ABSTRACT

International human rights instruments provide a legal basis for an agreed set of human values globally. These ‘values’ are expected to underpin the purposes and content of education. This paper aims to explore how compliance with human rights instruments and values is balanced by educational leaders in Northern Ireland where diverse interpretations of human rights are held by the main communities and managerialist principles guide education policy making. The paper argues that whilst there is a political and policy commitment to protecting human rights in education as a means of addressing the causes of conflict, this commitment is constantly threatened by interpretations of rights in the local context and a polity underpinned by managerialist principles. It is argued that managerialist concerns around budgetary constraint and academic performance frame the work of educational leaders, yet it is in retrieving the human values which underpin rights, that the potential for educational leaders to transform society through education might be best realised.

摘要

国际人权文书为全球商定的一系列人类价值观提供了法律基础。这些“价值”有望支撑教育的目的和内容。本文旨在探讨北爱尔兰的教育领袖如何平衡人权文书和价值观的遵守情况，在北爱尔兰，主要社区对人权有各种不同的解释，而管理主义原则则指导教育政策的制定。该论文认为，尽管有一项政治和政策承诺来保护教育中的人权，作为解决冲突根源的一种手段，但这种承诺不断受到当地背景下对权利的解释和以管理主义原则为基础的政体的威胁。