(1976). Trends in Media Criticism and Accountability in Western Europe: Growing Pressure from Consumers. This paper examines efforts in Western Europe to monitor and guide the performance of the mass media. The evidence indicates that consumers are increasing their efforts to let the media know their wants and needs; these efforts include complaints to national press councils and action in special-interest groups. Local and federal governments have responded to public opinion by creating press councils or by modifying existing councils, appointing ombudspersons, and establishing codes of ethics or independent regulatory agencies. The report concludes with the hope that these developments will soon lead to a balance among press rights, human rights, and information needs, without the loss of any of these rights. (RL)…
(2004). One Man, Two Languages: Confessions of a Freedom-Loving Bilingual. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, v15 n3 p10-12 Spr. When the movement for "English Only" began some years ago, the author told participants at a bilingual education workshop that he was against it. He was rendered momentarily mute because he had thought that the English Only proponents could not curtail the freedom of expression guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The way he understood them, the framers of the Constitution guaranteed freedom of expression. He has often questioned the direction this country takes in regards to civil rights, human rights, and especially the freedom to express ourselves. The ideals propounded in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are excellent…. [Direct]
(1972). Advocacy for the Legal and Human Rights of the Mentally Retarded. Nine presentations from a conference on advocacy of the legal and human rights of the mentally handicapped are given. Robert Segal considers parents and professionals to be the primary advocates for the retarded, while Virginia Nordin examines the implications of recent court cases for the retarded's right to legal process and redress. The right to dignity is discussed by Marjorie Kirkland, and William Cruickshank suggests that the right not to be negatively labelled is important for the retarded. The right to financial assistance is presented by Mary Wagner. Lynwood Beekman recommends action at the local, county, and state levels to insure the right to education for the handicapped. Lorraine Beebe delineates the right to community services such as appropriate physical and mental health care. Inadequate finances and staff are seen by Lawrence Turtond to result in a failure to provide the retarded with the right to adequate treatment in state institutions. Robert Burt considers… [PDF]
(1981). Social Indicators of Basic Needs: Quantitative Data for Human Rights Policy. Developing social indicators of basic human needs involves (1) recognizing the problems in selection, (2) identifying the criteria for making selections, (3) choosing which basic needs to cover, and (4) selecting the indicators. The social indicators are to help formulate U.S. foreign policy and will be used by the State Department's Bureau of Human Rights in its annual country reports to Congress. Problems in selecting indicators of adequate living standards include data accuracy, data comparability across diverse cultures, appropriateness of the measures to U.S. policy, and proper interpretation of the indicators when making policy. In light of these problems, ten criteria were developed for the selection and presentation of the indicators. Education, health, nutrition, and income emerged as the basic needs to cover. Within these limits, the Bureau selected 12 social indicators, including infant mortality rate, population growth rate, primary school enrollment rate, household… [PDF]
(1976). Emerging Human and Legal Rights of Children. Behavioral Disorders, 2, 1, 16-21, Aug 76. Available from: EC 090 474. Alternatives to institutionalization of delinquent children are viewed in terms of growing concern for children's human and legal rights. (SBH)…
(2007). Exploring the Practical Adequacy of the Normative Framework Guiding South Africa's National Curriculum Statement. Environmental Education Research, v13 n2 p245-263 Apr. This article examines the practical adequacy of the recent defining of a normative framework for the South African National Curriculum Statement that focuses on the relationship between human rights, social justice and a healthy environment. This politically framed and socially critical normative framework has developed in response to socio-political and socio-ecological histories in post-apartheid curriculum transformation processes. The article critically considers the process of working with a normative framework in the defining of environmental education teaching and learning interactions, and seeks not only to explore the policy discourse critically, but also to explore what it is about the world that makes it work in different ways. Drawing on Sayer's perspectives on the possibilities of enabling "situated universalism" as a form of normative theory, and case-based data from a teacher professional development programme in the Makana District (where the authors live… [Direct]
(2007). Can We Make a Difference?. Adults Learning, v18 n7 p23-25 Mar. In this article, the author reports from the World Social Forum, the annual gathering of campaigning groups and activists who believe that "another world is possible." The theme of the seventh forum, "People's struggles, people's alternatives," united 50,000 people from diverse cultures and backgrounds who gathered in Nairobi believing not only that another world is possible, but also that it is extremely desirable. The questions at the heart of all this activity concerned building a just and equitable world where there are no obscene extremes of wealth and poverty or abuses of human rights. Nevertheless, there is a fire raging though adult learning. Utilitarian skills training has taken hold as the dominant discourse, and learning for wider purposes has been pushed to the margins. There are many things that adult educators can do to make an alternative world of adult learning possible. They can develop learning practices across the range of adult learning… [Direct]
(2007). Organizational Challenges to International Cooperation for Literacy in UNESCO. Comparative Education, v43 n3 p451-468 Aug. The absolute priority given by UNESCO to the promotion of universal literacy is understood as a key policy driver shaping the Organization since its inception in 1946. Grounded in human rights, the commitment has taken concrete form in many and diverse ways, but it is as a shaper of ideas that UNESCO's overall contribution is best judged. In particular, the Organization has persisted in its dual approach to universal literacy through both universal primary education and literacy learning opportunities through formal provision and non-formal learning opportunities for adults and out-of-school youth. Although the latter strategy receded somewhat in prominence in the decade following the World Conference on Education for All (1990), recent years have seen an invigorated and broadly supported multi-pronged approach to literacy emerge in the donor community, if not in UNESCO itself. A major policy shift in 2006 to abandon systematic and programmatic concern for literacy at UNESCO… [Direct]
(2007). Breaking the Chains. Adults Learning, v18 n7 p28-31 Mar. In 1792 more than 350,000 people in Britain signed a petition calling for an end to the slave trade. It was, writes historian Adam Hochschild in his book "Bury the Chains," "the first time in history that a large number of people became outraged, and stayed outraged for many years, over someone else's rights". In 1807–after 15 years of obstruction by the House of Lords–Parliament finally passed a bill abolishing a trade which, at its peak, saw 80,000 slaves trafficked from Africa to the New World each year. The trade, as is well known, was appallingly cruel. Men, women and children, marched mercilessly from their villages to ports hundreds of miles away, would be crammed into the holds of slave ships, where they might remain for months on end. Many would die of smallpox or dysentery before reaching land. Those who survived spent the remainder of their unnaturally short lives in bondage, vital cogs in a global economy that relied on forced labour. In this… [Direct]
(2007). A Painful Remembrance. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, v24 n21 p24-27 Nov. Many in Indian country have expressed that the trauma from the boarding school experience continues to terrorize the hearts of American Indians. Although much has been written about this history that looms so large in the North American indigenous experience, it remains an obscure topic in mainstream America. Dr. Eulynda J. Toledo, a member of the Dine tribe and project director of a grant from the National Institute for Disability Research and Rehabilitation, is working to bring attention to the "intergenerational trauma" of the boarding school era through the recently founded Boarding School Healing Project. Toledo and her colleagues maintain that many of the social ills plaguing current generations of American Indians, including sexual abuse, child abuse, violence towards women and substance abuse can be traced to the generations of abuse experienced at Indian boarding schools. Toledo describes intergenerational trauma as posttraumatic stress disorder that has been… [Direct]
(2006). Measuring the Right to Education. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (NJ3) Amartya Sen defined development as the creation of capabilities or capacities. One of the crucial capacities is basic education. With no access to writing, reading and numeracy, people are unable to fight against poverty and to build their lives in the current global environment. In this perspective, the right to education cannot be conceived only in a subsidiary or ancillary way. The realisation of the right to education is an essential pre-condition for human dignity and for development. But how does one measure this reality? This book presents a methodology for observation and analysis that is informed by an array of indicators designed to measure the four capacities of the educational system: acceptability, adaptability, availability and accessability. This innovative methodology has been developed in a partnership between the Interdisciplinary Institute for Ethics and Human Rights (IIEHR) at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and the Association for the promotion of… [Direct]
(1997). Rights to Responsibility. Multiple Approaches to Developing Character and Community. This book contains lessons that teach students about rights and responsibilities through activities designed to develop character and community. Students are encouraged to learn about the concepts of human rights and responsibilities, and being environmentally responsible citizens. The book employs a variety of learning strategies, allowing for many ways to respond to learning, process information; and express understanding. Research into how the brain works and how learning is best enhanced was used to provide learners with a variety of ways to internalize knowledge. Suggestions for how to facilitate cooperative learning, using personal and reflective journals, and conducting brainstorming activities are provided. A 31-item bibliography concludes the document. (RJC)…
(2020). Transnational Interactions and Integrations of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Western Science: A Cross-Case Synthesis of Informed and Consented Educational and Policy Interventions on Biodiversity Conservation and Genetic Resource Management. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin – Madison. This dissertation examines how Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Traditional Knowledge (TK) systems interact with Western Scientific Knowledge (WSK) in contemporary efforts to reintroduce traditional agro ecosystems and build transnational collaborations among Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). I focus on the role of education, broadly defined, in establishing political and practical conditions that foster equitable integration of knowledge systems in accordance with international treaties and binding agreements around biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. The context for this work is the rapidly evolving policy discourse of Indigenous Peoples' territorial, human, environmental and intellectual property rights, and the set of principles that are emerging from this discourse. Central among these is the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). The case studies presented herein trace how transactional models of education and scientific research… [Direct]
(2014). "Records of Rights": A New Exhibit at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Social Education, v78 n1 p25-28 Jan-Feb. America's founding documents–the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights–are icons of human liberty. But the ideals enshrined in those documents did not initially apply to all Americans. They were, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir." "Records of Rights," a new permanent exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, D.C, allows visitors to explore how generations of Americans discussed and debated how to fulfill this promise of freedom. "Records of Rights" showcases original and facsimile National Archives documents and uses an innovative interactive experience to illustrate Americans' struggles to define rights related to citizenship, free speech, voting, and equal opportunity. "Records of Rights" opened on December 11, 2013, in the David M. Rubenstein Gallery at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. In this article,… [Direct]
(1980). Renewing the Boundless Resource. A lecture on the critical issues of the 1970s from the vantage point of changing attitudes was presented at the 1979 annual meeting of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The review summarizes how the public's basic attitudes toward government, world interdependence, technology, and economic equity, for example, changed policies toward defense, the environment, economic growth, and international affairs. The shift in some important attitudes are attributed to the effect of formal or informal education. A primary task for higher education is shown to be the use of modern technology to meet human needs and purposes. Disarmament, human rights, and world resources are also discussed. (SW)…