Future Directions of Human Rights Education

This article suggests future directions for policy, practice and research in the area of human rights education. These suggestions are based on an attempt of a critical overview of recent policy studies, of actual developments in human rights education and of some of the available research on human rights education. This attempt of an overview of the status quo of policy, practice and research is confronted with the idea of human rights education (e. g. the formal definition of human rights education promulgated by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights).

The differences between the “idea” of human rights education and the “reality” will be the starting point for the development of the suggestions of future directions. Based on the discussion of the differences between “idea” and ”reality” of human rights education, the author proposes that future policy should focus on guidance at the national and local policy level in relation to human rights education and on closing the gap between existing materials and their use and the implementation of human rights education in different contexts. Regarding future practice the author suggests the integration in human rights education programs of study visits of human rights institutions and of meetings with human rights defenders as living examples of the human rights tradition and the inclusion of the service learning-approach into human rights education to enhance the practice-orientation of human rights education. Future research might concentrate more fully on impact-related evaluations.