Abstract
In this introductory chapter, Editor Lindsey N. Kingston outlines the concept of human rights education (HRE) in higher education, including a preliminary review of its vast potential and inherent challenges. The central argument guiding this book is that HRE in higher education requires the intersection of three complementary approaches centering on institutions, classrooms, and communities. First, institutions must not only support curricular offerings, but also integrate human rights norms into their governance and priorities. This requires valuing social responsibility and the public good, as well as engaged scholarship. Second, teaching strategies emphasizing human rights and social justice can transform our classrooms across academic disciplines, expanding HRE while supporting underprivileged student groups. Third, community approaches offer opportunities to expand HRE more broadly, building community–university partnerships and providing resources for enhanced advocacy and service work. Drawing on the experiences of her colleagues at Webster University (in St. Louis, as well as its campus in Leiden, the Netherlands), Kingston writes that this edited volume offers possibilities for advancing HRE on campus and beyond.
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Kingston, L.N. (2018). Introduction—Human Rights in Higher Education: Institutional, Classroom, and Community Approaches to Teaching Social Justice. In: Kingston, L. (eds) Human Rights in Higher Education. Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91421-3_1
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