Biography and research interests
Dr Sam Mejias is a researcher specialising in the fields of human rights and citizenship education, international educational development, youth media, and media for development. He holds a PhD in Education from the UCL Institute of Education and a Master’s degree in International Educational Development from Columbia University Teachers College. He is currently the research officer at the Department of Media and Communications for the Catch-EyoU project, a multi-country European Commission Horizon 2020 project running from 2015-2018.
Dr Mejias’ past work includes development research for BBC Media Action, UNICEF and the Economist; academic research at UCL Institute of Education; curriculum development for Amnesty International and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law; and film and music production on freelance multimedia projects.
Dr Mejias’ doctoral research consisted of a two-year ethnographic study of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Friendly Schools project. The research explored the potential limits of human rights education and other forms of global citizenship education in helping schools become more ‘utopian,’ examining the influence of neoliberal policies and pragmatic concerns on school management and teaching practices, and investigating the relationship between rights-based discourses and school-based micropolitical activity.
Selected Publications
Mejias, S. (Forthcoming). Politics, Power and Protest: Rights-Based Education Policy and the Limits of Human Rights Education. In Bajaj, Monisha (Ed.), Global Perspectives on Human Rights Education.
Mejias, S. and Starkey, H. (2012). Critical Citizens or Neoliberal Consumers? Utopian Visions and Pragmatic Uses of Human Rights Education in a Secondary School in England. In Mitchell, Richard C. and Moore, Shannon A. (Eds.), Politics, Participation & Power Relations: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Critical Citizenship in the Classroom and Community. Toronto: Sense Publishers.
Mejias, S. (2009).Guidelines for Human Rights Friendly Schools. Developed for Amnesty International.