Transforming legal education through emotions

Abstract

Law has traditionally viewed emotions as the enemies of rationality and reason, irrational and potentially dangerous forces which must be suppressed or disregarded. This separation and enmity has been mirrored within undergraduate legal education in England and Wales, with its rigid focus on seemingly impartial and objective analysis and notions such as the ubiquitous 'thinking like a lawyer'. This paper will argue that attempts to disregard or suppress emotions within the law school are both misguided and destined to fail. It will explore the integral part emotions play within effective legal learning, the development of legal skills, and the wellbeing of both law students and legal academics. It will also consider how developments in legal scholarship and the evolving climate of higher education generally offer the potential, but also pitfalls, for the future acknowledgment and incorporation of emotions within undergraduate legal education in England and Wales.Bodies of literature relating to not only legal education, but also education generally, psychology and philosophy will be drawn on to demonstrate that emotions have a potentially transformative power within legal education, requiring them to be acknowledged and utilised within a more holistic, integrated form of law degree.

The Role of Legal Education in Shaping the Legal Culture of the Future: Strategies and Prospects for Development

“…• rational-transformational approach (Jones, 2021), which defines the intellectual component as the driver of educational strategies in the legal segment;…”

“…More generalised ideas of an educational nature are expressed in the concept of legal literacy in the works of Grimes (2020), Hardie et al (2020). The following aspects of legal education in the system of legal culture have been specified: emotional and volitional element (Jones, 2021), human-centred (Madhloom &Antonopoulos, 2022), public andcommunication (McFaul et al, 2020).…”

Pembelajaran Hukum dalam Pendidikan Kewarganegaraan Sekolah Dasar Berdasarkan Teori Pedagogik

“…Pembelajaran hukum dalam pendidikan kewarganegaraan merupakan aspek penting dalam membentuk karakter warga negara yang peduli akan hak dan kewajibannya dalam sebuah masyarakat yang beradab. Berdasarkan teori pedagogik, pendekatan pembelajaran hukum dapat diselenggarakan dengan memperhatikan berbagai metode dan strategi yang dapat meningkatkan pemahaman serta partisipasi aktif siswa dalam memahami sistem hukum dan nilai-nilai keadilan (Gregersen, 2022;Jones, 2019;Scholes, 2022;Simpson, 2023;Vetter, 2022). Dalam konteks ini, pemahaman tentang teori-teori pedagogik yang relevan menjadi landasan penting dalam merancang proses pembelajaran yang efektif dan relevan bagi perkembangan peserta didik dalam memahami dan menginternalisasi nilai-nilai hukum sebagai bagian integral dari pembentukan kepribadian dan identitas kewarganegaraan (Bornhauser, 2022;Ferguson, 2021;Montalbo, 2021;Oliva, 2021).…”