R. Brian Howe

Moral Education through the 3 Rs: Rights, respect and responsibility

We report an empirical assessment of suggestions that education in the appreciation of rights may be an effective agent of moral education. A childrens rights curriculum was developed that was incorporated into the existing health and social studies curricula in Grade 8 classes (age 13-15) at five different schools over a 6-month period. The curriculum was designed to teach adolescents about their rights and responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in an egalitarian and student-centred manner. Assessment of the impact of the rights curriculum showed that, when compared with their peers who did not receive the rights curriculum, the adolescents who did indicated higher levels of self-esteem, perceived peer and teacher support and increased rights-respecting attitudes.

Reducing Teacher Burnout by Increasing Student Engagement A Children's Rights Approach

Teacher burnout has long been understood to have significant negative effects on teaching efficacy. Research has indicated that student misbehaviour, often a result of disengagement, is a major predictor of teacher burnout. In part to address student disengagement, Hampshire County in England has undertaken a whole-school rights-based reform initiative called Rights, Respect and Responsibility (RRR). This study was designed to examine the effects of RRR on student engagement and teacher burnout over a three-year period. The sample initially comprised a total of 15 schools (four infant, five primary and six junior) and 127 teachers. At the second time of measure, one year later, the sample was reduced to 69 teachers from 13 of the schools. At both times teachers completed the following measures: the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the perceived effect of RRR on teaching, and student engagement. In the third year of the study we obtained data on the Maslach Burnout Inventory from 100 teachers at 12 of the schools. Findings suggest that RRR can improve student engagement and reduce teacher burnout. Of particular note was the predictive power of student participation in the classroom and school in reducing teacher burnout.

Implementing children’s human rights education in schools

Evaluations of a children’s rights education initiative in schools in Hampshire, England — consistent with previous research findings — demonstrate the effectiveness of a framework of rights for school policy, practice, and teaching, for promoting rights-respecting attitudes and behaviors among children, and for improving the school ethos. The value of rights-consistent schooling is seen not only in its contemporaneous benefits on children, but also in its capacity to have a long-term effect on the promotion and maintenance of a rights-supporting culture. To this end, we provide data on how Hampshire educators were able to successfully implement their program. We examine schools that were very successful in incorporating children’s rights across the curriculum and throughout all school policies and practices, and compare their implementation efforts and experiences with schools that were less successful. By identifying the key variables that differentiate success, we aim to facilitate the implementation of rights-consistent schooling.

Miseducating children about their rights

This article concerns educating children in schools about their basic rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.The question we address is the teaching of responsibilities.We point out that although there is no mention of children’s responsibilities in the Convention, responsibilities are inherent in the concept of rights. Therefore, children’s rights education requires that children learn responsibilities that go together with rights. But we also point out that although there is a conceptual linkage between rights and responsibilities, effective education requires that the central focus is on rights and that children are given the opportunity to discover for themselves the connection between rights and responsibilities. That teachers unduly focus on responsibilities is miseducation about children’s rights. Our latter discussion is based on our observations of a children’s rights education program in Hampshire, England.

Restraining equality : human rights commissions in Canada

.Restraining Equality. addresses the contemporary financial, social, legal, and policy pressures currently experienced by human rights commissions across Canada. Through a combination of public policy analysis, historical research, and legal analysis, R.Brian Howe and David Johnson trace the evolution of human rights policy within this country and explore the stresses placed on human rights commissions resulting from greater fiscal restraints and societys rising expectations for equality rights over the past two decades. The authors analyse sources of these tensions in relation to the delivery of equality rights in both federal and provincial jurisdictions since the Second World War. Through a series of interviews with human rights commission officials and a survey of advocacy groups, business organizations, and human rights staff the authors explore the performance and the internal workings of these. Howe and Johnson also analyse human rights commissions in light of the theoretical literature and empirical data, and discuss the political and legal contexts in which the commissions operate, and the reform measures that have been implemented.

Children's human rights education as a counter to social disadvantage: a case study from England

Background: Childrens rights education in schools has many social and educational benefits. Among them are a deeper understanding of rights and social responsibility, an improved school climate, and greater school engagement and achievement. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess whether childrens rights education has the power to improve educational outcomes for socially disadvantaged children in particular. Sample: A sample of three primary schools was included in the study. These were drawn from a wider sample of English schools participating in the Hampshire Education Local Authoritys Rights, Respect and Responsibility initiative (RRR). Design and methods: Building on a longitudinal study, we compared Year 6 children in three schools that varied in the degree to which they had implemented RRR: one in a disadvantaged area that has fully implemented RRR (School 1); one in a disadvantaged area that is now beginning to implement RRR (School 2); and another in a relatively advantaged area that has partially implemented RRR (School 3). We assessed levels of school engagement, optimism, self-concept, parental involvement, school problems, education and career aspirations, and participation in school and community. Results: Compared with their peers in the other two schools, students attending School 1 reported significantly higher levels of school engagement, fewer social problems, greater optimism and higher self-concepts. Conclusions: The findings reported here, together with previous data, suggest that fully implemented childrens human rights education, among its other benefits, may be one means of narrowing the gap between socially disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers.

The Reputations of Human Rights Commissions in Canada

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study of the reputations of provincial human rights commissions in Canada among interested community organizations, womens groups, and minority groups. The focus of the study was on the reputations of commissions for effectiveness, responsiveness, and fairness in handling human rights complaints and implementing programmes against discrimination. The study was designed to test for an hypothesized relation between levels of public funding of commissions and their reputations in the above areas. It was anticipated that the lower the commissions funding the poorer the commissions reputation. Results of the study show that while commissions have generally poor reputations among community organizations, their low ratings are not related to levels of funding. The suggestion made is that poor reputations may be related to other factors such as high community expectations of rights delivery in an increasingly rights-conscious political culture and the structure of human rights procedure.

Book review: Monisha Bajaj (ed.), Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, PraxisBajajMonisha (ed.), Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, Praxis, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2017. 353 pp. ISBN 9780812249026,

flat-out wrong ‘accepted knowledge’ can be? I assume that Ben-Porath means that scientific evidence should only be refuted by scientific evidence. But this assumes that science itself is not ideologically driven, not a dutiful creature of cultural norms and biases – including, at times, hateful racist and sexist ones. Two final caveats of my own: First, I wish Ben-Porath had provided a more elaborate section on the practical classroom application of her inclusive freedom framework, in a sense reaching her conclusion more inductively. The proof of her framework’s value needs hands-on testing. Second, and relatedly, Ben-Porath argues throughout her book that ‘difficult cases should not be the main lens to inform the way colleges respond to ongoing issues of speech on their campuses’ (p. 121, fn. 12). But distinguishing difficult cases is not so cut-and-dry. Ben-Porath writes that Condoleezza Rice, who was disinvited as a commencement speaker at Rutgers University, was ‘hardly a controversial speaker’ (p. 15). But obviously, for some she was. And it is the difficult cases, I think, that would best serve the goal of formulating practical applications of inclusive freedom and, by doing so, bring greater precision and rigor to this important contribution to the free-speech debate.