BA Education, Leadership and Culture

This course unit explores the concepts and practice of human rights, participatory active citizenship and student leadership within education, in global perspective. Drawing together interdisciplinary perspectives from education studies, human rights law, political science and youth studies, and offering a mixture of lectures, seminars, online tutorials and digital skills development sessions, it presents and critically analyses examples of local, national and international human rights campaigns in and through education, and the potential for – and barriers to – student leadership in such activism. Students will be enabled to develop the ability to critically assess human rights issues and solutions in society, and the potential contribution of student leadership and recent campaigns to raise awareness of and fight human rights abuses in/through education, building a sense of social responsibility towards marginalised groups, and confidence to express this sense of social responsibility in multiple formats suitable for real-life audiences. 

• Inform students about the foundations of the concept of human rights within the research-informed frameworks of participatory active citizenship, student leadership and activism in education.
• Engage students in data gathering through a case study approach to human rights campaigns in/through education.
• Develop student’s ability to critically assess human rights issues and solutions in society, and the potential contribution of student leadership and recent campaigns to raise awareness of and fight human rights abuses in/through education.
• Build students’ sense of social responsibility towards marginalised groups, and confidence to articulate this social responsibility in multiple formats.
• Refine students’ ability to present content professionally for different audiences through digital mediums.
• Gain practical experience in collaborative work and co-production for the purposes of civic and democratic inquiry and practical problem solving in local, national, and global contexts.

• Foundations of international human rights law and principles, including children’s rights, civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights
• Types of citizenship and levels of participation in society, e.g., liberal, participatory, activist
• Principles and examples of student leadership
• Concepts of ‘voice’, ‘representation’ and ‘empowerment’ in the context of activism
• National laws, policies and cultural expectations of legitimate protest
• Local and international campaigns fighting for human rights issues in/through education

Pre-reading / viewing / listening will be given each week for students to learn key concepts of human rights and citizenship and theories of activism and student leadership which will be applied to educational activist campaigns in the sessions.

One guest lecture will be used to develop student skills in digital educational campaign content production (poster/video) in preparation for assessment 1 (group-assessed educational campaign poster/video). The following seminar will be used to enable students to apply these skills in their draft assessment task (with lecturer supervision).

One lecture will be used to give students the opportunity to practice the group presentation of their poster/video script and receive feedback from their peers and lecturer as well as to self-assess. The following seminar will be used to give students time to modify their poster/video (with lecturer supervision).

All drop-in sessions will be used to give students the opportunity to gain formative feedback on their draft assessment 2 (individually-assessed background paper on a human rights/citizenship issue and campaign).
 

• Define key concepts relating to human rights and participatory active citizenship
• Describe different approaches to human rights campaigns in/through education
• Identify key aspects of effective student leadership 

• Critically examine human rights issues from multiple perspectives
• Appraise the participatory active conception of citizenship in terms of its real-life applicability in educational activism
• Deconstruct the approaches to human rights campaigns in/through education
• Evaluate the outcomes of human rights campaigns in/through education

• Apply learning on key components of student leadership to group campaign
• Produce extended critical writing
• Produce multi-modal digital content
   

• Apply digital skills to real-life work
• Locate, navigate and reference primary sources of human rights law when identifying human rights issues
• Locate, navigate and reference primary sources of citizenship theory when identifying educational activism strategies
• Articulate a sense of social responsibility towards marginalised groups who are the focus of human rights campaigns

Via Turnitin within 15 days of submission

Books
Bessant, J. Mesinas, A.M., and Pachard, S. (2021) When Students Protest: Secondary and High Schools. Lanham, USA: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Bessant, J. Mesinas, A.M., and Pachard, S. (2021) When Students Protest: Universities in the Global North. Lanham, USA: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Bessant, J. Mesinas, A.M., and Pachard, S. (2021) When Students Protest: Universities in the Global South. Lanham, USA: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Hanna, H. (2019) Young People’s Rights in the Citizenship Education Classroom. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jerome, L. and Starkey, H. (2022) Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms. London: Bloomsbury.
Kubow, P., Webster, N., Strong, K., and Miranda, D. (Eds.) (2023) Contestations of Citizenship, Education, and Democracy in an Era of Global Change: Children and Youth in Diverse International Contexts.
Muriel, P. and Singer, A. (2021) Supporting Civics Education with Student Activism: Citizens for a Democratic Society. Abingdon: Routledge.
Osler, A. (2016) Human Rights and Schooling: An Ethical Framework for Teaching Social Justice. Columbia, USA: Teachers College Press.
Sandin, B., Josefsson, J., Hanson, K., and Balagopalan, S. (2023) The Politics of Children’s Rights and Representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weiss, M. and Aspinall, E. (Eds.) (2012) Student Activism in Asia: Between Protest and Powerlessness. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press

Human rights law and useful websites
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-human-and-peoples-rights
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child: https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-rights-and-welfare-child
American Convention on Human Rights: https://www.oas.org/dil/treaties_b-32_american_convention_on_human_rights.htm
Arab Charter on Human Rights: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/551368?ln=en
European Convention on Human Rights: https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=005
International Human Rights Law overview: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-and-mechanisms/international-human-rights-law
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights
Sustainable Development Goals: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
The Right to Education Initiative: https://www.right-to-education.org/
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/en/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child

Useful journals
Education, Citizenship and Social Justice: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/esj
International journal of Children’s Rights: https://brill.com/view/journals/chil/chil-overview.xml
International Journal of Human Rights: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/fjhr20
Human Rights Education Review: https://humanrer.org/index.php/human/index

Useful organisation websites
Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/
Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/
National Union of Students: https://www.nus.org.uk/
University and College Union: https://www.ucu.org.uk/