Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper aims to unpack potential reasons why law and legal knowledge—despite its apparent importance and value in teaching and learning about human rights—appears to be largely conspicuous by its absence in human rights education (HRE) in schooling. Drawing on a range of contextually relevant categories of ignorance identified from discourse on epistemologies of ignorance, it argues that deficits in legal literacy on the part of the wide range of stakeholders involved in HRE can manifest in multiple guises, including: ignorance as a strategic choice for political ends; ignorance as a conscious, rational and practical (not necessarily self‐interested) choice; and inadvertent ignorance or such that is unconsciously selective in nature. By approaching the issue from this novel standpoint, the overarching aim of the paper is to illuminate the prospects and possibilities for tackling instances of such ignorance going forward.
DOI: 10.1002/berj.4138
Author: Suzanne Egan
Institution: University College Dublin
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,120
OpenAlex ID: W4407758643