Critical Human Rights, Citizenship, and Democracy Education presents new scholarly research that views human rights, democracy and citizenship education as a critical project. Written by an international line-up of contributors including academics from Canada, Cyprus, Ireland, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA, this book provides a cross-section of theoretical work as well as case studies on the challenges and possibilities of bringing together notions of human rights, democracy and citizenship in education. The contributors cultivate a critical view of human rights, democracy and citizenship and revisit these categories to advance socially just educational praxis and highlight ground-breaking case studies that redefine the purposes and approaches in education for a better alignment with the justice-oriented objectives of human rights, democracy and citizenship education. A critical response, reflecting on the issues raised throughout the book, provides a conclusion. This is essential reading for those researching these pedagogical forms and will be valuable to practitioners and activists in fields as diverse as education, law, sociology, health sciences and social work and international development.

Part 1: Key theoretical issues -- Part 2: Case studies

Nearly sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in spite of progress on some fronts, we are in many cases as far away as ever from achieving an inclusive citizenship and human rights for all. While human rights violations continue to affect millions across the world, there are also ongoing contestations regarding citizenship. In response to these and related issues, the contributors to this book critique both historical and current practices and suggest several pragmatic options, highlighting the role of education in attaining these noble yet unachieved objectives. This book represents a welcome addition to the human rights and global citizenship literature and provides ideas for new platforms that are human rights friendly and expansively attuned toward global citizenship.

This book engages with human rights and human rights education (HRE) in ways that offer opportunities for criticality and renewal. It takes up various ideas, from critical and decolonial theories to philosophers and intellectuals, to theorize the renewal of HRE as Critical Human Rights Education. The point of departure is that the acceptable “truths” of human rights are seldom critically examined, and productive interpretations for understanding and acting in a world that is soaked in the violations these rights try to address, cannot emerge. The book cultivates a critical view of human rights in education and beyond, and revisits receivable categories of human rights to advance social-justice-oriented educational praxes. It focuses on the ways that issues of human rights, philosophy, and education come together, and how a critical project of their entanglements creates openings for rethinking human rights education (HRE) both theoretically and in praxis. Given the persistence of issues of human rights worldwide, this book will be useful to researchers and educators across disciplines and in numerous parts of the world.

Activating Diverse Musical Creativities analyses the ways in which music programmes in higher education can activate and foster diverse musical creativities. It also demonstrates the relationship between musical creativities and entrepreneurship in higher education teaching and learning. These issues are of vital significance to contemporary educational practice and training in both university and conservatoire contexts, particularly when considered alongside the growing importance of entrepreneurship, defined here as a type of creativity, for successful musicians working in the 21st century creative and cultural industries. International contributors address a broad spectrum of musical creativities in higher education, such as improvisational creativity, empathic creativity and leadership creativity, demonstrating the transformative possibilities of embedding these within higher music education teaching and learning. The chapters explore the active practice of musical creativities in teaching and learning and recognize their mutual dependency. The contributors consider philosophical and practical concerns in their work on teaching for creativity in higher music education and focus on practices using imaginative approaches in order to make learning more interesting, effective and relevant.

This important book looks at developments that are changing our understanding of the role of education in citizenship and the possibilities of democratic participation. The first chapter reviews theories of citizenship and education based on the classical contributions to political theory of C.B. MacPherson and T.H. Marshall. The second chapter challenges educators to think more politically about education. It is based on a seminal analysis that shows the role education plays in the liberal, neoliberal, and neoconservative state, incorporating critical perspectives from neo-Marxism, postmodernism, and feminism. In chapter three Professor Torres analyzes the transition from the welfare state to the neoliberal state, including the role of international organizations in promoting educational reform and privatization policies. In the concluding chapter Torres draws on Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Kant, Hegel, Marx and other writers such as C. Mouffe and C. Pateman to outline contemporary approaches to multiculturalism in education and citizenship.

This book considers the philosophical, sociological and legal implications of the distinction between universal human rights accorded to all because of their membership of the human species, and the more particularistic ‘citizenship’ rights, accorded to those who are members of a political community. Contributions come from a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields including education, law and political philosophy, as well as from practitioner perspectives. Contributions address the three themes of firstly whether human rights and citizenship are complementary or competing conceptions, secondly the justifications for human rights, and thirdly human rights and citizenship in different cultural contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education.