Individualistic Liberties, Collective Rights, Global Citizens: The Problem of Defining Human Rights and Human Rights Education

Author: Chun-Ping Wang(Center for Teacher Education, National Chi Nan University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 52, No. 1
Date：April 2007
Pages：25-44
DOI：10.3966/2073753X2007045201002

Abstract：

This article looks at the relationship between human rights and educational praxis. Based on an analysis of various notions of human rights, the author wants to indicate some practical problems for human rights education. Generally speaking, many human rights discourses still take individual liberties as the core meaning of human rights; however, this (essentially Western, modern and/or postmodern) emphasis on individualism may be too limited or simplistic within the context of globalization and of cross-cultural communication and interaction. If, then, we place the notion of “human rights” in a global context, we will be better able to make clear the relationship between various conceptions of human rights and various educational praxes. This research project first analyzes the different ways (related to different national and cultural backgrounds) of conceptualizing or categorizing human rights, which include “civil and political rights,” “economic, social and cultural rights,” and “solidarity or development rights”; then, through a sort of dialectical synthesis, it provides a holistic viewpoint on the praxis, or rather multiple praxes, of human rights education in the future.

Keywords：human rights education, collective rights, globalization, individualistic liberalism, co-responsibility

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