Human rights education at Lund University: What are the challenges and opportunities for collaboration?
Authors
Frida Nilsson ()Files
Abstract
As of 2023, Human Rights is one of Lund University’s five profile areas. One aim of the Human Rights profile area is to strengthen interlinkages between research and education in the field of human rights and to facilitate collaboration between courses and education programmes at Lund University that explicitly or implicitly focus on human rights. This report is concerned with the latter of those two challenges and analyses obstacles and possibilities for collaboration.
There are courses and programs within the human rights field on all levels at the university, but this study is mainly restricted to Master – or second-cycle – level. The data consists of syllabi for all relevant courses and programmes in the Spring and Autumn term of 2023, interviews with convenors of courses and programmes, and a questionnaire.
One finding is that human rights education on university level can be categorized into three types: Concept-oriented, Implementation-oriented, and Purpose-oriented human rights education.
Regarding possibilities for collaboration, the suggestions in the report are designed to inspire short-term and long-term collaboration at all levels of the organisation. Specific suggestions for collaboration are given in five areas: 1. Internal networks and infrastructure for communication; 2. Course collaboration; 3. External networking and collaboration; 4. Pedagogic development and; 5. Student collaboration and extracurricular activities.
The report ends with suggested steps toward a Human Rights Campus at Lund University:
- Consolidate the Human Rights profile by raising awareness about human rights education, through regular information distribution, a joint human rights calendar, newsletters, events and activities for staff and students, and a website or digital platform for internal and external communication purposes.
- Create supportive communities, through a core of committed human rights education programmes within the profile area, professional recognition of human rights education initiatives as meritorious, allocation of time and funds for awareness raising, collaboration, and administrative support on faculty and central level.
- Start small, for example through joint and open research seminars, guest lectures given by Lund University teachers and external human rights practitioners and defenders, and collaboration over elective master courses.
- Establish a function for human rights education specifically, for example in an already existing support function or a new role within the profile area. The function could be instrumental in setting up a core of human rights programme profile members, establishing partnerships with external actors in the region, and help initiating and follow-up on collaboration, and mentoring a profile area intern.
The review reported here was carried out by Frida Nilsson, PhD in Human Rights Studies with specialization in human rights education. It was funded jointly by the Human Rights profile area, the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology, and the Division of Human Rights Studies at the Department of History.
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