A Relational Hermeneutical Approach to Human Rights Education

This research is an effort to transcend the debate of universalism and cultural relativism by offering a new conceptualization of human rights. The conceptualization is presented through the development of a theoretical framework in the form of an epistemology. The research articulates and defends the epistemology, which is grounded on relationalism and hermeneutics. Fusion of horizons emerges from the relational hermeneutical epistemology as an essential process that values each tradition of human rights, and their equivalents, as a valid dialogical element in the epistemology. A critical pedagogy emerges from grounding human rights education on a relational hermeneutical epistemology. Thus, the dissertation argues for grounding human rights education across cultures on the described epistemology.