Human rights education as a socialization project for citizenship-making in China

Abstract

This research explores whether human rights education (HRE) is promoted in Chinese schools, and if so, examines why, what, and how that promotion is done. With reference to a specific secondary school in Shenzhen, China, this study explores how HRE was conducted, how it developed in response to state policies and school initiatives, and how the dynamics and complexity of interactions among different stakeholders at the national, local, and school levels shaped and facilitated students’ perceptions of human rights (HR) and HRE. Data were gathered from document analysis, questionnaire survey, non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews. This study has four major findings. First, various stakeholders at the national, local, and school levels had contextual, intertwined expectations for HRE promotion, which identified a basic framework for the HRE embedded in the sampled secondary school. Second, despite there being no independent, specific HRE subject, HRE is integrated into key components of school life, including school management, relevant school curricula (as key carrier subjects), extra-curricular activities, and school environment. Third, teachers followed three patterns when acting as HRE promoters – faithful implementation of HRE as specified in policies, supportive promotion of HRE by adapting policies, and unsupportive acceptance of HRE by changing policies – to fit different teaching and educational conditions. Fourth, students’ responses reflect what, how, and how well HRE was conducted in the sampled school. To interpret these findings, this study proposes a theoretical framework for understanding HRE as a socialization project promoting HR and HRE as prescribed by the state on its own terms (i.e., China’s political bottom line) and contextualized in China’s conditions, while allowing the school, teachers, and students some flexibility in interpreting, implementing, and learning the embedded HRE. Such project socialized students to become the citizens that different stakeholders wanted them to become, in accordance with each party’s perceived conditions and needs, in a multileveled (global, national, local, and school) society. The socialization project of HRE resulted from the interplay of various actors, who play different roles and use different coping strategies, to shape HRE contents and to promote students’ versions of HR and HRE. This study is original in its approach to understanding, at multiple levels of education, how HR are socially constructed within Chinese education. Concepts of HR have evolved from a universal meaning found in traditional-Western perspectives to a culturally-specific one, wherein HR are perceived as dynamic and complex responses to specific contexts in Chinese society, and as social constructions serving China’s nation-building. This theoretical framework is useful for understanding the complexity of the embedded HRE in education systems in China, the roles and coping strategies different actors adopt to interpret and fulfill multiple stakeholders’ expectations of HRE promotion, and Chinese HRE as a socialization project for making citizens that meet different stakeholders’ aims and needs.