Human Rights Education is becoming of a great importance globally. It has been defined as «training, dissemination, and information efforts aimed at the building of a universal culture of human rights through the imparting of knowledge and skills and the molding of attitudes».

The main objective of the studyis to find out the level of awareness ofGreek university students in the sphere of Human Rights (HR) as this is a part of the base of the "learning pyramid" of Human Rights Education (HRE) and how they would feel if their HR were violated .

The main research questions of the study are a) where do university students obtain information on HR from? b) with whom they talk about HR?, c) how would they feel if their HR were violated?

Theoretical framework

The United Nations (UN) declared 1995-2004 the Decade for Human Rights Education (HRE); as a follow-up initiated a HRE World Programme (2005-2009), aimed at the support and development of sustainable national strategies and programmes in (HRE). HRE is an emerging area of practice that aspires to promote and protect human dignity and encourages trainers to involve learners in what can be termed an «empowerment process». It is not merely about valuing and respecting human rights, but about fostering personal action in order to guarantee these conditions (Tibbits, 2005:107). HRE consists of three models: the "values and awareness model", which aims at knowledge, through data and a concept of human rights; the "accountability model" which aims at attitudes and values, through self respect and fair treatment; and the "transformational model" which aims at skills, both intellectual and action-based, informed by critical thinking and capacity building. These models can be presented like a "learning pyramid." "Values and awareness model" would be found at its base, "accountability model" in the middle and "transformational model" at the narrow top (Tibbits, 2002). This mixture of all three levels, which each one interacts with other, allows HRE to implement its aims in a successful way. Consequently, not only citizens are able to understand and state their HR and those of others, but also recognize HR’s violations, express their feelings against them, claim these rights and defend them if it necessary (Flowers, 2003; Mihr, 2004).

UN policies promoting HRE and the globalization in economic terms, which has led to more injustice all over the world, have driven many higher learning institutions and professional associations to seize upon the opportunity and incorporate into national curricula the philosophy, perspectives, and concepts of human rights. In Greece, HRE has been infused at some extent  in some departments of the Schools of  Humanities and Social Sciences (such as in the University of Crete, Thessaloniki, Patras, Ioannina) but in other Schools such as the School of  Engineering  and the School of  Natural Sciences (in the University of Patras) has not been existed in their curriculum. According to above, we will try to give answers to research questions by examining if there is statistical difference in the given answers by the university students related to a) schools of universities and b) gender of participants.

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