ABSTRACT

Drawing on a critical conceptualisation of human rights education (HRE), this study investigates how human rights were presented in a set of textbooks which were used in Turkey from 1950 to 2020. Findings show that the textbooks avoid human rights issues, struggles, campaigns, and activists by sustaining a de-politicised and de-contextualised narrative. They do not even refer to the Holocaust in explaining the historical development of human rights. These findings suggest that HRE gained a curricular status as a matter of window dressing, an ‘escapist’ model developed as a result. This model is characterised by a deliberate avoidance of anything that may be considered as ‘political’. This study concludes that placing socio-political issues at the centre of HRE and encouraging learners to critically reflect on discrepancies between claims and realities of human rights can improve the transformative powers of HRE in nationalist contexts with no strong tradition of rights struggle.

摘要

借鉴人权教育 (HRE) 的批判性概念化，本研究调查了 1950 年至 2020 年土耳其使用的一套教科书中如何介绍人权。调查结果表明，教科书回避人权问题、斗争、运动、通过维持去政治化和去语境化的叙事来保护和积极分子。他们在解释人权的历史发展时甚至没有提到大屠杀。这些发现表明，HRE 获得了一种作为橱窗装饰的课程地位，一种“逃避现实”的模式因此而发展起来。这种模式的特点是刻意避免任何可能被视为“政治”的事物。