Youth Human Rights Education: A Kaleidoscope of Knowledge (s) and Actions

How can we transform Human Rights Education to truly resonate with young people in our rapidly changing world? This Thematic Forum brings together academics and practitioners to explore new pathways forward for HRE that are grounded in diverse ways of knowing and youth-led actions while oriented toward meaningful change.

On March 5th 2026 with support from the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy the Voice, Agency and Rights in Education (VARiE) Research Group will convene a one-day thematic forum on Youth Human Rights Education. This event will feature a day of research sessions open to UCD staff, students and interested members of the public.

The overarching aim of the event led by Dr Gabriela Martinez Sainz (UCD School of Education) is to interrogate how multiple knowledge systems and ways of knowing can inform more pedagogically innovative approaches to HRE, while simultaneously centering young people not merely as subjects or beneficiaries of such education, but as active agents whose advocacy and activism constitute both forms of and catalysts for transformative human rights learning. The objective is threefold: 1) explore how a diversity of epistemologies can inform innovative human rights education approaches, 2) identify relevant actions, particularly advocacy and activism, among young people that can strengthen human rights education and 3) translate knowledge into actionable guidelines for policy and practice in HRE.

The forum will examine how young people themselves are already reshaping HRE through their advocacy and activism, and how these movements can inform more responsive, relevant practices. The contributors will also discuss the opportunities and challenges of epistemologically pluralistic, youth-centered, and action-oriented HRE and imagine pathways for a systemic change in how human rights are taught, experienced, and enacted by and with young people.

Info: Educating for children’s human rights in and beyond the classroom

Info: Multiple knowledge systems and ways of knowing

Info: Education for human rights through multiple actions: from advocacy and activism

Info: Education for human rights through multiple actions: from advocacy and activism

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Host or Publisher UCD Geary Institute