Human rights pedagogy-oriented history learning: An innovative way in shaping democratic ethics among university students

Abstract

Human Rights Pedagogy (HRP) has gained growing attention as a transformative educational framework capable of strengthening democratic values, humanitarian awareness, and civic responsibility, yet its integration into higher education, particularly in history learning, remains limited. This study examines the role of HRP-oriented history learning in shaping university students’ democratic ethics within the Indonesian higher education context, where challenges of intolerance, democratic stagnation, and weak human rights awareness persist. Employing a 4D Research and Development design (Define, Design, Develop, Disseminate) supported by quasi-experimental analysis, this research involved 80 history education students from two private universities in Jakarta, divided into experimental and control groups. Data were collected through observations, interviews, questionnaires, expert validation, and pretest–posttest instruments measuring democratic ethics. The findings reveal that conventional history learning remains predominantly narrative and fact-based with limited dialogic and human rights dimensions, underscoring the need for pedagogical reform. The development of HRP-based interactive digital teaching materials, validated by experts and tested in stages, proved pedagogically practical and effective. The quasi-experimental results demonstrate a highly significant improvement in students’ democratic ethics, with the experimental group showing substantially higher gain scores compared to the control group (p < 0.001), particularly in human rights understanding, democratic discussion skills, tolerance, and critical reflection.