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Volume 1 issue 1 April 2013

Could Do Better: Improving Human Rights Learning in the UK

Ben Mills
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Human rights have featured in the courtroom for quite some time, but the importance of human rights in the classroom is only recently beginning to attract serious recognition. This article examines the extent of human rights learning (HRL) in the UK. It first considers the conceptual problems in framing HRL within citizenship education, including the extent to which this framing is conceptually legitimate and compatible with human rights. It is argued that the values of citizenship education and those of HRL do not necessarily overlap. It then considers various methodological issues for HRL, particularly the inherent conflict of interest where states are responsible for implementing HRL within education yet are also primarily responsible for most human rights infringements. Finally the issues of accessibility and impact are considered, with the focus on broadening the availability of HRL beyond schools and determining when HRL can be judged as successful.

It is argued that the current state of HRL in the UK is minimal and tokenistic at best, and that significant conceptual and methodological changes are required in addition to considerable improvement in accessibility and impact assessment. If this is achieved, the UK’s contribution to human rights would be radically improved.

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