What is it about?
The study was set to elicit teachers’ perceptions of adopting a new curriculum integrating Human Rights Education (HRE) into most school subjects and developing textbooks which could address the mainstreaming of the Syrian children into the Lebanese schools especially after the influx of more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees who migrated to Lebanon due to the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011. The present study employed a descriptive qualitative methodology design. Thus, the policy context and current HRE literature were assessed and reported along with the responses to a survey developed by BEMIS, a national body established in 2001 to promote and develop capacity and support inclusion and integration of ethnic minorities in Scotland. The BEMIS survey was conducted as a mapping exercise eliciting data required to help address the study questions. The study findings yielded recommendations that underscored the necessity of developing new curriculum and textbooks integrating HRE focused on accepting diversity, building peace culture, democracy and citizenship as well as utilizing the whole-school approach and the transformative model.
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Why is it important?
This study is the first to investigate teachers’ and educators’ perceptions of developing a new curriculum integrating HRE into most school subjects; the present study is the only research that intended to shed light on the HRE good practices that have been implemented to elicit suggestions on what should be done in Lebanon to ensure having similar good HRE practices needed to address the tremendous Syrian influx into Lebanon. The present study adapted the modified BEMIS survey which was developed by Watts, Struthers, and Ousta (2013, p. 2) to‘…consider the gaps in school education, present feasible recommendations to influence policy and enhance delivery of curriculum for excellence….support the Scottish government with their reporting obligations to the United Nations in relation to the United Nations World Programme for Human Rights Education’. The study is also significant for being the only research highlighting the Lebanese strategic plans launched in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and the decrees that were issued to ensure HRE practices in Lebanon. Furthermore, there is scarcity in the literature undertaken to focus on HRE in schools in Lebanon.
Perspectives
The study was set to elicit teachers’ perceptions of adopting a new curriculum integrating HRE and developing textbooks which could address the Syrian mainstreaming into the Lebanese society and create a peace culture among the Lebanese on the one hand and between the Lebanese and the Syrians on the other hand. The elicited perceptions along the existent literature indicated that HRE-based curriculum should be adopted in most subjects in the light of the international HRE practices in general and those of Scotland and Australia in particular. In the absence of an integration of HRE into most school subjects of the 1997 current Lebanese curriculum, student learning could not be effective in creating a culture of human rights. The study results also underscored the necessity of professional development and training for teachers in implementing the whole-school approach and the transformational model in school subjects in order to enhance student awareness of human rights and civic engagement and determining which human rights students should learn about across their school learning stages to become global citizens. The study findings revealed that key trainers with knowledge of the HR curriculum development and HRE pedagogical and conceptual frameworks and practices are required to launch initiatives to provide a range of valuable learning opportunities to schools. More significantly, the study findings necessitated a call for teacher associations, along with stakeholders and policy-makers, to take action to reform curriculum. Furthermore, the findings of the study prompted a call to benefit from the HRE experiences of Scotland and Australia and to enact the policies drawn in 2012, 2013 and 2014 to ensure the integration of HRE activities into classrooms. However, the study findings shed light on the complexities of introducing HRE. As such, curriculum roundtable discussions and more curriculum reform surveys should be organized in Lebanon to elicit further suggestions pertinent to the integration of HRE into most school subjects across all stages.
Dr. Ghada M. Awada
Lebanese American University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A call for curriculum reform to combat refugees crisis: the case of Lebanon, The Curriculum Journal, November 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/09585176.2017.1400450.
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