Educational philosopher George Counts(1932) urged teachers in the early 1900s that they needed to be present in the community, and that there was a social responsibility for the students and families to see that presence.  Years later, educator Miles Horton, founder of the Highlander School would make a similar call in deep dialogue with philosopher Paulo Freire (1990).  More recently, the fields of social justice education, ethnic studies, human rights and peace education  have continued this call for teachers and educators to be relevant in their lives of their students, whether that be through developing culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), humanizing our schools (Bajaj et. al, 2023), making our schools more caring (Hantzopolous, 2016), and as Bree Picower (2012) calls “practicing what we teach”.  I see this push articulated in the The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) in which Article 29 on the right to education pushes for: 

(c) The development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;

(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin.  

This articulation of Article 29, has been the backbone of the call for a human rights education beginning with the decade of Human Rights Education starting in 1995 (Tibbits, 2017, Flowers, 2000, Hantzopolous & Bajaj 2021).   In particular the recent work of Bajaj, Cislaghi and Mackie (2016) in which they introduce and define Transformative Human Rights Education (THRE).   They define transformative human rights education 

as community-based approach, intended for children, youth, and adults in formal or non-formal settings, and one that includes cognitive, affective, and action-oriented elements.  Contextualized and relevant studies are paired with interactive learning to bring human rights to life and to foster in students and citizens an awareness of global citizenship and a respect for human rights (Bajaj, Cilaghi and Mackie, 2016, para 5-6).  

This research expands on the definition of THRE as a tool for the full implementation of Article 29, and speaks to the how, in particular, the how of  a “community based approach”.   In this piece, the author expands on previous work naming activist accompaniment as research (Hernandez Arriaga & Argenal, 2022) to explore the impact of this scholarship on teaching, in particular, activist accompaniment as pedagogy and the use of this type of pedagogy as a praxis of  THRE and a way to work towards the articulation of Article 29.  Through a reflection of teaching practices, the author names activist accompaniment as pedagogy as a necessary pedagogical praxis to be relevant in students’ lives and communities, hold justice and movements for justice central in  teaching, constantly interrogate power, even in one’s own classroom, and create spaces to practice many of the skills needed to live in a free society, and practice understanding and respect for difference.    

Pulling from experiences teaching a high school “service learning” course on migration, the research shares key themes speaking to how a community engaged praxis, in particular, what the scholar names “activist accompaniment”  (Hernandez Arriaga and Argenal, 2022), allows for students to connect to lived experiences, create intergenerational relationships that practice values of human rights, and create avenues for student action.  

This paper pulls from a qualitative case study of the researcher’s high school experience in a private independent high school on the West Coast of California. For this case study, qualitative data was collected about students’ perceptions of the classes the researcher taught with a focus on human rights, migration and decoloniality. In-depth interviews incorporating the perspectives and reflections from the researcher are included in the data. The data collection took place in the Spring of 2021, once some California high schools began to re-open for in-person instruction after an abrupt transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The private independent high school, which is referred to as City High School, has about 390 students from grades 9–12. Around 35% of the students identify as students of color, and about 30% receive some portion of financial aid. Institutional Review Board approval was received and the research team shared surveys with all students enrolled in two specific courses that were taught. The courses were Making America, an early U.S. History class and Global Migration, an elective interdisciplinary course. A small portion of students attending the City High School shared their experiences in the courses through in-depth interviews as well. Questions around the students’ experiences in the class, as well as their understanding of and connection to human rights were asked. The researcher also kept detailed field notes over the course of teaching both courses, as new approaches to both pedagogy and curricula were incorporated. The data will pull from both the qualitative case study and the researchers reflections and observations in particular to themes around the utilization of Transformative Human Rights Education.

Hernandez Arriaga and Argenal (2022) define “activist research as a form of accompaniment… we name our emotional, political, and investigative work we have been immersed in as activist accompaniment, grounding the relational importance of research as accompaniment “ (p. 159). This research methodology speaks to the centering of relationships with research participants, not only in the collection of data but in long term relational work that grounds the participants political and economic desires. To introduce this as a pedagogy, the author claims to situate the outside relationships with movements for justice and human rights as central to their teaching and pedagogy, allowing students to learn from and enter into those spaces. The research will first offer a definition of activist accompaniment as pedagogy, and share key practices that students responded to in the two courses taught, and connect those key practices to articulations of Transformative HRE and Article 29 of the CRC. Activist Accompaniment as pedagogy creates space for intergenerational relationships, allows for learning outside of the classroom, and creates connections between students and local movements for justice. Examples of how students articulated their understanding of the pedagogy and the impact will be contextualized alongside the researcher’s field notes and reflections.

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