Rock music and human rights education

Abstract

Human Rights Education is an area in school curricula that is gaining constant importance. However, Maltese schools have failed to give due importance to this area. Many theories view that first-hand experience facilitates apprehension. Many methods arise from this consideration but certainly, Rock Music is to be considered as an important resource in its communicative power towards presenting reallife experiences as vividly as possible in the classroom. It is the objective of this dissertation to stress the importance of Human Rights Education and to examine the possible contribution of Rock Music to such an educational area. Since the topic is so vast, this study deals mainly with Form 5 level of education. After giving some philosophical insights into human rights, and some general notes about Rock Music, this study examines the situation of -Human Rights Education- in our schools and offers suggestions to increase its validity. -social Studies- is the only subject to offer -Human Rightstopics. Therefore, this study identifies those items in the syllabus that deal with human rights and groups them as Political Rights, Social Rights and Rights of the Child. They are tackled in terms of how Rock Music can be used as a resource to develop or reinforce the topic.