[hr-education] Critical pedagogy and HRE

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Dear colleagues,

At a recent meeting in Morroco a number of HR educators were present from
all regions of the world to discuss "Human Rights Education and Training
Issues among Human Rights NGOs". The workshop was organised by the Arab
Institute for Human Rights (Tunisia) and the Documentation Information and
Training Center in the Field of Human Rights (Morocco).

I have been thinking very much about our discussion that we held on
different occasions in Morocco. What I have been saying constantly is that
we are missing is a pedagogical theory for our practical work in HRE.

I am sending to all of you a very preliminary version of an article that I
am trying to write on Critical Pedagogy and HRE. If you could react and
introduce yourself on the article, we could together build such a
theoretical framework.  It is not necessary that all of us agree, however
if we include our different and divergent points of view it will be very
helpful.

Hoping that you will find this an interesting and challenging exercise and
find the time to react,

Cariños

Abraham


-----------

HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AS CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Abraham Magendzo  K.
June 2002


Critical Pedagogy as part of the critical theory

Critical Pedagogy is close related to critical theory which refers to the
work of a group of sociopolitical analysts associated to the Frankfurt
School, whose prominent members included Adorno, Horkheimer, Walter
Benjamin, Marcuse and Habermas, among others. They were all interested in
the idea of a more just society and to empower people to be in cultural,
economic and political control of their lives. They argued that these
goals could only be achieved through emancipation, a process by which
oppressed and exploited people became sufficiently empowered to transform
their circumstances for themselves by themselves. It is called 'critical
theory' because they saw the route to emancipation as being a kind of
self-conscious critique which problematises all social relations, in
particular those of and within the discursive practices of power,
especially technical rationalism.

The critical theory's framework has been taken into education in a number
of different ways, but most notably by Paulo Freire in his work with
oppressed minorities which gave rise to the term critical pedagogy,
meaning teaching-learning from within the principles of critical theory.
Henry Giroux and Michael Apple have provided excellent theoretical
accounts of the nature and working of critical theory in their work on the
political, institutional and bureaucratic control of knowledge, learners
and teachers.

Critical Pedagogy is deeply related to the work of Paulo Freire for his
pioneering efforts to link the development of literacy among oppressed
peoples to the forging of a critical political consciousness. The aim is
to develop a critical consciousness in the learner and to encourage social
action to overcome oppressive social structures. For example, a program to
teach illiterate adults to read would be part of a wider effort to
overcome the marginal position of most of these people in terms of
employment and civil rights. Many Western educational theorists and
activists have been inspired by Freire's approach.

It should be said that Human Rights Education, particularly in Latin
America, started within the social movements or "popular education"  
movement (the peace movements, feminist movements, workers' movements,
environmental movements, minority rights movements, etc), working within
Freire's approach where people through dialogue learn and become conscious
that they are subjects of rights and learn how to work on their own
'liberation'. In this perspective Human Rights Education becomes political
education. Freire´s approach aims not just to give knowledge to the
oppressed, but also to link the learning process with the actual social
use of the knowledge-tool (empowerment).

Henry Giroux is one of the main theoreticians of Critical Pedagogy and his
work is perhaps the most comprehensive, accessible and succinct
introduction currently available.  Giroux sustains that "the critical
question is whose future, story, and interests does the school represent.  
Critical pedagogy argues that school practices need to be informed by a
public philosophy that addresses how to construct ideological and
institutional conditions in which the lived experience of empowerment for
the vast majority of students becomes the defining feature of schooling."  
In his perspective critical pedagogy attempts to:

-	create new forms of knowledge through its emphasis on breaking down 
disciplines and creating interdisciplinary knowledge.
-	raise questions about the relationships between the margins and centers 
of power in schools and is concerned about how to provide a way of reading 
history as part of a larger project of reclaiming power and identity, 
particularly as these are shaped around the categories of race, gender, 
class, and ethnicity.
-	reject the distinction between high and popular culture so as to make 
curriculum knowledge responsive to the everyday knowledge that constitutes 
peoples' lived histories differently.
-	illuminate the primacy of the ethical in defining the language that 
teachers and others use to produce particular cultural practices.

Mezirow (1981), states that "we emancipate ourselves from these libidinal,
institutional, or environmental forces that restrict our choices and our
rational control over our existence, but that are beyond human control.
The discernment reached through a critical awareness emancipates
ourselves, in the sense that it makes possible for us to acknowledge at
least what are the real motives underlying our problems."

Habermas turned his attention to the "Critical Social Sciences" to find
how to raise questions based on the emancipator's cognitive interest.
"Critical Social Sciences perform the role of critics who try to determine
whether the theoretical statements apprehend regular invariable aspects
specific to social action, or whether they express petrified ideological
relationships of dependency that could be transformed in principle". We
must be critically conscious of how any ideology reflects and distorts the
moral, social, and political reality, and what are those material and
psychological factors that impact and support the false conscience they
represent. "It is amazing to see how personal and social changes are
attained when we are aware of how ideologies, be they sexual, racial,
religious, educational, labour, political, economic or technological in
nature, create or contribute to our dependence of objective powers...  
Habermas would consider the attempt to educate for liberation ... as if we
would provide the student with an accurate and profound comprehension of
his historical background".  A pedagogy in which the full expansion of the
freedom and autonomy of a person is hindered turns into a repressive
system. Emancipation arises from the self-consciousness of the hidden
coercion and from the liberating actions embraced in the critical
pedagogy.


The relation between Human Rights Education and Critical Pedagogy

- The relation between Human Rights Education and Critical Pedagogy is
very strong. We could affirm with no doubt that Human Rights Education is
one of the most concrete and tangible expressions of critical pedagogy.  
In addition to it Human Rights Education -- in order to fulfill its main
purposes: to empower people to become subjects of rights -- requires a
proper educational atmosphere. An educational system based on the
principles of critical pedagogy creates this appropriate environment.

- Both, Critical pedagogy and Human Rights Education are very much
interested to observe power structures outside and inside the educational
system. Critical pedagogy is mainly interested to examine how the
educational structure and the curriculum interact and shape knowledge.  
Human Rights Education is essentially concern with how educational
structure and the curriculum have an effect on molding the "subject of
rights". Educational hierarchy, educational ideology, models of
discipline, State norms and school regulations are, among others,
expression of power. The curriculum as a system of power itself
reproduces, resists and accommodates these other power systems. The key
resource used by the curriculum to promote their interests is the power to
create and legitimate knowledge. By its form and content, this knowledge
is tied to both the interests of the curriculum designers and to those of
powerful groups in society. Human rights educators assuming a critical
pedagogy stand should understand, analyze and be aware of how the power
component of education and curriculum works and interacts; determining how
people are formed and empowered to become subject of rights. By making
this analysis Human Rights Education becomes critical living behind any
innocent and naïve position.

- A critical pedagogy considers freedom to choose, to express, to make
decisions- within the general constraint of the curriculum, the material
to be covered, the texts to be used, and the examination questions and
essay topics- as an important component of power. When this sort of
freedom exists, considerable scope exists for changing the content, to
sample a range of viewpoints, to interact openly, etc.  A critical
pedagogy demands introducing teaching methods which give the students more
control over their learning. When students choose what and how they learn,
they are more likely to develop critical perspectives. Human Rights
Education cannot operate in an educational atmosphere of restrains,
vertical impositions, authoritarian and rigid relations or an environment
of no dialogue and communication. Human Rights Education as a critical
pedagogy encourages students to become independent learners, no longer
dependent on injections from curricula and control by teachers. Human
Rights Education by definition should provide students power and control
over their learning.  In this perspective Human Rights Education adopts
different initiatives, which have been used in teaching: self-paced
learning; student choice of topics; student design of learning;
student-oriented learning in which students help each other to learn; Work
in small groups to promote learning which is egalitarian and
self-sufficient (study groups, discussion groups, consciousness-raising
groups and community research groups).

- Both Critical Pedagogy and Human Rights Education aim to empower people
to become subject of rights. A subject of rights is someone with a basic
knowledge of fundamental rights of people and who applies them in the
promotion and defence of his or her own rights and the rights of others.  
It's a person who is familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and with some of the human rights-related resolutions, covenants,
and conventions, domestic and international declarations.  The knowledge
of these legal rules becomes an instrument of demand and surveillance
oriented to the effective exercise of human rights.This subject of rights
has also a basic knowledge of the institutions, especially those of its
community, that protect its rights, and to which it can resort to when its
rights are violated.

Having knowledge of human rights related rules and institutions is not
academic learning, it's a knowledge that gives more possibilities for
action, and thus more power to get involved in the promotion and defence
of our own rights and the rights of others.

           Furthermore, because of the close relationship between the
subject of rights and power, we firmly believe that a person --
subject-of-rights -- shall necessarily develop many skills that permit him
or her to say "NO" with autonomy, liberty, and responsibility faced to
situations that threaten his or her dignity; the power to refuse
arbitrary, unfair, and abusive requests that impair his or her rights;
they have the right to choose, and to say "this is unacceptable to me";
the right to express with reasoning "this is a denigration to me, and
consequently, I refuse it"; he or she has the capacity to make and fulfil
promises, and to demand from others that they fulfil whatever promises
they made; the capacity to defend and demand the enforcement of his or her
rights, and the rights of others with sound and well-informed arguments,
with assertive, well-structured and rational statements. He or she uses
the power of the word, not of force, as they want to convince by the
reason, not to subjugate by the force.

- Critical pedagogy and Human Rights Education involves strategic
pedagogic action on the part of classroom teachers, aimed at emancipation
from overt and covert forms of domination. It is not simply a matter of
challenging the existing practices of the system, but of seeking to
understand what makes the system be the way it is, and challenging that,
at the same time as remaining conscious that one's own sense of justice
and equality are themselves open to question. The problematisation of
consciousness and the values rooted in it is therefore the key
characteristic of critical pedagogy and human rights education.

- Critical Pedagogy is a pedagogy designed for the purpose of enabling the
learner to become aware of conditions in his life, in society, and to have
the necessary skills, knowledge and resources to be able to plan and
create change. It is consciousness-raising. Critical Pedagogy, as does
Critical Theory, strives to help one see the true situation, often being a
form of oppression resulting in decreased freedom, and to help one
understand that this can be changed; in other words it reveals
possibilities, the learner is able to discover the possibilities and then
act on them.

In this same line of thought and purpose there is a fundamental role of
Human Rights Education to make a critical contribution to the prevention
of human rights violations by encouraging people to participate in society
effectively as active, informed, critical and responsible members.

>From this perspective human rights education shall be considered an
ethical and political education. Human Rights Education considers learning
to be much more a part of life, rather than something separate from and
largely irrelevant to other parts of life. Human Rights Education is
linked to the great problems the society is suffering, i.e.: chronic and
demoralizing poverty; fragile and unstable democracies; social injustice;  
violence; racism; discrimination and intolerance against gays, lesbians
and women; impunity; corruption. Human Rights Education shall strengthen
the student's skills so that they can identify, analyse, and present
solutions to these issues, appropriate the ethics of human rights, and
have the skills to demand, bargain, and act.

Bearing this in mind, it is assumed that human rights education shall be
an integral part of the democratisation of societies, and that the respect
and effective exercise of human rights not only pertain to the political
dimension of democracy, but to its economic, social, and cultural
dimensions as well.

- Critical pedagogy, rather than regarding knowledge as the accumulation
of neutral objectively verified facts, sees knowledge as socially
constructed and therefore held differently by different groups. It aims at
understanding people's values and uses of their meanings rather than
'finding "the" truth'. From this perspective both Critical Pedagogy and
Human Rights Education imply an experiential and active methodology where
people confront ideas, problematize their reality and face the personal or
collective life situations and problems. To face problems it means to
admit conflicts, to analyze contradictions, to deal with tensions and
dilemmas that are imply in knowledge and in day-to-day experience. We
should remember that historically speaking both Critical Pedagogy and
Human Rights are related with social injustice, with oppression and
violence and are the result of intensive and incessant struggles of people
to fulfill their rights. This struggle is full with contradictions and
conflicts.

- Considering all the difficulties that exists to incorporate a critical
pedagogy vision and a human rights educational practice in the educational
system there is a temptation to start not from the existing institutions,
but building one educational alternative from scratch.  This position is
based on the consideration that Critical Pedagogy and Human Rights
Education challenges so deeply the oppressive social structures of
education that it is better to built a renewal strategy. In other words
Critical Pedagogy and Human Rights Education, in order to be relevant and
successful, must become radical and assume a very critical stand toward
the traditional educational structure, its conception, the way of learning
take place, and the distribution of power.

In my personal opinion Critical Pedagogy and Human Rights Education can
make an important change in education, maintaining a critical position ,
but not a radical position. Being much more realistic and taking into
consideration that education is resistant to change, I think that Critical
Pedagogy and Human Rights Education should and could contribute to change
by integrating, penetrating and infusing education and curriculum with
social justice, empowerment and with social, cultural and political issues
such as poverty, discrimination, peace, gender, racism, etc.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Apple,  W., Michael (1997). Official Knowledge. London: Routledge.

Apple, W., Michael (1990). Ideology and Curriculum. New York: Routledge (2d 
ed).

Apple, W., Michael (1995). Education and Power. New York: Routledge (2d ed).

Carr, W. and S. Kemmis (1983). Becoming critical: Knowing through action 
research. Geelong (Australia): Deakin University Press.

Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the 
repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 
297-324.

Paulo Freire, (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Giroux, H. (1983). Theory and resistance in education: A pedagogy for the 
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Magendzo, A. (2000). La Educación en Derechos Humanos en America Latina:una 
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