Human rights education in the early childhood classroom: keys to the Chilean curriculum and practices

Implementing Human Rights Education (HRE) remains an ongoing challenge for educational systems. International consensus highlights the importance of introducing human rights education early and incorporating it into school curricula (Brantefors et al. 2019; Covell, 2013; Jerome, 2016; Parker, 2018; Phillips, 2016; Quennerstedt, Citation2016, Citation2020). This article examines how HRE is presented in the Chilean early childhood curriculum through a qualitative documentary analysis based on the dimensions of education about, through, and for human rights (Struthers, 2015; UNESCO, 2021) and the levels of HRE conceptualization centred on children’s learning proposed by Moody etal. (2024). Findings show that the curriculum explicitly manifests a human rights approach, and that through the learning objectives, the dimension of human rights is prioritized, centred on the creation of a rights-respecting environment for both children and adults. Educators are also offered diverse orientations for human rights pedagogy in the early years. These classroom practices offer key implementation alternatives for embedding HRE teaching and fostering cultures of respect for human rights. Recognizing these classroom practices can guide HRE implementation internationally and inform curricular alignment within Chilean primary education in future reforms.