Against the backdrop of South Africa's policies that guarantee equality on the basis of sexual orientation, this article documents the ways in which school managers negotiate and contest the rights of gays and lesbians at school, analysing the implications. It draws on a queer approach which recognizes relations of heterosexual domination and…

Human rights education is a prominent concern of a number of international organisations and has been dominant on the United Nations' agenda for the past 20 years. The UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) has been followed by the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005-ongoing) and the recently adopted UN Declaration on…

Educating for citizenship is increasingly situated within the tension of ensuring social, political, and civil rights while also promoting participation in the global market. The literature and practice on educating for citizenship often assumes a liberal perspective with attention to political and civil rights. A growing body of literature shows…

In recent years, many European education systems have embarked on a process of education policy and curriculum reform related to citizenship education. This article explores citizenship education reform in the context of Spain. It considers how and to what extent Spain's 2006 citizenship education addressed issues of national and global…

Each secondary school in South Africa is legally obliged to establish a representative council of learners, a democratically elected, learner-only council. This article looks at how the representative councils of learners are realised in practice in four secondary schools. Three research questions focus on the practice of representative councils…

Although citizenship education has received significant official attention in China in recent years, its aim remains vague. At a time when social demands increasingly influence policymaking by the state, this article examines the meaning of citizenship to the state and society in China. Data are derived from a content analysis of the use of…

In this article, I explore emotions in relation to social justice dialogue and share vignettes to illustrate how emotions are embodied, situated and fissured, drawing upon narrative, critical sociocultural and rhizomatic theories. Data comes from a practitioner inquiry while teaching 5- and 6-year-olds in a summer enrichment program in a…

Social movement oriented citizenship (SMOC) centers on peaceful protest, proactive community involvement and participation in activities to support human rights and environmental protection. Research generally on SMOC is extremely limited; even more so is research that analyses the influence of school- and student-level, policy-relevant variables…

With current manifestations of globalization creating local problems, including widening equity gaps, increased environmental destruction and burgeoning poverty, many policymakers, civil society, organizations and educators are seeking models of education that promise social justice and a democratic public sphere that reflects more than democracy…

The Chinese government has shifted the pattern of rural schooling over the past decade, replacing village schools with urban boarding schools. The stated goal is to improve school quality, while deploying resources more effectively. However, the new boarding schools fail to provide a safe, healthy environment or protect and enable students' human…

Throughout history individual and collective narratives have been used in struggles for justice. We draw on Sen's theory of justice to examine the potential of narratives in teaching and researching for social justice. Human rights are presented as powerful ethical claims that can be critically examined by learners to consider their rights and…

Across and within democratic societies, youth experiences of education for citizenship vary widely. A growing body of research suggests that students' experiences of democratic citizenship education will differ according to how academic programmes, community culture, socio-economic status and gender intersect with prevailing conceptions of…

This article opens with a proposed framework for human rights education (HRE), which synthesizes ideas drawn from Zinn's people's history, Sen's theory of justice and Freire's critical pedagogy. A review of the literature on HRE and human rights-based learning suggests three existent interrelated models of HRE. Drawing on human rights-based…

This article concerns educating children in schools about their basic rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The question we address is the teaching of responsibilities.We point out that although there is no mention of children's responsibilities in the Convention, responsibilities are inherent in the concept of…

This article explores to what extent citizenship education for lifelong learning should be based on a more "political" or civic republican conception of citizenship as compared to a liberal individualist conception, which emphasizes individual rights, or a communitarian conception, which emphasizes moral and social responsibilities. It also…