Pluralized Knowledge in Critical Human Rights Education Design: Confronting Orthodox Understandings of the Canon, Disciplinarity, and Expertise

Through an exploration of the planning, implementation, assessment, and redesign of an interdisciplinary undergraduate course on human rights, this article provides empirical insight into a range of pedagogical tools that contribute to the aims of critical human rights education (CHRE), including experiential or activist components. With its overall goal of exposing students to plural understandings and operations of power, the course engaged in three distinct practices: regularly bringing ‘the canon’ into conversation with ‘the critical’, challenging norms and power related to disciplinarity, and epistemic challenges to the notion of ‘expertise’. These practices are evidenced throughout the article, drawing on examples of course design, class activities, and student projects conducted with community partners. Analysis of these tools and their impact on student learning in ways that align with the goals of CHRE reveals two important lessons in pedagogical design: holistic planning and braiding. The redevelopment of the course illustrates the importance of paying significant attention to the ways in which different elements of a course are interdependent—challenging ‘sequential’ models of pedagogical design and instead encouraging the metaphor of ‘braiding’ in course design and delivery. These lessons emerge as particularly true in regard to the experiential elements of the course and are important in challenging tensions between the ‘critical’ vs ‘practical’ schools of human rights education. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges of engaging in CHRE within the confines of higher education institutions.