Human Rights Education, Postcolonial Scholarship, and Action for Social Justice

In our global age, educational researchers and practitioners need tools that can be applied in a range of contexts and scales: local, national, and international. This article argues that human rights education (HRE) is a site of struggle in which human rights and democracy need to be constantly renewed. It contextualizes HRE within a critical, reflective postcolonial framework that nonetheless recognizes modernist principles of universal rights. It focuses on 2 concepts-universality and recognition-to develop a theory of HRE that meets the needs of multicultural, multi-faith, yet secular societies that are characterized by asymmetrical power relations and anti-democratic political movements. An evolving theory of HRE needs to embrace the ethics of recognition by extending this concept beyond that expounded in human rights instruments and building on learners' experiences. Individual narratives are starting points for new collective narratives to enable the strengthening of human rights and social justice.