How should educators deal with conspiracy theories in the classroom, if at all? Do the epistemic deficiencies of some conspiracy theories make them easy prey for debunking? Can the moral and political dangers that certain conspiracy theories pose to democratic societies justify educators avoiding addressing conspiracy theories in the classroom?…

This article seeks to explore how, why and under which conditions a move away from critique as a negative practice towards an -- educationally more valuable -- affirmative notion of critique is important in formulating pedagogies that might respond more productively to the challenges of the post-truth era. What is at stake here in reframing…

This paper theorizes the affective and moral grounding of "best practice" policymaking, particularly how best practice operates as an affective regime that encourages certain affective norms. To illustrate this, the author takes up the example of best practices promoted by the CoE's "Digital Citizenship Education Handbook" for…

This paper focuses on the limitations of the Eurocentric modernist framework that undergirds Freirean theory and critical pedagogy in relation to critical peace education, highlighting in particular the contributions of post-colonial and decolonial thinking. The paper posits that critical approaches to peace education need to consider these…

This paper adds to the growing literature that critically examines the cultural politics of the OECD's framework of global competence by turning our attention to the 'affective ideology' underlying this framework, namely, how affect is used ideologically to produce specific subjectivities and moralities in students. Building upon the work of…

This article takes up Foucault's politics of human rights and suggests that it may constitute a point of departure for the renewal of HRE, not only because it rejects the moral superiority of humanism--the grounding for the dominant liberal framework of international human rights--but also because it makes visible the complexities of human rights…

This paper argues that it is important for educators in democratic education to understand how the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the United States and around the world can never be viewed apart from the affective investments of populist leaders and their supporters to essentialist ideological visions of nationalism, racism, sexism and…

This article argues that there is an urgent need to engage with a deeper analysis of the contemporary culture of "political depression" and its affective implications in human rights education (HRE). In particular, the article focuses on the following questions: How might a theorization of political depression be relevant to efforts that…

Within the broad Freirean paradigm that dominates critical pedagogy, there is a tendency to assume that affects such as love, hope, and empathy as well as revolutionary agency are naturally occurring in all human beings and that conscientization will eventually lead to empowerment for change (Amsler 2011). However, it is not clear how the workings…

This paper addresses one of the challenges in human rights education (HRE) concerning the conceptualization of a pedagogical orientation that avoids both the pitfalls of a purely juridical address and a "cheap sentimental" approach. The paper uses as its point of departure Richard Rorty's key intervention on human rights discourse and…

This article examines the moral, political and pedagogical tensions that are created from the entanglement of patriotism and human rights, and sketches a response to these tensions in the context of critical education. The article begins with a brief review of different forms of patriotism, especially as those relate to human rights, and explains…

The present paper examines the implementation of a particular human rights education approach--known as "critical hermeneutical" approach--in the context of two Greek-Cypriot classrooms. The study investigates whether and how an intervention grounded in this approach offers transformative possibilities to students and what kind of…

This paper investigates the interference of local politics with a peace education initiative in Greek-Cypriot education and the consequent impact on teachers' perceptions and responses. Focusing on a recent educational attempt to promote "peaceful coexistence", the authors explain how this attempt was seen by many teachers as being a…

In this paper, the author shows that the issue of whether toleration promotes coexistence is controversial and therefore needs careful consideration in light of the complexities that are involved in understanding and teaching toleration in the schools of conflict and post-conflict societies. In particular, this paper offers a critique to the…

This paper is grounded in a phenomenological-interpretive exploration of how mourning is experienced and understood by the victim's nuclear family--the victims are Greek-Cypriot missing persons whose remains have been recovered, identified and properly buried, after exhumations of mass graves in the aftermath of war. Particularly, the focus is on…