Integrating Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals through Scratch Programming: A Case Study from a Greek Elementary School

Abstract

This case study examined an educational intervention in a Greek primary school integrating Human Rights Education (HRE) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via Scratch. Over five sessions, 17 sixth-graders, including students with learning difficulties, collaboratively modified a pre-designed Scratch game to express social justice messages. Guided by research objectives on Computational Thinking (CT), inclusive participation, and critical human rights consciousness, data from participatory observation, digital artefacts, and student reflections were interpreted through qualitative thematic analysis. Grounded in constructionist theory, the project demonstrates how multimodal digital storytelling fosters inclusive participation and critical awareness of global issues. By employing freely available tools, the study highlights pedagogical strategies for equitable citizenship education and offers practical implications for Open and Distance Learning (ODL). Findings reveal that accessible technology empowers young learners — including those with disabilities — as active digital authors, providing a scalable framework for values-based coding in inclusive settings.