Safe Spaces Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts

INTRODUCTION
necessary resources available in this regard.’ Notably international in scope,
Roux’s edited collection addresses the multifarious issues which arise here. The
book is especially cognizant of pronounced differences in culture, ethnicity,
gender, religion, political systems, as well as conflicts within and between nation
states. Juliet Perumal in ‘Identity, identification and sociolinguistic practices –
implications for an emerging democracy’ is one such example of international
comparison, a South African-Netherlands partnership. Kyriaki Topidi’s ‘Religious
diversity in public education’ provides a comparative European perspective.
Exploring comparative equalities and disparities theoretically and empirically in
impassioned ways, the book is divided cogently into: ‘Philosophical and policy
perspectives’; ‘Gender discourses: diverse perspectives’; ‘The discourses of
narratives as safe spaces’.
In the first of these, Roux’s ‘Social Justice and Human Rights education project’
examines the potential disjunctures between religious and cultural tradition with
human rights, and the problem of where education can stand in creating safe
spaces. But she also presents constructive possibilities, with research informing
practice. The methodological approach using ‘narratives of experience (narrative
theory)’ is here an innovative starting point, demarcating a path from ‘community
in conversation to a community in dialogue to a community of practice’.
Gender takes a high priority. ‘As women researchers,’ argues Roux, ‘we need to
support the potential of empowerment for our girls who are not always in control
of their own destiny. We wanted to embrace their abilities to achieve their full
potential and to live bright, extraordinary lives, defined by respect and human
dignity. We are reflecting on the gap between the stated values and the eventual
practices that form and inflict a new kind of social injustice on the most vulnerable
in society and education.’
Gender perspectives predominate in a number of other chapters, as in Anne
Becker’s ‘Identity premised on equality of difference as a fundamental human
right’ and René Ferguson’s ‘Let’s find a way to learn about rights: communities of
practice as space for women and girls to learn about their human rights’. Two other
chapters also include girls’ and women’s perspectives: Annamagriet de Wet’s
‘Girls’ experiences of religious and cultural practices’ and Dolana Mogadime’s
‘Using interdisciplinary feminist theory to arrive at an understanding of critical
educators who put human rights at the center of school curriculum’. Focus on
female gender is balanced by a strong chapter on men and violence in Johan
Botha’s ‘Power and privilege: white male teachers’ experiences of aggression’.
Petro du Preez’s chapter engages with the human right to education, the ethical
responsibility of curriculum, and also the irony of ‘safe spaces’, presenting the
book’s auto-critique in its ‘fixation with safety’. ‘We are,’ writes du Preez,
‘creating empty spaces when we view the right to education as mere access to
education institutions, when we merely see the work of curriculum as the selection
of contents and methodology, and when we attempt to safeguard learners against
the social realities in which they are situated. This empty space justifies the evil
of the knowledge economy and denies the ethical responsibility human beings have
toward one another. It reduces complex social problems that require human rights
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