Swedish universities teach human rights but fail to practice what they preach
A study of nine human rights scholars across five Swedish universities reveals a critical disconnect: educators teach progressive, transformative approaches to human rights while defaulting to traditional lecture-based delivery. The gap between curriculum and pedagogy suggests universities may be producing graduates unprepared for the activist engagement human rights work demands.
Originaltitel: Transformative university human rights education
<p>Human rights have been taught at universities in Sweden since the late 1990s. While these programmes are substantively advanced, they are, like most university educational programmes, delivered in a traditional academic manner. However, the scholarly field of Human Rights Education critiques transmission models of education, advocating for more evolved teaching and learning methodologies that require academic educators to embody transformative teaching and learning approaches. This article examines the perspectives of nine human rights scholars responsible for cross-disciplinary human rights programmes at five universities in Sweden. The research question explores how educators’ views on university human rights education can be problematised using theories on student subject-ness, criticality, activism, and transformation. The findings and analysis show gaps between what is taught and how it is taught. Based on the study, the author contributes to developing university human rights education as a field targeting the relationship between human rights education and educators’ practice.</p>