an exploratory study of human rights knowledge: a sample of kindergarten and elementary school...

An Exploratory Study of Human Rights Knowledge:a Sample of Kindergarten and Elementary SchoolPre-service Teachers in Spain

Claudia Messina & Liliana Jacott

Published online: 15 May 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This study aims to explore the level of information and knowledge 150Spanish kindergarten and elementary school teachers in pre-service training haveabout human rights. We compared two groups of students: students with no specifictraining and students with specific training (the students with specific training studywith the new training teaching programme that includes a compulsory subject relatedto citizenship education). The contents are organized around three thematic areas.Human rights are included in the first area ‘Basic concepts to promote equality andparticipation in Elementary Education’; the other two areas are: ‘Learning to partic-ipate at Elementary School’ and ‘Building a civil school that promotes equality andparticipation at Elementary School’. It is a one semester subject with 3 h of teachingper week. The main hypothesis is that a specific training on human rights will lead toan important improvement not only in student’s level of knowledge but also in theway they categorize this specific content. We have administered a questionnairedesigned for the study. In general, our results show that students of both groups havea basic and limited knowledge about human rights. The group with specific trainingshows a higher level of knowledge than the other group and a different way oforganizing it. This would go in the direction of other studies of supporting andreinforcing the inclusion of specific training on human rights during the initial teachertraining programmes at the university.

Keywords Citizenship education .Human rights education .Teacher training . Primaryeducation

Hum Rights Rev (2013) 14:213–230DOI 10.1007/s12142-013-0267-1

C. Messina (*)Facultad de Formación de Profesorado y Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,c/Francisco Tomás y Valiente, 3-desp. II-303, 28049 Madrid, Spaine-mail: [email protected]

L. JacottFacultad de Formación de Profesorado y Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,c/Francisco Tomás y Valiente, 3-desp. II-320, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Introduction

The foundations for human rights education (HRE) should be searched in the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself and in the Article 13 of the Charter ofthe United Nations (UN) in which charges the General Assembly the function of‘promoting international co-operation in the … cultural, educational … fields, andassisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all withoutdistinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’ (Lohrenscheit 2002). Other docu-ments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Vienna Declaration and Plan ofAction, UNESCO World Plan of Action for HRE, stress the importance to considerthe goal of education as the full development of the human personality and potential(Lapayese 2005). Other aspects of the foundations for HRE can be found in morethan 40 international and regional documents (Fernández and Jenker 1995).

It is generally accepted the idea that the intention of education for HR is to improveknowledge, understanding and the appropriate participation in assuming and defendingthese rights. The respect of HR is closely related to the development and maintenance ofdemocratic societies (Banks 2008; Lucas 2009; Nussbaum 2010; Osler 2011; Osler andStarkey 1994, 2006; Starkey 2008). History has also shown that intervention andcommitment against the systematic violation of human dignity is necessary to get peoplemore conscious and involved in the defence of HR (Sadio Ramos 2010)

Studying HR has become an area of growing interest in recent years (Banks 2008;Hathaway 2007; Osler 2011; Tibbitts 2002). Many training programmes at differenteducational levels were implemented and have been included as compulsory contentin the curriculum of Education for Citizenship in many countries.

As HRE should become also part of the school curriculum, teachers should betrained according to this goal they will assume. It is important then to know inadvance the knowledge and beliefs they have related to this topic.

This article attempts to show the results of an exploratory study about theknowledge that a group of Spanish trainee teachers have about human rights andcitizenship education within the frame that this is a subject recently introduced intothe Spanish Statutory Curriculum for Compulsory School. The final purpose is toexplore the level of knowledge trainee teachers’ have about this topic in order todevelop a more adequate educational training programme for the future teachers.

Theoretical Frame

The Decade of Human Rights Education

Following up to a recommendation of theWorld Conference of Human Rights in Vienna(1993) and considering the important roles that education and training play worldwide inthe implementation of HR, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed theDecade of Human Rights Education (1995–2004) (UNGA 49/184 1994). They empha-sized that this implementation will contribute ‘to direct education towards the fulldevelopment of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for humanrights and fundamental freedoms’ (op. cit., item 5). The Office of the United Nations

214 C. Messina, L. Jacott

High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) convened in Geneva in 1997 ameeting of experts to develop guidelines for national plans of actions for HRE. Thedraft Plan of Action for the Decade of Human Rights became then the first explicit effortto bring this issue to the centre of attention (Lapayese 2005).

In 2000, the OHCHR conducted a mid-term global evaluation of the progress ofthe first years of the decade (UNGA A/55/360 2000). After an overall analysis of theinformation, the General Assembly pointed out that many countries undertookcomprehensive legislative and policy initiatives according to the Decade but theeffectiveness of them varied greatly. The last report of the evaluation of the Decade(OHCHR E/CN.4/2003/101) concludes that ‘Most responding Governments havereported on their increased human rights education activities, within or outside theDecade’s framework; however, most of them mention that human rights educationstill remains a priority in their countries, since specific groups or issues have not beendealt with and appropriate coordination mechanisms for human rights education arenot yet in place’ (III. Conclusions, 42, p. 11).

The input received by the Office has strongly affirmed the importance to continue thedecade framework, considering that HRE is a long-term process. Therefore, the proc-lamation of a second Decade for HRE was strongly supported for the majority of theGovernments involved during the first one. This second Decade ‘would provide anopportunity to strengthen national, regional and international programmes developedduring the first Decade and start new ones, in particular in those countries where noaction was taken’ (OHCHR E/CN.4/2004/93, p. 9). The United Nations Decade ofEducation for Sustainable Development was proclaimed on the 20th December, 2002(UNGA A/RES/57/254 2002). Varied ‘good practice’ actions on HRE implemented atschools around the world were collected and published in a compendium (ODIHR2009). But despite these initiatives related to the Decade, the HRE at initial and inservice teacher training programmes is still very limited (UNGAA/55/360 2000, p. 14).

Human Rights

One of the most accepted definitions of human rights is the one that considers themas: ‘those privileges, legally regulated, that the person holds of her own in herrelationships with particulars and with the established authority’ (Vercher 1998, p.14). That means they are privileges based on their identity as members of themankind and founded on the principle of equality of all human beings. Then theserights are given to people just because they are human beings with difference of anykind among them (Escámez Sánchez 2004).

Regarding the nature of these rights, within the whole rights of the legal area, HRconstitute a special kind of rights with a strong prescriptive strength and somedistinctive attributes (Donnelly 1982; Velasco Arroyo 1990). At one side, the univer-sal condition means they are rights given to all human beings without distinctions ofany kind. They are absolute, for these rights constitute the highest level of any rulesystem and laws and constitutions of a country should be subordinated to them.Finally, they are inalienable; this means they are inviolable but also that they includea dimension that unable people to deny or give up to them.

There is a widely accepted classification of HR in rights of first, second and thirdgeneration (Vasak 1978) which was inspired by the three principles proclaimed

An Exploratory Study of Human Rights Knowledge 215

during the French Revolution: freedom, equality and fraternity (or solidarity). Someauthors talk today also about a fourth generation (Bustamante 2007).

According to this classification, the rights of first generation are those related to theprinciple of freedom and include the civil and political rights, which demand to thepublic authorities the inhibition of their interference in the private sphere of in-dividuals; those of the second generation are based on the principle of equality andinclude the social, economic and cultural rights. The public authorities must intervenein order to guarantee equal access to these rights through public services and in-stitutions without any kind of discrimination. Finally, the third generation of rights isrelated to the principle of fraternity; heterogeneous rights are here included such asthe right to peace, to a health environment, etc. There is no unanimous consensusabout which HR are included in the fourth generation, but they mainly talk aboutrights that protect human beings against the impact that the technology and geneticmanipulation, for example, may have on their lives (Bustamante 2007).

Although this is an extensively used classification, there are some authors thatconsider them in a different way. Vázquez (2003) argues that it is better to think themin a systematic way, and then the satisfaction of a right of third or four generation,e.g., the access to new technologies, constitutes a source of satisfaction for rights offirst or second generation like those included in the Goals for the Millennium, in theterms formulated in the PNUD (acronym in Spanish for United Nations DevelopmentProgram) (quoted in Escámez Sánchez 2004, p. 84).

Human Rights Education in Spain

Political and Civic Education Before 2006

It is not suitable to talk about ‘historical antecedents’ of a subject of the same nature ofcitizenship education and HR in Spain for other initiatives were far away of the intentionof spreading democratic principles or knowledge of human rights among their students,and the inclusion of aims and contents in order to educate citizens has been always imbuedwith the political ideology of the governments. But it is possible to trace a short overviewabout the last 40 years just before the implementation of the Ley Orgánica de Educación(LOE) in 2006 regarding civic and political contents in the Spanish school curriculum.

Like in all totalitarian regimes, Franco gave high importance to train individuals onthe ideas and values that were the basement of his government, in order to make theeducational system a decisive tool to shape opinions and conscious (Mayoral 2007).Students at elementary school received during his regime some kind of ‘politicaleducation’ (González Gallego 2004) under a subject called ‘Civic and Social Education’and ‘Education of the National Spirit’ at the last years of the non-compulsory secondaryeducation. This last subject included some contents called ‘Civic Education’, amongthem like the social order and the traffic rules and respect for gardens, parks, monu-ments, art pieces, museums and libraries. As we can see, none of these contents hadreally a close relationship with the education of a democratic, participative and activecitizen. On the contrary, the subjects looked to indoctrinate under the principles of theregime and educate ‘obedient citizens’.

The General Law of Education and Financing of the Educational Reform (Ley14/1970, LGE) promoted for the regime itself in 1970, provided that the specific


subject for political education disappeared, and these contents were included in ageneral subject called ‘Social Sciences’ in elementary education and in the social andanthropological field stated for the secondary education, Bachillerato UnificadoPolivalente (better known in Spanish for its acronym BUP).

Franco died in 1975 and the National Constitution was established in 1978. Wehad to wait just until 1990 to find the inclusion of contents related to democratic andsecular values based on HR promoted by a Constitutional law: the General Consti-tutional Educational Law (Ley Orgánica General del Sistema Educativo 1990). Thesevalues were then included as cross-curriculum contents throughout the entire basiceducational system. In 2002, a new educational law was promulgated by anotherdemocratic government but of a different political ideology. The Constitutional Lawof Quality of Education (Ley Orgánica de Calidad de la Educación 2002) did not sayanything specific about cross-curriculum contents though some of them were part ofthe educational curriculum of different subjects. The individual effort remarkedthroughout the entire text, and religion as a subject for which children could beassessed was one of the main characteristics of this law.

The Inclusion of a Specific Subject in the School Curriculum

These resolutions and documents in “The Decade of Human Rights Education” sectionshow that the UN impulses Governments to promote HRE at all educational levels. Thatmeans that it is expected to have teachers with high and deep subject knowledge,specifically trained, as well as committed and skilled in order to achieve an effectiveHRE because it is extendedly assumed that teachers are constantly interpreting officialpolicies to adjust their professional practice in the classroom (Osler 2011).

Considering that societies like the Spanish one becomemore and more cosmopolitan,we can talk about a ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’ (Osler 2005, 2008; Lister 2007), and this‘requires a cosmopolitan and humanistic vision’ based on HR, justice and equality(Osler, p. Xvii) to be reflected in the teacher training programmes and at schools.Regarding HRE, Amnesty International (AI) conducted a study in 2003 that showed thatthe Spanish university teachers’ training programmes included very few contents related toHR and that the future elementary teachers had few knowledge about them. According toanother AI report (2008), Spain stands in the last positions inHRE at compulsory universitytraining in Europe. In this case, the results observed show a lower presence of HR coursesin Spanish university curricula with regard to other European countries analysed.

The promulgation in 2006 of the Spanish Constitutional Law of Education (LOE)has the intention to mind this gap. It sets among its prior objectives for elementaryand secondary compulsive education the need to prepare students for active practiceof citizenship and respect of HR and introduced a new specific compulsory subjectcalled ‘Education for Citizenship and Human Rights’. This has posed some importantchallenges for the educational community.

However, there is still much to do regarding HRE and teacher training, and Spainhas made important steps during the last years, on one hand as we said about thepromulgation of the Law of Education in 2006 and on the other hand the inclusion ofa specific subject in the initial teacher training programmes at some universities, likeat Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). In the UAM, the new curricula forfuture teachers of elementary and preschool education include specific subjects. The


general aim is that teachers acquire a range of values, skills and competencies as someauthors (Lister 1984; Osler and Starkey 1994) have pointed out as important di-mensions to be included in the curriculum of HRE that will enable them to properlyteach the new compulsory subject in Primary Education.

This initiative tends to train them ‘to design and regulate learning spaces in diversecontexts that pay attention to gender equalities, equity and the respect of humanrights’, among other objectives pointed out in the Didactic Guidelines of thesesubjects (item 1.11). The contents are organized around three thematic areas. Humanrights are included in the first area ‘Basic concepts to promote equality and partici-pation in Elementary Education’; the other two areas are: ‘Learning to participate atElementary School’ and ‘Building a civic school that promotes equality and partic-ipation at Elementary School’. It is a one semester subject with 3 h of teaching perweek in which teachers try to make students to reflect on the philosophical andpolitical foundations of the need to be an active and participative citizen within ademocratic society. Students reflect on the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsand the Convention of the Rights of the Child in order to be conscious of theimportance to know that citizens are subjects who have rights, to learn which arethe rights mentioned in the Declaration and Convention and the history of itspromulgation. As part of their training, they work also on different didactic proposalsto educate citizens from elementary education.

Knowledge and Social Representations of Human Rights

There is little empirical investigation related to the knowledge and representations onHR with teachers in training. However, there are studies that explore these issues withadolescents (Sherrod 2008; Torney-Purta et al. 2008), university students (Clémenceet al. 1995; Doise et al. 1999; Sommer et al. 2004; Stellmacher et al. 2005; Passiniand Emiliani 2009; Stellmacher and Sommer 2008) and with general public (HartResearch Associates 1997; Carlson and Listhaug 2007; Kaur-Ballagan et al. 2009).

The study with adolescents of 27 countries (Torney-Purta et al. (2008)studied the attitude they had towards immigrants and other issues related toparticipation; HR knowledge was studied in an indirect way. The resultsshowed that students that live in countries with governments that pay moreattention to HR perform better on HR’s knowledge items, and adolescents whoexperience democracy at school have a positive association with their knowl-edge of HR. This study is remarkable because it is a paradigmatic study withinthe research area related to citizenship education. It was the first internationalstudy with teenagers that go to high school to investigate how they see andthink on aspects like immigration, participation and HR among others. Sherrod(2008) asked adolescents to rate the importance of various rights. Findingsindicated that ‘adolescents’ responses regarding rights reduced to two compo-nents, one related to entitlements (nurturance component of the Children’sRights Convention) and the other freedoms (self-determination/participationcomponent of the Children’s Rights Convention)’ (p. 1). Stellmacher et al.(2005) give the results of two studies on the cognitive representations of HRthat show that knowledge about HR is quite low. This also reveals thateconomic, social and cultural rights are less known and are evaluated as less


important than civil and political rights. Another research done with Germanuniversity students in three studies (1a, 1b and 2) in which the major partic-ipants were students of Education (Stellmacher and Sommer 2008) tried toanswer if HRE enhances the knowledge of HR, if HRE changes attitudestowards HR and commitment to them, and finally if HRE reduces ethnicprejudice. The results regarding knowledge after the first two studies (1a, 1b)showed that ‘just four sessions about human rights in a regular universityseminar can change knowledge, attitudes, and commitment regarding humanrights’ (op. cit. 73). Study 2 confirmed several results of the other studies.Knowledge about human rights increased substantially. The results of a cross-national study with psychology students showed similar deficits: Students hadonly marginal knowledge about HR (Sommer et al. 2004).

Passini and Emiliani (2009) wanted to study the representations of rights and dutiesthat a group of Italian and Albanian university students had. In general, the authorsconcluded that ‘Italians underlined the priority of their individual rights over duties toothers. (…) Conversely, Albanians defined rights as focusing on the protection offundamental individual freedoms and defined duties emphasizing the responsibilitiesof the individual and the family’ (p. 95). It is also interested to stress that participants ofboth countries considered basic civil human rights as most important.

The study about the social representations of human rights with adolescents andyoung people between 13 and 20 years old of post-graduation courses of France,Switzerland, Italy and Costa Rica (Clémence et al. 1995) aimed to know if adoles-cents of different countries organize their beliefs about violation of HR according toprinciples defined by experts or international organizations. The results indicated thatmost of them refer to an institutional definition of HR.

The study conducted by Doise et al. (1999) explores the social representationsabout human rights that a group of university students of 35 countries (includedSpain) of all continents have. The work aimed first to find if there is a possible sharedunderstanding about HR among young people of different countries or if on thecontrary the definition is cultural and then its building is differentiated. The generalresults show that there is a shared understanding about HR, but this does not preventthe individuals from situating themselves in a different way regarding them. Thesedifferent positions would be related to ‘the human development and the application ofhuman rights in the country as well as the individual values choices and theirperceptions and experiences about social conflict’ (Doise et al. 1999, p. 26).

With regard to the public perceptions of HR in the study conducted by Kaur-Ballagan et al. (2009), the aims were to study how people perceive HR and theirattitudes towards them. The study was conducted in Great Britain and was based inboth quantitative and qualitative analysis. They interviewed on the telephone 1,994people aged 16+. We want to stress the results that show that there is a lack of detailedunderstanding of HR and the legislation related with them.

Carlson and Listhaug (2007) had the aim to investigate the macro- and micro-levelfactors that shape the dynamics of HR perceptions. They explored the linkagesbetween HR practices and people’s perceptions of their own country’s human rightsconditions. Data were collected in more than 50 countries with a sample of more than50,000 respondents. The results ‘suggest that general public evaluate the notion ofhuman rights in a similar direction as the experts. Moreover, the results of the analysis


by region further support the universal position’ (Carlson and Listhaug 2007, p. 478).Finally, the study conducted in the USA (Hart Research 1997) with about 1,000adults, regarding the HR people know, shows that subjects could name only eightcivil rights and only one economic right, which goes in the same direction of otherstudies mentioned above regarding the low level of knowledge people have about HRin different countries.

Method

Objectives and Hypothesis

The main objective of this study is to explore the level of information and knowledgea group of teachers in training at UAM has about some aspects related to HR. We areinterested in comparing two groups of students: students that have received nospecific training in HR and have studied according to the old training programmesand students that are studying according to the new teacher training programmes withspecific HR training.

We expect to find differences between both groups with respect to the knowledgeabout HR in general they have and also about some specific knowledge. The mainhypothesis is that a specific training on HR will lead to an important improvement instudent’s level of knowledge. On the other hand, we hypothesize that although allstudents may experiment some difficulties to detect the specific attributes of these typesof rights regarding others, this will be less difficult for those with specific training.

Participants

Participants were 150 trainee teachers of kindergarten and elementary school educa-tion attending at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of the UAM duringthe academic courses 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. There were two groups of students:those studying according to the old training plans both for elementary teaching ofdifferent specializations and kindergarten teaching (n=75, M=1, F=74) and thosestudents who have begun to study according to the new Bolonia training programmesfor elementary and kindergarten education degree (n=75, M=23, F=52). The firstgroup had not received any specific training on HR, while the latter had studied aspecific subject. Seventy-nine percent of the students were aged from 18 to 23 yearsold, 1.3 % from 23 to 30 and 0.4 % were older than 40 years old.

Procedure and Analysis

This questionnaire has been specifically designed for the study in order to knowstudents’ knowledge about Education for Citizenship and Human Rights. First, a pilotstudy with 52 students was conducted. The implementation of the final version of thequestionnaire was done during two consecutive academic courses: 2009/2010 and2010/2011. Their participation was voluntary and anonymous.

The questionnaire itself has two well-defined parts. The first part consists of eightquestions to explore the conceptual representation students have regarding key aspects


on HR, their attitudes towards the new subject, and the training they have received onthis topic at the university. The second part includes ten problematic situations in whichone Human Right is clearly violated; they have to choose among three possible answers,which is the right that has been violated in the situation showed.

The answers to the questionnaires were analysed and discussed in order to developcategories of analysis in those questions that were of open answer. Data are presentedas percentages of participants in each category which refer to the number of responsesassigned to each category so the sum is not necessarily 100 %. Afterwards, responsesto the open-ended questions were grouped into different categories that were differentfor each question. Two independent judges attributed answers to the different cate-gories. In order to explore if there were significant differences between both groups, achi-square statistic test (X2) was also performed.

Results

We are going to present here only the results related to key aspects about HR that meansthe results to the questions 1, 2, 3, 4a and 4b of the questionnaire (see the “Appendix”).

What Are Human Rights?

Students were asked with an open question to define HR. Their definitions have beenanalysed first, considering the main characteristics of HR: universal, absolute andinalienable, trying to see whether they are able to elicit these attributes or not. On theother hand, a content analysis of the definitions was made by building up differentcategories of answers given by students.

Regarding the specific characteristics of HR (Velasco Arroyo 1990), we can see inFig. 1 that the condition of being universal is the most mentioned by all students.While a high percentage of those who have received specific training make referencethat they are rights for all people (89 %), those who have not received this trainingrefer to it in a lower percentage (75 %).

The inalienable characteristic was mentioned surprisingly by the students thathave not received specific training in a higher percentage (13 %) than the othergroup, which only 11 % mentioned it. In relation to the characteristic of being

Fig. 1 Specific characteristics of human rights


absolute, although students refer to legal aspects in their definitions, it is notclear enough the idea that HR are beyond Constitutions and laws in a country.

It can be observed that the most mentioned dimension in the definitionsgenerated by students refers to its universal character. Although there were nosignificant differences between groups, this element was mentioned by 64 % ofstudents in the training group of HRE, in contrast to the 54.7 % of students inthe other group.

On the other hand, students define HR referring to the legal aspects or norms thatmust be respected worldwide. In their conceptions, HR exist as legal rights withininternational laws. Here the students of the new training programmes mentioned it inhigher percentage (21.3 %) than the other group (14.7 %), although there were nosignificant differences between groups.

Other students refer to those aspects that are protected when HR are respected.Participants mentioned a set of basic needs that must to be covered in order to have abetter life. It is interesting that both aspects were mentioned mainly by the students ofthe group without specific training. In fact, these are the only significant differencesfound in the dimensions mentioned by the students. In the case of the individualneeds dimension, there are significant differences between students of both groups[X2(1)=5.7, p=0.05], and the same occurs with the dimension described as ‘having agood life’ [X2(1)=9.14, p=0.002]. In the first case, it can be observed that the groupwith no specific training mentioned individual needs in a higher percentage in theirdefinitions (10.7 %) than the group with specific training (1.3 %). In the second case,it can be observed that the dimension of ‘having a good life’ is much more mentionedby the group without training (30.7 %) when compared to the other group (10.7 %).These results are consistent with other studies in which ‘being treated with dignityand respect’ was seen as a fundamental right (Kaur-Ballagan et al. 2009). Thestudents referred in a very low percentage that HR are those rights one has becauseis a human being (person); the results in this personal dimension of HR were similarfor both groups. Table 1 shows the different aspects or dimensions included in thestudents’ definitions, their description and some examples.

In relation to the specific knowledge about HR our students have, the results go in thedirection of our hypothesis although the differences between both groups are notstatistical significant and both seem to categorize HR more or less into the samedimensions. Despite this, we can say the knowledge and the categorization of HR aredone in a different way by students with specific training. These students seem tomake amore clear connection between HR and dignity than the other group of students.

Overall the results in this question go in the same direction to the results of thestudy conducted by Stellmacher and Sommer (2008) that shows the importance ofpromoting specific training on HR in order to improve the level of knowledge of thestudents at the university as an attempt to mind the gap the knowledge our teachershave regarding HRE (Amnistía Internacional 2003, 2008; Smith 2003).

Types of Rights

Regarding the classification of HR into three generations, students were asked if theyhad heard of it (see Fig. 2). Analysis revealed that students who belonged to the specifictraining group performed better (52 %) than students of the other group (12 %).


Students were asked to write all the different types of HR they knew. Theymentioned civil and social rights mainly, rights of the first and second gener-ation. Surprisingly, although students mentioned the aspects of equal access toall of them—which is the principal basis of the second generation ones—theyhave not specifically mentioned the importance of promoting respect for the HR

Table 1 Different aspects or dimensions included in the students’ definitions, their description and someexamples

Aspectsmentionedin theirdefinitions

Description Examples

With specific training With no specific training

Universality Rights for all people ‘Set of principles thateverybody must have’(participants 54)

‘Aspects that all must have’(participant 30)

Principles ‘Universal principles thatdefend the fundamentalrights of people’(participant 71)

‘Rights that all should havewith no discrimination’(participant 39)

No discrimination

International/worldwide

Inalienable Compulsory for all ‘(HR) are an obligation thateverybody must fulfill’(participant 66)

‘Rights that people have;nobody can take them’(participant 5)

Impossibility to deny orrefuse them/to take

Absolute Constitutional law ‘Basic and international rightselaborated by members ofdifferent countries’(participant 67)

‘Rights stipulated in theConstitutional law’(participant 3)

International law

Legal Norms or laws ‘Laws created by humanbeings which give us outa number of competenciesrelating to freedom, equalityand fraternity’(participant 86)

‘Set of laws which aim is tosupport, protect andensure integrity of humanbeings, and that allow tohave a good life and meetphysical, emotional andintellectual needs’(participant 19)

Must be respected worldwide

Legal rights included inInternational Laws

Basic needs HR respected guarantees abetter standard of life

‘A set of rights that regulatesthe protection of basicneeds for the people’(participant 58)

‘Those basic needs thateverybody must have’(participant 8)

Individual needs covered ‘They are those who protectthe quality of life’(participant 10)


of minority groups around the world. In their definitions, only few studentsmentioned rights related to the third generation.

Comparing our results with other studies, we see that they differ in part again withfor example Stellmacher et al. (2005) who found that economic, social and culturalrights were less known by the students of their research than civil and political ones.In that aspect, our students—regarding the total sample—most mentioned rights werecivil and social (both with 82.66 %), cultural (76 %) and economic (36.66 %),followed by the political (19.33 %) and solidarity (4.66 %).

Finally, we asked students if they knew why the rights were classified intodifferent generations (see Fig. 3). The majority of both groups did not know thereasons. There were practically no differences between groups. We think that as thegenerations of rights were not a specific curriculum content, some teachers mighthave explained it while some others did not. But we found differences between bothgroups in relation to the criterion time and values of the French Revolution. Here the

Fig. 2 Have you ever heard about the three generation of human rights

Fig. 3 Why are human rights classified in three generations


group with specific training goes ahead with 14.66 % and 17.33 %, respectively,followed by only 6 % of students of the group with no training. Then the resultsreveal the importance of education on HR in order to increase the knowledge peoplehave about them.

Sources of Information

The students were also asked to answer where they have obtained the informationthey have about HR. The results (see Fig. 4) show that there are significant differ-ences between both groups in relation to university [X2(1)=17.75, p=0.00] for 88 %of the students of the group with specific training chose this alternative compared to57.3 % of the students of the other group.

We found also significant differences between groups regarding Home [X2(1)=4.00, p=0.046], Internet [X2(1)=12.06, p=0.001] and Television [X2(1)=4.72, p=0.03]. Home seems to be a source of information more for those students withoutspecific training (68 %) than for the others (52 %) while with Internet quite theopposite happens: The students with HRE chose this option in a higher percentage(72 %) than the others (44 %). TV is also a source of information more for thestudents with non-specific training (69.3 %) than for those with specific training(52 %). There are no significant differences between groups regarding the othersources of information.

Considering that these students had not received specific training at schools for itwas not compulsory at the time they went to school, it is not a surprise that thedifferences between both groups regarding ‘school’ were not significant. Neverthe-less, ‘school’ was chosen as the second most important source of information for bothgroups of students. This reinforces the idea that schools are suitable places forteaching HR as the Statutory Spanish Law of Education established (Ley Orgánica2/2006). The fact they had mentioned university as one of the main sources of

Fig. 4 Where have you obtained information about human rights


information goes in the same direction of other studies (Stellmacher et al. 2005;Stellmacher and Sommer 2008).

Talk and Discuss About Human Rights

We asked students where and whom they usually talk to about HR. There are nosignificant differences between groups regarding their options. As it can be seen inFig. 5, for the students with specific training, ‘university’ is one of the places where theydiscuss about HR the most (76 %) while for the other group this option was chosen for34.7 % of the students. Here the difference between both groups is the most significant[X2(1)=25.92, p=0.000]. In relation to the other options although we found differencesin percentages, they are not really statistical significant. The significant differences werefound in relation to ‘university’ which goes again in the direction of the hypothesis.

Conclusions and Limits of the Study

The results of the study show that the level of knowledge of our students with relationto human rights is quite low and limited. On the other hand, there is still a lack ofdetail and more precise knowledge about specific and main characteristics or di-mensions of these rights like other studies have also highlighted (Kaur-Ballagan et al.2009; Sommer et al. 2004; Stellmacher et al. 2005). We found the differencesbetween the groups studied here when defining HR: Those with non-specific traininghave the tendency to focus more on personal and individual aspects and give lessimportance to aspects more related to social and political issues in relation to HR.

Although the Spanish universities seem to be still far away from achieving the goal ofoffering students a quality education on HR (Amnistía Internacional 2003, 2008), it isimportant to note that in the case of the UAM, the new curriculum designed to train pre-service teachers includes a specific subject called ‘Educating for Equality and Demo-cratic Citizenship’ dedicated to address these issues. Then we think that improvementson the matter have been done for our students with specific training have pointed out that‘university’ is the first source of information and where they talk the most about them. Itis also remarkable that ‘schools’ are seen by pre-service teachers as sources of

Fig. 5 Where and whom do you talk about human rights


information and knowledge, which it is good news that reinforces a very controversialdecision that the Spanish Government took regarding the inclusion of a specific subjectat the compulsory education. This stresses the importance education has in educatingchildren and adolescents on democratic and human rights values, which were one of themain foundations of the Government decision.

We expect that with the inclusion of a specific subject in the compulsory teachers’training programmes at UAM, the gaps of information pointed out by some studies(Amnistía Internacional 2003, 2008) should be overcome. It would be also convenientand important that subjects like this are included in the training programmes of allfaculties of Education in Spain.

The limits of our study are given mainly for our sample is not representative and forthis is an exploratory study. The next step is to increase the sample and the questionnaireto more trainee teachers and also would be desirable to students of other universities.

Acknowledgments The research was supported with funds from Mº de Innovación y Ciencia (SEJ2007-64719/Educ). Preliminary results were presented at the VI International Conference of Psychology andEducation, Valladolid (Spain), March 2011

Appendix

Please, answer the following answers:

1. What are human rights?

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Write down the human rights you know.

We, human beings, have the rights to:

a……………………………………………………………………………………………

b……………………………………………………………………………………………

c……………………………………………………………………………………………

d……………………………………………………………………………………………

e……………………………………………………………………………………………

f……………………………………………………………………………………………

g…………………………………………………………………………………………..

3. Have you ever heard about human rights of first, second and third generation?

a. Yes □ No □

b. Why are they called this way?

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………


……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………

c. Decide which generation are the following rights

Generation

1st 2nd 3rd

(a) Asylum

(b) Equality before the law

(c) Right to Internet access

(d) Right to education and culture

(e) Freedom of thinking, conscious and religion

(f) Right to a good environment

4a. Where have you obtained information of Human rights? (Mark as many options as you need)

(a) At home □

(b) At school □

(c) Classmates □

(d) Friends □

(e) Neighbourhood □

(f) Internet □

(g) TV □

(h) NGO □

(i) Press □

(j) Radio □

(k) University □

(l) High School □

(m) Nowhere □

4b. Where and whom to you usually talk to about human rights? (Mark as many options as you need)

(a) Family □

(b) Teachers □

(c) Classmates □

(d) Friends □

(e) Neighbourhood □

(f) Internet □

(g) NGO □

(h) University □

(i) Nowhere □


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an exploratory study of human rights knowledge: a sample of kindergarten and elementary school...

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