Accessing, understanding, inquiring into and enacting human rights as central to global citizenship education literacies in Australia

Human rights education (HRE) has international mandates and is often encompassed in global citizenship education. In response to this context and young people's clarion call for climate action, we draw from an Australian study which investigated how formal education can better respond to children and youth as active global citizens. We identified patterns in the interview data with 22 youth and adult thought leaders on children's rights, education, and citizenship for the need for global citizenship education (GCE) to be responsive to the cultural and social rights of children and young people, to educate them about human rights, and to advocate for human rights. Each of these recommendations is discussed with attention to what we refer to as active global citizenship literacies. We close by exploring these literacies implicated for, about and through HRE with guiding questions pertaining to accessing, understanding, inquiring into, and enacting human rights matters, within GCE.