2.2. Interculturalism and Human Rights

ownership over what is learned. Learning from experience is increased when people deliberately reflect on it. This process enables young people to transfer the abstract concepts into every day life and to understand the relationship between policies and practice.

Taking human rights education outside the classroom into real life means translating human rights into local action. In school students learn to identify when something needs to be done, when action needs to be taken, but outside of school they can try to find concrete ways to take action or to persuade those in power to implement policies and actions that are grounded in a human rights perspective in order to contribute to the development of the society as a whole, a society that offers equal opportunities to people from all walks of life. But in order to become active citizens young people need to be empowered - this is what ‘education for human rights’ refers to. As Nabatchi and Leighninger (2015) remark “young people can be leaders of today, not just leaders of the future” (p. 7). They need not be regarded solely as recipients of information, but as valuable contributors.

Human rights education interpreted as education about, through and for human rights demands commitment, creativity and the willingness to go the extra distance to embed various perspectives and to learn from various disciplines. We propose a series of adjustments that can be implemented in the educational systems and practices for a coherent approach in human rights education, an approach that is deeply rooted in today’s reality, an approach that aims at developing transformative citizens. 2 . 2 . I N TE R C U L TU R ALI S M AN D H U M AN R I G H TS

Human rights are not abstract concepts; they refer to every day realities. But reality is subjective and interpreted differently in various contexts. Therefore, education about, for and through human rights needs to be adapted to the cultural and individual specificities of the young people. Human rights education needs to be taught with intercultural awareness and from a global perspective. “The cosmopolitan vision underpinning the UDHR is not inherent in human beings but needs to be understood and shared” (Starkey, 2010). UNESCO’s publication Rethinking Education: Towards a Global Common Good emphasizes the importance of cultural diversity, which is viewed as “humanity’s greatest source of creativity and wealth”. Cultural diversity provides not only diverse ways of viewing the world, but also different approaches to solving problems that affect us all. For this reason we must recognize the diversity of lived realities while reaffirming a common core of universal values. Schools often marginalize young people belonging to cultural, religious, linguistic, gender and sexual orientation minorities.

Interculturalism acknowledges that human rights apply to all human beings, regardless of the inequalities that still exist and regardless of the fact that they are not always respected. Human rights are not given to us by our governments, they are inherent in our humanity, but it is the role of governments to protect and respect our human rights. In this sense, structural inclusion and cultural empowerment are essential conditions for the internalization of human rights values (Banks, 2010) while structural discrimination is a violation of human rights. Unfortunately in countries all over the world structural discrimination is still a common practice.