TY - JOUR A1 - Sen, A Y1 - 2020/// PB - Informa UK Limited IS - 4 TI - 'Powerful' human rights education's curriculum problems KW - Human rights education KW - powerful knowledge KW - social realism KW - Council of Europe KW - Turkey UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764x.2020.1718609 SP - 409 AV - public EP - 427 JF - Cambridge Journal of Education N1 - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions. ID - discovery10093477 VL - 50 N2 - In an effort to support the curricular institutionalisation of human rights education (HRE) as a school subject, Walter Parker has proposed a curriculum model based on the powerful knowledge (PK) thesis developed by a group of social realist educators. This article aims to contribute to this worthwhile endeavour to develop a consensual HRE curriculum model by identifying four issues with Parker?s proposition. While Parker argues the prevalence of constructivism impeded the development of an HRE, the author argues that the negative implications of constructivism for traditional subjects are not true for HRE. After expanding on the other two issues, Sen notes empirical evidence from an HRE textbook, in use in Turkey, to support his fourth point that what is key to a powerful HRE is political support. The article ends with a call to the HRE community to contemplate political impediments that risk making HRE an ineffective enterprise at schools. ER -