Safe Spaces Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts

A SOCIAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION PROJECT
gender violence and practices mentioned in the narratives of the girls. Teachers,
women and guardians of the selected schools in the project were guided to
construct and negotiate meaning of religious and cultural practices. What did we
expect to happen at the schools? To develop a Community in Conversation on
religious and cultural practices, to first introduce dialoguing and develop
Communities in Dialogue with one-another and to create a circle of trust. These
communities in conversations should foster the dialogue and engage in interaction
between the participants (teachers, mothers/guardians and if possible the girls) and
try to create safe spaces for reflection. The notion is to further these communities
and for sustainability create Communities of Practice where teachers develop their
domain of interest in human rights issues and education, and combating opaque
violations of religious and cultural practices on girls.
BROAD OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT
The project consisted of three phases: Phase one were two pilot studies, phase two
the narrative enquiries and phase three the community engagements. It was
necessary to completed two pilot studies in different education settings before the
main project with eight schools in four provinces commenced.
The research project constituted three subprojects (See figure 1) (Roux, 2009a).
Only one of the sub-projects (A) collaborated with co-researchers in the
Netherlands to enrich and compare the data on the narratives. Studies have been
conducted in this regard and a comparison revealed important insights for
curriculum development of human rights education in diversity (Roux, 2010; Ter
Avest, 2009). Sub-project (A) gave an opportunity to compare the reflection of
girls and boys on the brief set for their narratives. The different cultural and
religious contexts in the project indicated that the different contexts – rural,
metropolitan and inner-city schools – needed curricula (sub-project C) that can
adhere to specific discourses in the communities (sub-project B).
Experience in this field of research has shown that consultations with an
academic board of advisors or critical friends to reflect on research data and
analyses ensured that academic discourses and societal responsibilities were taken
into consideration. In this project, members of the Department of Basic Education,
Human Rights Commission, academics in law, education law and gender studies
brought substantial value to the reliability of the project. Special provision was
made for professional follow-up sessions when the narratives revealed serious
concerns. Provision was made for a psychologist and an expert in indigenous
knowledge where researchers lacked knowledge or professional help, and if
necessary, for feedback to the communities in conversations. The service of a
social worker was once required during the second pilot study when social issues
were detected through the narrative. Participants reflected in the language of their
choice and translators were used to transcribe the narratives (second phase, 2010)
in English, the common language of the researchers.
As indicated the project consisted of three sub-projects each with a project coleader(s),
senior researchers, post-doctoral fellows and post-graduate students
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