of the classroom and of the strange dynamics of working in schools. Our purpose has been to inform readers about the framework of international law that frames CRE, to clarify what CRE means and what it aims to achieve. We have also sought to provide some sources of inspiration to help teachers think about their specific contextual challenges (and prospects).

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The global policy epidemic of neoliberal education reforms is a problematic context for most of us, and the recent pandemic has added further problems for the immediate and (at least) medium-term future. But one of the defining characteristics of being a teacher is optimism. Almost every teacher we know is a teacher because they believe they can help their students to achieve no matter what challenges confront them, and through helping their students, they generally believe that they will help to make the world a (slightly) better place. If the right to education is an enabling right, opening the door to the realization of other rights, then teaching might be said to achieve a multiplier effect, through which one person’s optimism and commitment to make a difference can be multiplied through their students. We do not underestimate the challenge, but neither should we underestimate the potential.

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Index 3 Ps of children’s rights 10–12, 22, 189, 211–13, 234–5, 248 Abidjan Principles 203 absolute rights 6, 7, 15, 23, 152, 153–4, 156, 180, 186, 187, 208 Abu Moghli, M. 32 accountability 57, 74, 76, 82, 85, 90, 91, 153, 174, 205 adult authority 14–16, 39, 61, 88–92, 103, 107, 115–16, 128, 161, 168–76, 186–92, 206, 237, 250 advocacy 44, 59, 64, 158, 219, 232, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 44 African National Congress (ANC) 41 agency of children 12, 18, 21, 35–6, 39, 54, 89, 92–3, 114–16, 136, 158, 186–97, 232, 236–7, 243–4, 248, 250, 251 agency of teachers 73–94, 96, 101, 241–3, 248 Akar, B. 41, 93, 106 Alderson, P. 9, 32, 128, 175, 198 Alinsky, S. 225–8 Amnesty International 26, 40, 64, 67, 82, 91, 166–7, 204–6, 211, 232, 233 angelic troublemakers 224–5 anti-colonialism 26–7, 221, 236 Apple, M. 94, 241, 242 art 29, 30, 138, 187, 212 Article 12 12, 44, 56, 102, 111, 115–16, 160–1, 172, 173, 179–80, 186–200, 243–4 Associated Schools Network (ASPnet) 55 Australia 50, 57, 59 authoritarianism in school 15, 18, 39, 80, 90–1, 103, 107, 115–16, 128, 130, 168, 171, 188–90, 201, 206 Bajaj, M. 32, 60, 62, 64, 68, 81, 88, 98, 115, 118, 158, 232 balancing rights 37, 39, 68, 151, 155–6, 160, 176, 180, 195, 235

Ball, S. 57, 63, 74, 85–6, 93, 99, 175 Bamako Programme of Action 44 Bangladesh 47–8 banking education 103, 110, 161 Barthes, R. 74 Baxi, U. 32 behaviour 15, 18, 66–7, 81, 91, 152–3, 159–60, 168–76, 191, 195, 202, 205–6, 208–9 behaviourism 173 benefits of participation 65–70, 192–210, 215–20, 225–33, 246 Bernstein, B. 20–1 Beutelsbacher Consensus 177 Black Lives Matter 4, 248–51 Bourdieu, P. 41 Brazil 8, 95–6, 101, 104, 105, 109, 110–11 Bruner, J. 162 capabilities approach 235, 243–4 capacity building 32, 34–5, 55, 60, 80, 115–16, 228, 243–4 case study as teaching tool 69, 148–9, 150–2, 163–4 censorship 37, 180 Central Office for Cooperation at School 124, 129, 137 charity 60, 88, 158–60, 221–2, 251 checklists 53–4, 78, 212–13 Child Friendly Cities 219–20 Child Friendly Schools 45–7, 185, 201–4 children as citizens 21, 89, 215–38 Children’s Commissioner for England 247 Children’s Rights 3 Ps of children’s rights 10–12, 22, 189, 211–13, 234–5, 248 adult authority 14–16, 39, 61, 88–92, 103, 107, 115–16, 128, 161, 168–76, 186–92, 206, 237, 250 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 44

284

Index

Article 29 12, 33–9, 57–8, 79, 124, 212–13, 247 Bamako Programme of Action 44 Child Rights Approach 53, 59–61, 65–8, 210, 231, 243–4 concerns 14–16, 88–92, 190 Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam 44 Declaration of the Rights of the Child 10 distinction between CRE and HRE 4, 17–42, 43–56 Hammarberg, T. 11 history 4–12, 17–39, 43–56 International Union for Child Welfare 10 Jebb, E. 9–10 responsibilities 22, 63, 66, 81, 88, 91, 152–3, 155–6, 157–62, 208 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 11, 15, 35–9, 45, 50, 58, 79–80, 99, 124, 132, 142, 155, 182 UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET) 22, 30–3, 34, 35, 49, 77, 148 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 3–16, 19–24, 33–9, 41, 45, 50–3, 56–9, 62, 64, 76–7, 79–81, 82–3, 100, 102, 124, 153, 170, 172, 177–82, 186–92, 206–10, 212–13, 243, 244 China 8, 26, 122 citizenship 13–16, 18–21, 28, 30, 61–3, 66, 80, 86, 88, 129–30, 141, 143, 194, 205, 210, 215–38, 244, 246 civic empowerment gap 246 class charters 160, 172, 174 class contracts 138–9 class readers 164–5 classroom practice 115–17, 130–43, 147–83 coalitional agency 158, 232, 251 Cold War 6, 8, 30 community organizing 223–31 compulsory volunteering 222–3 conceptual knowledge 112–13, 135–6, 147–56 conscientization 108–9 constructive noncompliance 18, 237

controversial issues 29, 127, 151, 176–82, 209, 219 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 23, 24 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 8, 24 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 24 cooperation 121–44 Co-operative Institute for the Modern School 129, 136, 137, 140 Coronavirus 234, 247–8 corporal punishment 38, 48, 83, 170, 201, 202 Costa Rica 50 Council of Europe 11, 12, 28, 40, 59, 80 Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education 30, 62–3 European Convention on Human Rights28 Teaching and Learning about Human Rights in Schools (Recommendation, 1985) 4, 29, 30 Covell, K. 65–7, 80–3, 159–60, 207–10 Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam 44 COVID-19 234, 247–8 critical pedagogy 82–5, 95–100 culture circles 104–5, 161 curriculum 20, 29, 38, 41, 47–9, 50–4, 61–3, 77, 80, 85, 100, 105, 110–11, 112–13, 115, 127, 130, 134–6, 143, 147–52, 155–6, 163, 198, 204–9, 249 curriculum coverage 157 data protection 234 Dauite, C. 80 de Gouges, O. 7 Declaration of the Rights of the Child 10 Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen 7 Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women 8, 24 decoupling 62, 88 Dehumanization 5–6, 107 deliberation 105, 152, 176–7, 179, 223, 240

Index Delors, J. 14, 240 democracy 19–21, 29, 106, 118, 122–9, 136–44, 180, 189, 200, 219, 226 Democracy and Education 19, 122 democracy as associated living 19, 127, 220 depoliticization 88, 209, 211, 219–20 Dewey democracy as associated living 19, 127, 220 democracy and Education 19, 22 experience 19, 25, 29, 38, 116–17, 121– 44, 215–20, 221–2, 238, 246 experience and education 142, 217, 222 growth 123, 142–3, 222, 231 mis-educative experiences 142, 222 occupations 135 reciprocity 127, 186 reflection 127, 142, 217–18 service learning 117, 140–3, 218–21 the child and the curriculum 148, 155 teacher as planner 134–6 dialogue 36, 103–6, 108, 124–7, 164–5, 186, 192–3, 226 digital citizenship 233–5 digital rights 233–5 discrimination 5–10, 22–4, 27, 32, 38, 40, 83, 105, 125–6, 151, 187, 201–7 disinformation 248 diverse narratives 162–8 Dr Seuss 166 Drop the Debt 159 duty bearers 53, 152–3, 160, 170, 207, 209 ecological agency 242–3, 245 education about, through and for rights 24–5, 31, 77, 97, 175, 216 Education for Critical Consciousness 96–7, 103–5 emancipation 9, 88 empowerment 30, 35–6, 48, 55, 60, 79, 84, 104, 160, 193, 205, 207–8, 222–3, 226–7, 246 England 52, 63, 65–8, 86–7, 159, 198, 201, 209, 246, 247 environmental education 32, 33, 55, 133– 4, 199, 235–7, 238 equality 8–9, 13, 17, 34, 37, 40–1, 51, 79, 107, 115, 125–6, 150, 170, 202–7 ethos 37, 58, 125, 189, 205–8

285

European Convention on Human Rights 28 European Union 12, 50, 234 evaluations 51–70, 76, 114, 138, 202, 205, 208–9, 211 exclusions 190, 213 experience 19, 25, 29, 38, 116–17, 121–44, 178–9, 215–20, 221–2, 238, 246 Experience and Education 142, 217, 222 experiential learning 61, 117, 121–44, 178–9, 215–20 fables 164–5 Fanon, F. 107 Fielding, M. 80, 192–3 Foucault, M. 93, 175 four freedoms (from fear and want, to belief and speech) 6–7 France 54, 92, 122, 129 Free Schools 169 Freinet, C. 122–4, 129–44 Central Office for Cooperation at School 124, 129, 137 class contracts 138–9 cooperation 121–44 Co-operative Institute for the Modern School 129, 136, 137, 140 outdoors education 130, 132, 139 pedagogical insights 130–43 Printing at School 131–3 projects 136–43 weekly workplans 134, 187 Freire, P. 32, 95–119, 219, 222 banking education 103, 110, 161 conscientization 108–9 culture circles 104–5, 161 dehumanization 107 dialogue 103–6, 108 Education for Critical Consciousness 96–7, 103–5 Influence on HRE 95–100 liberation theology 100, 107 Marxism 100, 106–9 oppression 101–9, 117 Pedagogy of Freedom 96, 103, 106 Pedagogy of Hope 96 Pedagogy of the Oppressed 96, 100–2, 106–9 praxis 108–9 reading the word and the world 101

286 revolution and nonrevolutionary change 98, 100, 106–11, 118 Fromm, E. 106–7 Fukushima 89 Fullan, M. 57, 84 Gambia 52, 61 General Comment No.1 from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 35–42, 58, 79, 99, 124, 170 Gerber, P. 36, 56–9, 64, 83 Germany 54, 129, 177 Ghana 61 Gillborn, D. 40, 79 Global Classroom programme 201, 210 Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) 86, 90, 99 Gramsci, A. 238 growth 123, 142–3, 222, 231 Hammarberg, T. 11 Hart’s ladder of participation 196–7, 220, 241 Heater, D. 28 holistic education 40–1, 79, 81, 133, 149 Hopgood, S. 43, 85, 240 Howe, B. 65–7, 80–3, 159–60, 207–10 Human Rights Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 23, 24 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 8, 24 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 24 discrimination 5–10, 22–4, 27, 32, 38, 40, 83, 105, 125–6, 151, 187, 201–7 equality 8–9, 13, 17, 34, 37, 40–1, 51, 79, 107, 115, 125–6, 150, 170, 202–7 European Convention on Human Rights 28 history 4–12 human rights defenders 6, 69, 113, 223, 233 implementation mechanisms 50–1, 55, 56–9, 63–5, 74, 76–8, 154, 156 inalienability 5, 18, 22, 63, 150, 209 indivisibility 7, 24, 31, 56, 150

Index inherent dignity 5, 18, 150, 170, 209 Inter-American Institute of Human Rights 77 International Bill of Human Rights 7, 24 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 7, 23 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 7, 23 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance 24 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 23, 27 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families 24 International legislation 8, 23, 24, 44, 58, 82, 144, 155, 240 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) 43–5 United Nations (UN) 4–13, 22, 43–56, 76, 98 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 4–7, 8–10, 17–20, 23–7, 32, 33, 45, 82, 211 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action 28, 31 human rights defenders 6, 69, 113, 223, 233 Human Rights Education HRE in the UN 43–56 impact on learning 65–70 United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004) 31, 45, 50, 51 World Programme for Human Rights Education (WPHRE) 31, 45, 57, 61, 65, 76 Human Rights Friendly Schools 201–6 identity 14, 21, 27, 33–4, 36, 89, 112, 143– 4, 162–3, 166, 179, 189, 234 ideology of immaturity 13, 189 implementation mechanisms 50–1, 55, 56–9, 63–5, 74, 76–8, 154, 156 inauthenticity 86, 157, 161 India 60, 64, 67, 118, 232

Index infodemic 248 interculturalism 34, 36, 61, 62, 126 International Union for Child Welfare 10 International Women’s Year (1975) 8 Iraqi Kurdistan 87, 89 Ireland 40, 51, 60, 67, 88, 155–6, 182, 190 Islamophobia 89 Japan 8, 89 Jebb, E. 9–10 Jerome, L. 50, 53–4, 58, 68, 69, 83, 87, 91, 114, 155–6, 157, 161, 164–5, 168, 180, 181, 193–4 Keet, A. 82, 84 Key, E. 9 Kiwan, D. 80 knowledge 60, 61–3, 67, 69, 80, 87–8, 92, 98, 103–6, 112–13, 128–9, 134–6, 141, 147–57, 163, 210, 231 Kohlberg, L. 40 Kolb, D. 210, 216 Korczak, J. 171, 174–5 Kosovo 61 Krappman, L. 34 Kuwait 92, 114 language of rights 152 Latin American Women’s Rights Service 117 Learning Activism 231 legalistic worldview 76–8, 84 LGBT+ 69, 125–6, 151, 162, 167, 178, 240, 251 liberation 97, 101, 105, 106–111, 250–1 liberation theology 100, 107 Liberia 61 limited rights 138, 152, 153–4, 158, 235 Lister, I. 28 literature 165–7 Lundy Model of Student Voice 187 Lundy, L. 34, 35, 50, 56, 57, 64, 77, 187 Make Poverty History 159 Malawi 61 Malaysia 61 Malcolm X 41 managerialism 82, 86, 90, 222 Marxism 100, 106–9

287

McCowan, T. 80, 84, 110–11 media 5, 29, 51, 96, 117, 133–4, 181, 234, 236, 248 Mejias, S. 40, 79, 82, 91, 205 mental health 15, 102, 228–30 Mexico 122 mis-educative experiences 142, 222 misinformation 66, 248 moral autonomy 171–3 Morocco 50 Movement of Landless Rural Workers, Brazil 109–11 Mugisha, F. 69 multiple narratives 162–8 Myanmar 47–8 narratives 162–8, 222, 246 neoliberalism 40, 82–5, 192, 205, 252 Nicaragua 65 Nigeria 170 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) 26, 31, 34, 57–8, 59–60, 64, 98, 207 Northern Ireland 40, 67, 155–6, 182, 190 oppression 97, 100–9, 115, 117, 130, 169, 175, 221 Osler, A. 13, 14, 27, 28, 30, 83, 87, 89, 128, 150, 159, 161, 162–3, 177–82, 191–2, 205, 210, 211–13 othering 143, 167, 221 Oxfam 26 parents 10, 11, 15, 18, 32, 33, 36, 37, 58–9, 68, 81, 86, 111, 125–6, 170, 203, 213, 223–5, 227, 237, 242, 247 Parker, W. 86, 92, 112, 147–8 participation 11–12, 20–2, 29, 46, 54, 67, 80, 88–92, 96, 105, 114–15, 130–6, 140–3, 160–1, 170, 178–9, 185–214, 215–38, 240–1, 243–4, 246, 248 paternalism 21, 80, 102, 190, 243 patriotism 41, 89, 239 peace education 26–7, 52, 55, 61–2 pedagogy 12–13, 46, 59–61, 78, 79–80, 95–119, 121–44, 147–83, 185–214, 214–23, 227–33, 245–6 Pedagogy of Freedom 96, 103, 106 Pedagogy of Hope 96

288

Index

Pedgogy of the Oppressed 96, 100–2, 106–9 peer mediation 174, 200 People’s Decade for Human Rights Education 31, 98 Philosophy for Children 80, 246 phronesis 148–9, 154, 163, 176 physical punishment 61, 38, 48–9, 83, 153, 168–76, 201–2, 213 pitfalls to avoid 157–62, 220–3 Poland 171 policy alignment 58–9, 77–8, 84 poverty 54, 96–7, 102, 103, 105, 110–11, 129, 158–9, 196, 218, 221, 223–5, 238, 246 poverty tourism 221 powerful knowledge 41, 80, 92, 112, 150 praxis 32, 108–9 privacy in school 161, 182, 223 progressive education 39, 41, 79, 90, 129 punishment 18, 38, 48–9, 61, 83, 152–3, 168–76, 201–2, 213 qualified rights 15, 153–4, 208 Quennerstedt, A. 58, 77 racism 27, 38, 40, 167, 180, 194, 196, 213 radical worldview 82–5, 95–119 reciprocity 13, 127, 150, 186, 191–2 Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, co-operation and peace and education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms (UNESCO) 26 reflection 142, 215–20 reformist worldview 79–81 refugees 47–8 relationalism 83 relativism 82–3 religion 37, 47, 62, 68, 93, 125–6, 162, 195, 208 Republic of Korea 15, 88 resistance 19, 83, 93–4, 168, 171, 237 resources 30, 37, 52, 54, 67–9, 124, 129–30, 131–5, 150, 158, 162–8, 179, 181, 233 respect 33, 65, 130, 152–3, 155–6, 159, 170, 192, 208, 213 responsibilities 22, 63, 66, 81, 88, 91, 152– 3, 155–6, 157–8, 159–60, 195, 208

responsibilization 63 restorative justice 174–5 revolution 98, 100, 106–11, 118, 154 Rhodes Must Fall 249 rights as struggle 18, 24–5, 30, 99, 101, 114, 154–5, 159, 231–3 rights holders 9, 14, 21, 41, 53, 54, 63, 82, 152, 153, 158, 209, 244 Rights Respecting Schools Award 57–8, 67, 80, 90, 102, 206–10, 211–13, 245 Rohingya 47–8 Romania 67 Russia 69, 122 safe spaces 168–82 Sahlberg, P. 74, 86–7, 99 Save the Children 9, 11, 203 school 21 116 school councils 80, 90, 185–213 school rules 12, 20, 23, 128, 138–9, 168– 76, 195, 198, 213 school segregation 64, 127 School Strike for Climate 9, 235–7 Scotland 50, 54, 58, 60, 158, 245 Seen and HEARD: Helping young people explore poverty and children’s rights in the UK 102 Sen, A. 128, 235 Seneca Falls Convention 7 service learning 117, 140–2, 218 Shulman, L. 149–50 Singh, K. 85 Slovakia 64 social capital 84, 141, 220–1 social justice 99, 110–11, 112, 159, 166, 196, 235, 238, 250 social media 133–4, 236, 248–9 Spain 28, 50, 67, 166 Stamp Out Stigma Campaign 228–30 standardized tests 79, 82 Starkey, H. 14, 28, 30, 34, 40, 66, 79, 82, 83, 91, 150, 159, 161, 177–82, 194, 205, 210, 212–13 Struthers, A. 77 student strikes 9, 235–7 student voice 98, 115, 160–1, 185–213, 228–30 students as researchers 193–6 Summerhill School 115

Index Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 28, 55, 201 Switzerland 129 teacher as change agent 73–94 teacher as collaborative agent 60, 81, 243 teacher as curriculum agent 85 teacher as gatekeeper 60, 81, 217 teacher as interpreter in policy process 73–94 teacher as planner 134–6, 152, 155, 216, 244, 246 teacher conservativism 88–90, 98, 115 teacher hypocrisy 79, 81, 90–2, 93, 115 teacher ignorance 77, 80, 86–7, 92 teacher training/education 46, 52, 53, 61, 78 teaching as a political act 73–94, 96, 100, 112–18 teaching to the test 85, 87, 92, 128 terrorism 29, 33, 181, 182 textbooks 27, 37, 38, 67, 130–2, 141 three dimensional view of knowledge 149–51 Thunberg, G. 9, 235–6 Tibbits, F. 83 tokenism 197, 206, 220 Tomaševski, K. 35, 203 Torney-Purta, J. 28 transformative education 32, 60, 82–5, 98, 101, 111–18, 156, 219 Turkey 40, 88 Uganda 61, 69 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 11, 15, 35–9, 45, 50, 58, 79–80, 99, 124, 132, 142, 155, 182 UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET) 22, 30–3, 34, 35, 49, 77, 148 UN direct education provision 46–9

289

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) 44, 45 UN indirect education provision 49–56 UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 48–9 UNESCO 12, 14, 25–7, 210, 240 UNICEF 12, 35, 44, 45, 46–8, 50, 53–5, 57–8, 59, 65, 67, 79, 102, 150, 172, 201–4, 206–10, 219–20, 245 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 4–7, 8–10, 17–20, 23–27, 32, 33, 45, 82, 211 Utopia 6, 82, 122–3, 219, 240 values education 33–4, 36, 39–40, 83, 89, 90–1, 110–11, 125–6, 139, 151, 175, 182 Verhellen, J. 34 vernacularization 82, 239, 241 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action 28, 31 Vindication of the Rights of Woman 7 violence 15, 28, 29, 38, 83, 87, 106, 142, 166, 171, 175, 191, 213 Vygotsky, L. 112 White saviourism 221 Whitty, G. 80, 192, 198, 199 Wollstonecraft, Mary 7 women’s rights 7–8, 69, 117 World Programme for Human Rights Education (WPHRE) 31, 45, 57, 61, 65, 76 Young, M. 41, 80, 150 Yousafazi, M. 69 youth politics 113, 231–3, 235–7 youthquake 231 Zambia 61

290