Education policies:

Human Rights and the Earth Charter

Abstract

This paper aims to address themes related to human rights education and the principles of the Earth Charter in education policies and processes. Such considerations result from investigations carried out by the Research Group on Education Management Policies and Education Professional Development of UMESP. The group interactions were guided by the critical research-action/research-intervention and gathered undergraduate and graduate (master’s and doctoral programs) students. Our investigations highlighted the aspect that in curriculum policies, progressive themes such as human rights, ecology, social justice, democracy, and peace culture, among others, are approached as transversal and appropriated in the technicist law aiming at the development of competences and skills. The research group intervention aimed to strengthen the critical-transforming education proposed by Freire, and suggested a structural change in the school curricula, whose contents should promote the problematization of the reality experienced by individuals and society to transform it for Human Rights.