Browsing by Author "Auer, Irene"

Human rights education is meant to provide knowledge, skills and understanding to promote universal human rights culture. It is part of a global education aiming to encourage being an active and responsible citizen of the world. International agreements and national core curriculum mandate to take human rights into account in all teaching, but previous studies have shown that human rights education is not executed at sufficient level. The purpose of this study is to depict, analyze and interpret primary school teachers’ views on human rights education and its obligatory nature and their readiness to execute human rights education in their teaching. I will also clarify what kind of notions teachers have regarding the realization of children’s rights in Finnish primary schools and the role of human rights in the curriculum. My research questions are: 1. How do teachers interpret human rights education and its obligatory nature? 2. How do teachers feel about their own readiness to implement human rights education? The data of this study consists of seven interviews with primary school teachers, who work in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The data is analyzed using qualitative theory-guided content analysis. Analysis and conclusions are supported by previous human rights research and the agreements and conventions defining human rights. The interviewed teachers felt that human rights education must be a part of all school teaching and school culture. They aimed to teach according to human rights, but the amount of teaching consisting of information about human rights and the skills to protect them was low. The teachers’ own knowledge on human rights was partially inadequate. The teachers viewed their readiness to implement human rights education as good. They evaluated that children’s rights are mainly realized well in primary school, but were worried about inequality and bullying. The curriculum’s emphasis on human rights and its commitment to human rights education was poorly understood by teachers. The conclusion of this study is that teachers should receive training regarding human rights education and its obligatory nature and they should be supported to adopt the current curriculum.