Human Rights in Education: Foundations, Evolution, and Implementation

Topic 10: Social Policy of Educational Institutions

Defining Human Rights

There are three main perspectives on defining human rights:

• Positivism: Rights based on legal texts and goodwill, often aspirational but not always legally binding. These positive rights may not be fully captured or enforced within specific legal systems.
• Natural Law: Inherent rights preceding positive law, reflecting universal human needs and aspirations. This perspective views human rights as a higher moral order, objective and universal, influencing legal frameworks.
  • Relative Natural Law: A dynamic approach recognizing the evolving nature of human rights and the need for continuous critical assessment and incorporation into legal systems.

Historical Context

• 17th Century: Declarations of rights in Virginia (1776) and France (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen).
• 19th and 20th Centuries: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Structure of the Universal Declaration

The Declaration includes a preamble, a statement of approval, and 30 articles covering:

• General principles
• Civil and political rights
• Economic and social rights
• Cultural rights
• Respect between citizens and the international community

The Declaration was supplemented by two international treaties with legal status: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

Generations of Human Rights

• First Generation: Civil liberties, political rights, and procedural safeguards.
• Second Generation: Equality rights, economic, social, and cultural rights.
• Third Generation: Solidarity rights, rights of subjects and future generations.

Human Rights Education

Education is both a human right (as proclaimed in the 1948 Universal Declaration) and a tool for teaching about all other rights. Human rights education aims to:

• a. Strengthen respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
• b. Fully develop the human personality and sense of human dignity.
• c. Promote understanding, tolerance, and gender equality.
• d. Facilitate effective participation in a free society.
• e. Intensify the peacekeeping activities of the United Nations.

Educators must balance conservative and progressive perspectives and view students as developing human beings.

UN Charter of Children's Human Rights (1959)

This charter focuses on the rights of children, emphasizing equality, love, protection, relief, identity, integration, quality of life, education, play, and protection from exploitation and abuse.