Translating global norms on crime to schools: analysing textbook lessons on the trafficking of humans in the United States, Nigeria and Germany

Abstract

How are global norms translated to school settings across countries? Schools teach global norms, but how exactly these norms are presented in this setting is rarely analysed. In this article, we compare how human trafficking, a global crime defined at the UN level, is depicted in more than a hundred textbooks for secondary schools in the United States, Nigeria and Germany. Human trafficking is linked to a multitude of different criminal activities, ranging from child trafficking to modern slavery, organ trafficking, and forced prostitution, each with varying implications regarding underlying social problems and possible counter-efforts. What textbooks depict concerning global norms on global crime thus differs substantially across countries, underlining arguments of norm research on translation and hybridity. We show how textbooks translate global normative debates to the school context in a way that shows some commonalities but also significant national variations, for example, regarding where exploitation occurs, what exactly constitutes trafficking, and how it relates to slavery. These findings raise questions on common normative understandings regarding crime and current and future threat perceptions.