人權是我國民主化後，政府及整個社會所宣稱追求的價值；而人權教育更是九○年代後政府所推動的重大教育方針之。近來社會上發生一連串令人震驚的違反人權的事件，不得不讓我們省思我們的人權寶踐問題以及我國人權教育的未來。人權思想可說是西方的產物，它的發展直溯到上古時代，但做爲民主政治的理論基礎則是從工業革命以後才逐漸形成；人權內涵的發展可以分爲四個世代：分別是第一代的公民及政治的權利；第二代的經濟、社會及文化的權利；第三代的民族自決及發展權；與近年來國際所關切的第四代人權。儘管人權內涵的發展有階段性的「世代」理論，但它所關注的焦點卻不曾悖離實現有關人之爲人所應有的尊嚴。而這正是人權的核心價值，並隨時代的變遷及利技的進步在內容及層而上有所擴充。人權教育蘊含人權文化的陶冶，如尊重、平等、自由等價值的學習；同時，人權教育也必須是全面性的推動與落寶。最後，人權觀念若能結合我們固有文化的精神內涵，相信會對「人權」的普世性更增其立論基礎。

After the democratization of our country, human rights is the important values that our government and society announce and pursue; and the human rights education is one of significant educational policies the government has put into practice during the 90's. But series of events that violated the human rights happened in our society recently, which force us to think about the practicing of human rights education and it's future. Actually, human rights is the western product, the development of which may trace back to the antiquity, but after the Industrial Revolution, it became the foundation of democracy. The process of human rights connotation development may divide into four generations, they are "the first-generation of citizen and the political rights", "the second-generation of economic, social and cultural rights", "the third-generation of national self-determination and the right to development", and the fourth-generation of human rights that arouses many international discussions. Although it can be taken apart in "generation theory", it still focus on the dignity which human beings are who they are to have, and which expands with changing of times and progress of technology in the contents and dimensions. The human rights education includes the human rights culture cultivation, something like respect, equality, freedom and so on, meanwhile, the human rights education must be the comprehensive impetus and the realization as well. Finally, if the human rights ideology can combine our inherent culture the mental connotation, it will raise the foundation of "the universal human rights principle".