Educating in human rights by educating in power

Abstract

This writing is going to suggest an educational model to Human Rights with the aim of not only increasing awareness to world’s important issues, or that of abiding by the rules and esta-blished rights, but also with in mind of educa-ting to power. The word ‘power’ can be disturbing, evoking associations with arrogance or violence. However, in this writing it will be used in its most basic meaning, that of being able to act and interact with the world creatively and inde-pendently. In this sense, education to power is a fundamental process in the development of empowerment strategies in marginalized sub-jects, increasing their capacity to make their rights work for them. The idea of education to power runs parallel with a particular concept of legality in democra-cy. In this context, the word legality is to be extended from the basic notion of ‘following the rules’, to a wider and more inclusive meaning related to a heightened capacity of individuals to give rules to themselves, becoming law ma-kers and contributing to the permanent con-struction of their own community.