Learning Experience 3: Rights Inflation

TASK

SUGGESTED LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Gather

• Icebreakers for the Classroom
• Recap on human rights: What are universal human rights? Benedetta Berti

• What is inflation? Where have you heard this word before?
• What is rights inflation?
• What are the consequences of rights inflation?
Consideration: “Rights inflation, the tendency to frame almost any grievance as a rights violation” (Debating Rights Inflation in Canada: A Sociology of Human Rights, p. 3).

Synthesize

Students in groups of 3 or 4 will look at one of the quotes taken from “Debating Rights Inflation in Canada” in Appendix A and discuss the following questions:
1. Do you agree or disagree with the quote?
2. What is your reasoning or justification?
3. How does the quote relate to human rights?
4. How does this quote relate to social justice?
5. How does it relate to rights inflation?
• The dark side of ‘Rights Inflation’: Why activists should ‘reject the impulse to frame all grievances as human rights’
• Human Rights “inflation” – what’s the problem?
• Case Studies that look at Rights Inflation

Transfer

Use the Think-Pair-Share strategy:
1. Think: students contemplate the concept below.
2. Pair: students discuss their response with a partner.
3. Students share with the class.
Question to contemplate: How might your everyday life be impacted by rights inflation?