Discourses shaping human rights education research in South Africa: Future considerations

Abstract

Human rights education is critiqued for being traditionalist and conceptually imprisoned. This view stems from the distrust in its ability to transform deeply rooted injustices and inequalities etched within South Africa’s society. There is therefore an outcry to reimagine human rights education. For this article it is important to understand how and why human rights education discourses in South Africa have come to be framed by some scholars in this way and to contemplate where the discourse might be heading in the future. We reviewed doctoral theses in the field of Education which claim to engage with and make contributions to human rights education research. We found that human rights education discourses have been (and are being) shaped in South Africa in terms of three distinct phases: inception, growth, and cynicism. It became evident from the findings that human rights education research is predominantly school-based and fundamentally descriptive and uncritical. To conclude, we reflect on these findings so as to put forward future considerations for human rights education research.

Full text

South African Journal of Higher Education http://dx.doi.org/10.28535/31-6-1635
Volume 31 | Number 6 | 2017 | pages 9‒24 eISSN 1753-5913
9
DISCOURSES SHAPING HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION
RESEARCH IN SOUTH AFRICA: FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
S. Simmonds*
Research Unit for Education and Human Rights in Diversity (Edu-HRight)
e-mail: shan.simmonds@nwu.ac.za
P. du Preez*
Curriculum Studies
e-mail: petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za
*North-West University
Potchefstroom, South Africa
ABSTRACT
Human rights education is critiqued for being traditionalist and conceptually imprisoned. This view
stems from the distrust in its ability to transform deeply rooted injustices and inequalities etched
within South Africa’s society. There is therefore an outcry to reimagine human rights education.
For this article it is important to understand how and why human rights education discourses in
South Africa have come to be framed by some scholars in this way and to contemplate where the
discourse might be heading in the future. We reviewed doctoral theses in the field of Education
which claim to engage with and make contributions to human rights education research. We found
that human rights education discourses have been (and are being) shaped in South Africa in terms
of three distinct phases: inception, growth, and cynicism. It became evident from the findings that
human rights education research is predominantly school-based and fundamentally descriptive
and uncritical. To conclude, we reflect on these findings so as to put forward future considerations
for human rights education research.
Keywords: human rights education research, doctoral theses, post-school education and training
INTRODUCTION
Globally, the scholarship of human rights and human rights education has increased
exponentially since the 1970s (Suarez and Ramirez 2004). Keet (2015, 46–47) explains:
As right articulations have come to drench the globe over the past six decades, human rights
violations became the prevailing expressions of structurally anchored inequalities in social,
economic, cultural, political and environmental spheres. These challenges range from
poverty, hunger, discrimination of all sorts, wars and conflict, political instability,
environmental degradation, social fragmentations on national and international levels,
unequal global arrangements, authoritarian regimes, the decadence of wealth, and the
survivalist struggles of poor communities on a daily basis.

Simmonds and Du Preez Discourses shaping human rights education research
10
Chingono and Nakana (2009, 404) describe human rights in southern Africa as ‘endangered in
a few SADC countries’. This is partly because states ‘pursue economic objectives that conflict
with their human rights obligations’ (Gammage 2014, 779). Keet (2014, 148) argues that this
situation is the result of the collapse of human rights into neo-liberalism and an associated
‘emergence of human rights markets’. South Africa, unlike other SADC countries, has
embraced human rights discourse since the formal ending of the system of apartheid in 1994
(Mubangizi 2015). That is not to say that the country acts against human rights violations, but
merely that it has embraced the discourse of protection and promotion of human rights. Human
rights education and human rights in education1 have been central to the protection and
promotion of human rights in South Africa. National school and post-school curricula,
governance and structures proclaim to endorse their content and approaches with human rights
principles and ideals as these remain the moral language for the public good. However, although
human rights education is professed to be the cornerstone of human rights protection and
promotion, it has been inclined to prize an epistemological approach to human rights, relying
largely on the rational, intellectual mind and less so on a moral and ethical one (Du Preez,
Simmonds and Roux 2012). For Keet (2012, 7) this is because the human rights education field
is ‘conceptually imprisoned ... conservative and unproductive’. It is not critical of the
hegemonic discourses and counteractive tautologies that subsume mindless human rights
idolatry. There is, therefore, a cry to reimagine human rights education as ‘a space for
contestation, contention, disputation, public debate and social engagement’ (Keet 2012, 9).
It is important to understand how and why human rights education discourses in South
Africa have come to be framed by some scholars in this way and to contemplate where the
discourse might be heading in the future. The article proceeds with a review of doctoral theses
in the field of Education which claim to engage with and make contributions to human rights
education research. It was deemed meaningful to review these theses since they should reflect
trends and identify intellectual and theoretical advancements in this field, both current and
future. We found that human rights education discourse has been (and is being) shaped in South
Africa in terms of three distinct phases: inception, growth, and cynicism. To conclude, we
reflect on future considerations for human rights education research.
HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION RESEARCH: CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY
DOCTORATES
The contributions made by doctorates to human rights education research are regarded as
noteworthy since they are at the forefront of new knowledge development. Reviewing human

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11
rights education research done by doctoral candidates in the field of Education enabled us to
develop an understanding of some of the key trends in this field. We approached the theses as
conceptual research and reviewed them as literary works. To consider how human rights
education has taken shape in the democratic South African landscape, doctoral theses
completed from 1994 were reviewed. Using the Sabinet database we were able to search the
titles of theses completed in the field of Education that included right(s) (reg(te)), human
right(s) (mensereg(te)) and/or human rights education (menseregte-onderwys). We opted to
focus on the titles since these concepts were clearly central to the theses. Through Sabinet we
were able to access a small-scale sample of 10 theses completed between 1994 and 2012. Of
these 10 theses, one had to be disqualified because it was based on human rights education in
Kenya and not in South Africa. Owing to the incompleteness of the Sabinet database from 2013
onwards, this period proved most fitting and enabled us to obtain the full text of the theses. As
a review presents descriptive accounts of the phenomenon under study we paid attention to
what the theses claimed as their main contribution to human rights education research.
Employing chronology, Viljoen’s (1999) thesis entitled ‘The influence of a culture of
human rights on the management style of the school principal’ (Die invloed van ʼn
menseregtekultuur op die skoolhoof se bestuurstyl) focused on the role of the school principal
and the management team in developing a management style that nurtures a culture of human
rights. The literature viewed human rights in schools through the lens of a Christian perspective
and sought to explore the influence of a human rights culture on religious observance. However,
precisely what was meant by the notion of a ‘human rights culture’ is never explicitly stated.
The findings highlight the need for principals to create a culture of human rights in their schools
and to nurture this culture in their management styles. Viljoen (1999) identifies the need for
further research on multiculturalism, religious diversity and racial integration in schools from
an education management perspective. This study was completed five years after the apartheid
system was abolished and should be understood in that time and space. It aimed to raise
awareness of the implications of human rights in education. The Christian perspective should
also be viewed in context of its hegemony at the time. Three years later, Ndlala (2002) and
Alston (2002) completed their human rights education research.
Both theses resonate with the discipline of education law and intersect with education
management, which is not uncommon as legal methods and approaches are often applied to
education policy and management contexts (De Wet 2014, 34). Ndlala’s (2002) thesis, ‘The
senior education manager’s legal right to professional development’, aimed to create awareness
amongst senior education managers with regard to the legal right to professional development

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12
based on labour law policies. A quantitative survey design research approach was used and
questionnaires were administered to senior education managers (such as subject specialists and
circuit managers) at provincial departments of education. The research findings highlighted that
the provision of relevant professional development courses to senior managers is one of the
important factors affecting the improvement of management performance and the quality of
service delivery in education. This echoes the principles entrenched in the South Africa Council
for Educators Act No. 31 (South Africa 2000) which provides for continued professional
development to promote and develop the education and training profession.
Alston (2002) focussed on the implementation of and access to the right to freedom of
expression and how school management should deal with this matter. The thesis is entitled ‘The
constitutional right to freedom of expression: An exploration of its relevance to the South
African school community’. In conducting case law research involving law reports from South
Africa, the United States of America, Canada, England and New Zealand, Alston (2002)
investigated freedom of expression in terms of hairstyles, dress, jewellery, press freedom,
artistic creativity and academic freedom. One of the main findings was that the implementation
of and access to the right to freedom of expression is affected by prevailing cultural and
religious values in different countries, resulting in a universally proclaimed right not being
universally applied (ibid., 377). McCowan’s (2010, 510–511) view is that ‘[u]niversal rights
are primarily moral rather than legal rights, although they have official status through non-
binding declarations such as the UDHR, and in some cases (such as in the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)) they are turned into legally binding treaties’.
This might explain why different countries acknowledge these universal rights but cannot apply
them universally because of the unique diversity (cultural, ethical, religious and so forth)
underpinning the moral and ethical make-up of each country.
Engaging with the access debate, Gamede’s (2005) research focussed on ‘The biography
of “access” as an expression of human rights in South African education policies’. In particular,
the complexities of access to education as a human right are discussed and the unevenness of
physical and epistemological access problematised. The research found little in the way of
policies on ‘equality of access’ to education. However, there was no evidence that the researcher
had consulted the policy document on improving access to free and quality basic education
although it was published by the Department of Education in June 2003 (Department of
Education 2003b); two years prior to the completion of this thesis. Nevertheless, this qualitative
research in the field of history of education included the voices of political and educational
leaders, principals, teachers and learners in secondary schools so as to reflect the complexities

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13
of human rights education.
With the emphasis on the legal rights of learners, the research by Van Vollenhoven (2006)
and Joubert-Serfontein (2007) took centre stage in the discipline of education law. Van
Vollenhoven’s (2006) thesis addressed one specific legal right: ‘Learners’ understanding of
their right to freedom of expression in South Africa’. Van Vollenhoven (2006, 7) explains that
there are two reasons that research on freedom of expression has gained so much attention: one
is that the traditionally authoritarian culture of South Africa tends to silence citizens; and the
other is that the development of a national culture of human rights has encouraged citizens to
exercise their right to freedom of expression. After conducting a qualitative study with Grade
11 learners, his research found that learners do not know how to exercise the right to freedom
of expression because they hold narrow conceptions of this right; they absolutise the right and
do not understand the limitations of the right. Contributing to human rights education, research
on how learners depict their right to freedom of expression seems to be important considering
the various protest actions in which some learners participate. It also proves fitting in light of
the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2000. Entitled ‘The
fundamental rights of learners within inclusive education: an educational-juridical perspective’,
Joubert-Serfontein’s (2007) research accentuates learners’ fundamental right to inclusive
education in the light of various human rights policies and the Education White Paper 6
(Department of Education 2001a). Using a comparative education law methodology this
research set out to determine the fundamental rights of learners in an inclusive education setting.
Employing international benchmarking, South Africa was compared to the United States of
America and the United Kingdom. One of Joubert-Serfontein’s (2007) key findings was that
equal access to education must not be seen as synonymous with quality education. Overall, in
South Africa, inclusive education remains a vision for the future because of the many challenges
it still needs to grapple with.
In 2007, the discourse changed when Keet raised concerns about human rights, both in
terms of research and in education in general. The main finding of this conceptual, historical
inquiry was that human rights are a totalising grand narrative when viewed from a postmodern
perspective. This narrative influences how human rights education is conceptualised and
inevitably affects our fundamental understanding thereof. This study explicitly argues that
human rights are under-theorised and that they require alternative theorisation, independent of
universal, normative standards. Although Keet (2007) rigorously critiques mainstream
conceptions of human rights, his suggestion on how to reconceptualise human rights education
reveals his admiration for the mobilising potential of human rights in the field of education. He

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14
suggests theorising human rights education in terms of critical pedagogy within a postmodern
framework. Such an approach calls for researching human rights education to envisage an
alternative pedagogical language that problematises social justice, human needs, suffering and
solidarity as well as what the nature of human rights, as antideclarationist, perspectivist,
particularist and universalist, entails for education. This echoes Dembour’s (2010, 4) view that
if ‘human rights exist only because people talk about them’ and not because people ‘believe in’
them, this creates opportunities for human rights education to contest and reimagine human
rights.
Employing a qualitative case study, Netshitahame (2008) explored how learners
understand human rights and especially their right to education. This education law research
proves that it is vital for human rights education to create an awareness of the duties and
responsibilities of the legal rights of learners. Struthers (2015, 57–58) sees human rights
education as dealing not only with ‘factual content’ but also with the ‘personal reality’ that it
has for the lives of individuals. When unlocking these realities Netshitahame (2008) found that
some learners did not know how to exercise their rights, especially their right to education. As
such, some learners found it difficult to deal with dilemmas where the exercising of their right
to education was in conflict with the rights and duties of school authorities. The research has
contributed to a deeper knowledge and understanding of how learners interpret and implement
their right to education.
With a focus on dialogue as a facilitation strategy to infuse the classroom with a culture
of human rights, Du Preez (2008) employed qualitative participatory intervention research to
develop a professional development programme for in-service teachers. This research promoted
a dialogic stimulus to allow for moments of deconstruction, critique and reconstruction so as to
conceptualise the possibilities and challenges for infusing a culture of human rights into the
classroom at a moral level rather than at an epistemological level. One way to do this is through
what Du Preez (2008) regards as ethical communities, which provide the propensity to
anthropomorphise the ideal of infusing a culture of human rights through dialogue. For Tibbitts
and Kirchschlaeger (2010) research commonly focuses on either one or a combination of the
theory, implementation or outcomes of human rights education. The pedagogical and
methodological promise of dialogue as a facilitation strategy to foster a culture of human rights
in the classroom was central to this research.
The prominence of research on the principles of human rights, largely from an education
law perspective, seem fitting in the context of South Africa’s young democracy, and in view of
the crucial role that the legal system has played in transforming the education system (Asmal

Simmonds and Du Preez Discourses shaping human rights education research
15
and James 2002). Creating awareness, skills and attitudes through curriculum content and
teaching-learning, while simultaneously ensuring that all stakeholders are involved, especially
those in management and leadership were also key foci in the theses. Across all the doctoral
theses, the suggested beneficiaries of the research findings were education authorities
(department of education and government), national policy makers, teacher training programme
and curriculum developers, school communities (teachers and learners) and management
(principals and other senior education managers). These are all key role players of the schooling
sector and could reaffirm the emphasis placed on these role players to develop, implement and
promote human rights education.
THREE PHASES OF HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION RESEARCH: INCEPTION,
GROWTH AND CYNICISM
The review revealed three distinct phases, i.e. inception, growth, and cynicism, in human rights
education research in South Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the
first democratic Constitution, which contains the Bill of Rights, marked the inception phase of
human rights. Addressing the human rights violations that occurred during the apartheid era
was a necessary part of dealing with the injustices of the past. A first step was the 1996
Constitution and Bill of Rights. Another step was the establishment of the TRC by Parliament
in 1995 under the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act No. 34 of 1995. The
purpose of the TRC was to lead to knowledge of the causes, nature and extent of human rights
violations of the past that could ultimately lead to acceptance, tolerance and reconciliation in
the future (Gibson 2004). In South Africa ‘the truth and reconciliation process was successful
at exposing human rights abuses by all sides in the struggle over apartheid – thereby
contributing to the country’s collective memory about its apartheid past’ (Gibson 2004, 207).
Admitting to human rights abuses was an important first step in the process of seeking truth
and working toward reconciliation. This act of exposure had to be followed by a pro-active
approach to raise awareness of the extent and scope of human rights applications. For example,
it was no longer enough to speak out about the unjust nature of the apartheid education system;
it was necessary to make equitable access to education a reality (Du Preez 2012). The access
with success debate marked research at the time (and is still a matter of academic concern), but
also received attention in policy documents such as the South African Schools Act (Department
of Education 1996), the Education White Paper 3 (Department of Education 1997) and the
Education White Paper 6 (Department of Education 2001a). The discourses marking the
inception phase were evident in the research conducted by Viljoen (1999) which promotes more

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16
equitable management in schools as well as by Gamede (2005) who engages with the access
debate as a key feature of human rights in South Africa.
The majority of the theses that we analysed (Alston 2002; Ndlala 2002; Van Vollenhoven
2006; Joubert-Serfontein 2007; Du Preez 2008; Netshitahame 2008) fall under the growth phase
of human rights education in South Africa. They were a response to the rapid increase in the
number of policies that address aspects related to human rights education in the school context
and the challenges that schools experienced in dealing with these aspects during the early stages
of post-apartheid. These various documents and reports, that most commonly stem from
initiatives from the South African Department of Education, support the inclusion of human
rights in the curriculum and pedagogy in general as a component of education for citizenship
and as a means of infusing the classroom with a culture of human rights. These include: the
National Conference Report, SAAMTREK: Values, Education and Democracy in the 21st
Century (Department of Education 2001b), the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy
(Department of Education 2001c), the School-based Research Report on Values, Education and
Democracy (Department of Education 2002), the Framework on Values and Human Rights in
the Curriculum (Department of Education 2003a), Values and Human Rights in the
Curriculum: A Guide (Department of Education 2005), and the Bill of Responsibilities for the
Youth of South Africa (Department of Education 2011). The growth phase of human rights
education discourse in South Africa was therefore epitomised by an increased awareness of
education about, in and for human rights (Struthers 2015). The growth phase was also
characterised by research on the context which should be used to teach human rights, precisely
what should to be taught, and how it should be taught (Carrim and Keet 2005; Du Preez 2008;
Du Preez, Simmonds and Roux 2012).
In the age of global distrust in the human rights discourse, a cynical phase has emerged.
This cynicism is the result of a ‘disabling scepticism, even among those who admire its [human
rights] motivating ideas’ (Beitz 2009, 2). This scepticism stems partly from the inability to
enforce human rights internationally because of hegemonic social realities (Dembour 2010).
Furthermore, ‘[t]he problem is that, although the idea and language of human rights have
become increasingly prominent in public discourse, it has not become any more clear what
kinds of objects human rights are supposed to be, why we should believe that people have them,
or what follows from this belief for political practice’ (Beitz 2009, xi). Typically, scholars in
this phase have begun to question whether rights are indeed meant for those who suffer as a
result of human rights violations or whether they are merely the prerogative of the privileged
in society (Dembour 2010; Žižek 2005); or as Keet (2007) does in his thesis, question human

Simmonds and Du Preez Discourses shaping human rights education research
17
rights research approaches as well as the inclusion of human rights education in general. This
distrust, fuelled by an increasing cynicism about human rights, features in Keet’s (2015, 48)
later work again when he states that ‘[t]he global distrust in human rights is not countered by
HRE (human rights education) because such distrust is directed at the very understanding of
human rights on which HRE is based’.
These phases enabled us to identify three key discourses shaping human rights education
research in South Africa, namely human rights education through its inception and then its
growth in South Africa and, more recently, a discourse that is cynical of human rights education.
Next, we reflect on the possibilities that these findings reveal for future research.
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION RESEARCH
Our review revealed two key findings: (1) the major focus of the human rights education
research is predominantly school-based and (2) the research is fundamentally descriptive and
uncritical.
Regarding the first finding: both internationally and nationally there has been a mind-
shift from situating human rights education only in the classroom for purposes of school-based
teaching, learning and assessment. Human rights education has extended its research
parameters within various contextual domains and for applicability within broader society.
Internationally this has been cornerstone of the initiatives of the United Nations who recognise
human rights education as ‘a lifelong process that concerns all ages’ (United Nations 2011, 3).
More specifically,
[h]uman rights education and training concerns all parts of society, all levels, including preschool,
primary, secondary and higher education, taking into account academic freedom where applicable,
and all forms of education, training and learning, whether in a public or private, formal, informal
or non-formal setting. It includes inter alia vocational training, particularly the training of trainers,
teachers and State officials, continuing education, popular education, and public information and
awareness activities (ibid.).
Distinguishing the place of human rights education in the field of Education in this broadest
sense further attests to the action plans implemented by the United Nations, in the form of world
programmes. The first phase of this programme (2005–2009) focussed on the primary and
secondary schooling system. The programme has since developed a second and third phase.
The second phase (2010–2014) focussed on higher education, civil servants, law enforcement
officials and the military. Currently, the third phase (2015–2019) is aimed at strengthening
implementation of the first two phases and promoting human rights training for media
professionals and journalists.

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18
In South Africa, the responsibility is still placed too heavily on schools to be the driving
force of human rights education as highlighted by Mubangizi’s (2015, 512) findings that
showed the direct role of human rights education is ‘restricted to infusing elements of HRE into
the GET and FET school curricula at primary and secondary schools’. This could be part of the
reason why human rights education research in the field of Education remains confined to
research on and for school-based education. One aspect of this challenge might lie with what
constitutes the field of Education. Just as primary and secondary school constitutes the field of
Education, the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training (Department of Education
2013) draws attention to the place of post-schooling within this field. The White Paper specifies
technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges, community colleges and
universities as three key post-schooling sectors which comply with the requirements of the
South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), education and training quality assurance
institutions, and the National Qualification Framework (NQF). One of the key visions of the
Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is to uphold ‘a post-school system that
can assist in building a fair, equitable, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa’
(Department of Education 2013, 4). This notion is underpinned by the interplay of various
intersecting dimensions such as access for success, institutional culture and management,
epistemic access, and redressing equity (age, [dis]ability, race, gender and class) (Du Preez,
Simmonds and Verhoef 2016). The White Paper elaborates:
The institutional landscape is still reminiscent of apartheid, with disadvantaged institutions ... in
terms of infrastructure, teaching facilities and staffing. Black students at formerly whites-only
institutions have often been victims of racism, and female students have been victims of patriarchal
practices and sexual harassment. Poorer students have to fit in with systems that were designed
for students from relatively privileged backgrounds ... The majority of disabled students continue
to experience discrimination ... and the system as a whole has inadequate facilities and staff to
cater for the needs of the disabled. Education for adults has been marginalised and neglected, and
has seldom provided a vocational component for those seeking to enhance their occupational skills
(Department of Education 2013, 1).
These struggles of access, support, racism, class, sexism, poverty, disability and age are not
unique to post-schooling; schooling also encounters similar challenges. The South African
Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which was established in 1995, has taken great strides
towards promoting human rights through social services, education and research across various
sectors of society. In 2000 the SAHRC established a National Centre for Human Rights
Education and Training (NACHRET) dedicated to ‘[t]he development of a sustainable culture
of human rights by translating human rights standards into tangible and deliverable education
and training outcomes’ (South Africa 2001, 13). NACHRET focusses on developing the

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19
schooling and post-schooling sectors and as such reinforces the diverse scope of human rights
education research.
We do not negate the importance of school-based human rights education research neither
do we underscore the interdisciplinary human rights education research being promoted in other
fields (sociology, law, theology and so on). Rather we are of the opinion that too little is done
by human rights education researchers (especially doctoral candidates) in the field of Education
to embrace the complexity of their field. Participating in wider (post-schooling) debates will
expose researchers not only to the varying contexts at play but also to the applicability of the
research findings for different sectors of the field of Education, giving their research greater
relevance and reachability. In their analysis of human rights education research, Tibbitts and
Kirchschlaeger (2010) argue for the need for research on comparative education, world polity
theory, internationalisation debates, indigenous knowledge, transformative learning (critical
and transgressive pedagogies), adult learning, and youth development. We encourage
researchers to consider these, and other relevant topics, within human rights education post-
schooling research. In addition, we urge researchers to be more cynical when engaging in
human rights education research so as to stimulate critical engagement with this research
domain. This brings us to a discussion on our second finding.
The second finding revealed that researchers often uncritically accept the fundamental
nature of human rights and how it influences the way human rights education is conceptualised.
Possibly, these studies remain school-based and fundamentally descriptive and uncritical
because many of the doctoral candidates approach the topic with a ‘how-to-solve-the-problem-
mentality’. This mentality is the result of the hegemonic neo-liberal status quo that requires
instant problem solving (Žižek 2012, 9–10). In the process, researchers align themselves with
the private use of reason by becoming ‘experts’ who claim to be able to solve deep-rooted
societal issues (Žižek 2013, 53–54). The problem here is that this phenomenon has created a
situation where essential thinking and questioning have been subordinated to the need to
provide instant solutions (Žižek 2013, 53). This discussion confirms that the hegemonic
discourses of human rights education remain narrow and uncritical. As such, human rights
education researchers need to question and research the arguments and discourses put forward
by those who are cynical about human rights. This approach might reveal a critical,
deconstructive perspective on the ontological and epistemological foundations of human rights
so that evolutionary thoughts are stimulated and an alternative language is conceptualised to
advance research in the field of human rights education. Both of these suggestions require the
ability to interrogate. Žižek (2012, 18) encourages us to ask new, troubling and unpleasant

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20
questions such as: Is a particular social issue really a problem? Are we formulating the problem
correctly? How did we arrive at this social problem? (Žižek 2013, 53). Žižek should be taken
seriously when he says, ‘It is the people who have the answers, they just do not know the
questions to which they have (or, rather are) the answer’ (2012, 89). As a result, those
embarking on human rights education research should be heedful of the questions that they ask
and avoid trying to solve problems with ‘quick fixes’.
We find Žižek’s critique of human rights stimulating in as far as it raises fundamental
questions about human rights that might facilitate the development of an alternative language
to advance the field of human rights education research and to inspire researchers to become
more cynical about human rights education research that too often engages with the topic
uncritically. In an article, Against human rights, Žižek (2005) provides a provocative, albeit
convincing argument about human rights in liberal capitalist democracies. For him, three
assumptions underpin contemporary appeals to human rights in liberal capitalist democracies:
the first is that such appeals function in opposition to modes of fundamentalism that would
naturalise or essentialise contingent historically conditioned traits. The second is that the two
most basic rights are freedom of choice, and the right to dedicate one’s life to the pursuit of
pleasure (rather than to sacrifice it for some higher ideological cause). The third assumption is
that an appeal to human rights may form the basis for a defence against the ‘excess of power’
(Žižek 2005, 115).
Regarding the first point, Žižek (2005, 116–117) argues that liberal capitalist democracies
use the features of fundamentalism – i.e. religious intolerance, ethnic violence and a fixation
with historical trauma – to divert attention to the private sphere where difference prevails. In so
doing, the public sphere is fragmented and weakened, thus more power is bestowed upon liberal
capitalist democracies to decide on the behalf of the public who are fragmented and unequal in
nature (Žižek 2005, 117). It is in this sense that Žižek (2013, 39) also refers to the disappearance
of public life. Drawing on Catherine Malabou’s The New Wounded, Žižek (2013, 56–57)
explains the loss of public life as a new psychic illness, namely ‘post-traumatic personality’,
where the individual has experienced trauma and is deprived of social existence and substance.
On the second point, Žižek (2005, 117–118) challenges pseudo-choices: when we are
given the freedom of choice, but in a context where the conditions under which the choice is to
be made renders it unfree. Elsewhere Žižek (2012, 54) rhetorically asks: What world do we
inhabit in which we celebrate freedom of choice but see blind acting out as the only response
to enforce democratic consensus? Together with this goes a redoubled right of seeking pleasure
by duty and seeing one’s duty as pleasure. Žižek (2005, 120–121) describes this as follows:

Simmonds and Du Preez Discourses shaping human rights education research
21
In the first case, pleasures are my duty, and the ‘pathological’ striving for pleasure is located in
the formal space of duty. In the second case, duty is my pleasure, and doing my duty is located in
the formal space of ‘pathological’ satisfactions.
This logic drives humans to both obey and exploit human rights, which inevitably sustains
liberal capitalist democracies.
Regarding the third point, Žižek (2005, 121–125) postulates that liberal capitalist
democracies hide the violence inherent to their power by employing the language of human
rights. For example, they will tolerate moral wars between populist/conservative parties and
liberalist parties on human rights issues such as homosexuality and abortion, merely to protect
their own economic and political interests through reinforcing difference in the private sphere
so as to weaken the strength of public reason (Žižek 2012, 30–32). Tolerating such moral wars
is an example of politically correct behaviour: behaviour that ‘hides extreme violence’ (Žižek
2013, 84). In addition, by tolerating moral wars through emphasising morality through the
language of human rights, liberal capitalist democracies divert the discourse to prevent a
critique against neo-liberalism (Žižek 2012, 78).
Against this background, Žižek (2005, 125–128) problematises how liberal capitalist
democracies both depoliticise human rights and humanise them. The former happens when
dominant forces are put in place to restore the rights of the deprived, exploited or powerless
humans. Such interventions, he argues, are used to depoliticise and mask liberal capitalist
democracies’ economic and political interests. The latter occurs when human rights are treated
as a commodity: when they are handed over from those with power (should they not use their
rights) to those left powerless. Commodifying human rights is theoretically justified by
universalist/particularist essentialisations that ascribe very different meanings to what
constitutes ‘human’. In addition, it leads to the question: What do human rights mean for those
treated as human and what does it mean for those suffering inhumanness?
For Žižek (2005, 131) the gap between the depoliticisation and humanisation of human
rights discourses is not merely an abstract paradox, but a concrete one in as far as it ‘separates
the whole of the community from itself’. He argues that the discourses steering human rights
in liberal capitalist democracies can only be changed and regenerated when the symbolic gap
between these discourses is understood as a space where this reconceptualisation could take
place (Žižek 2005, 128). This gap is not to be filled or balanced in any way, because these
discourses already flow into one another, thus affirming the varied identities that emphasise
their difference (Žižek 2013, 5). By way of illustration, Žižek (2012, 15) argues that the
instability of capitalism creates a double symptomatic threat that leads to solutions such as
resuscitating social solidarity and emphasising multicultural tolerance, but fails to address the

Simmonds and Du Preez Discourses shaping human rights education research
22
deep-seated issues in the existing order. Therefore, he warns us not to attempt to humanise the
capitalist beast (Žižek 2012, 16). What is in fact needed is a change in the balance, that is, when
the measure of balance can be reformed to change the existing order (Žižek 2013, 7).
CONCLUSION
This article suggests that the discourses shaping human rights education research have been
marked by three phases: the inception, growth and cynicism in the field of Education in South
Africa. Based on the pleas to envisage human rights education as ‘a space for contestation,
contention, disputation, public debate and social engagement’ (Keet 2012, 9), we have put forth
two considerations for researchers. These are based on our findings that current research is
predominantly school-based and fundamentally descriptive and uncritical. First, we do not
regard it fruitful that in South Africa the responsibility is still placed too heavily on schools to
be the driving force of human rights education. More research on and in post-schooling will
initiate broader human rights education debates that will enrich the field of Education. Second,
we question research that uncritically accepts the fundamental nature of human rights as this
reinforces the way human rights education is conceptualised. We encourage researchers in
human rights education to challenge and research the arguments and discourses put forward by
those who are cynical about human rights.
NOTE
1. We acknowledge the differences between human rights education and human rights in education
and are also aware of the various nuances to which these give rise. For the purpose of this article
the concept ‘human rights education’ is used as a collective so as to include all variances.
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