O where are you going? O do you imagine? Reproduction and response : a reflexive sociology of scholarship of teaching and learning in practical legal training

My doctoral research studies Australian PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning. I argue that many PLT practitioners are motivated to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning in their work. There are, however, individual and extra-individual impediments.
PLT practitioners are lawyers that teach in institutional practical legal training (“PLT”). Satisfactory completion of mandatory PLT is an eligibility requirement for admission to the Australian legal profession. The PLT requirement is additional to academic legal qualifications. PLT is undertaken at a post-graduate level with, or after, the academic law degree.
My study investigates PLT practitioners’ motivations and capabilities to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning (“SoTL”). I study organisational symbolic support for SoTL in PLT, and organisational allocation of resources to SoTL in PLT.
The study involves individual and extra-individual domains of PLT practitioners’ work. It considers how social structures (e.g. “the juridical”) are inscribed into individuals’ practices (“teaching”) and, conversely, whether practices influence social structures.
My research adopts qualitative methodologies. These involve inter-disciplinary exchanges between law, legal education, practice research, sociology of law, cultural theory, and theory and practice of teaching and learning. My theoretical framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s “reflexive sociology”, and Michel de Certeau’s “heterological science”.
I sourced data from documents, and semi-structured interviews with 36 Australian PLT practitioners. Documentary sources include statutory instruments, speeches, reports, practice directions, histories, and scholarly publications.
To analyse the data I adopted Kelle’s characterisation of “theoretical sensitivity”, drawing on “explicit” and “emergent” analysis strategies derived from “grounded theory”. The explicit strategies were based on my theoretical framework. The emergent strategy involved sensitivity to non-explicit concepts and theories that emerged from the data. Computer-aided qualitative data analysis software expedited these methods.
My findings to date question dominant legal structures’ readiness for change, the implications of this for teaching and learning in PLT, and in particular for PLT practitioners’ engagement with SoTL in PLT.
The espoused rationale for mandatory PLT (in statutes) is improvement for the protection of clients, the administration of justice, and to assure quality legal services. The tacit rationale is improved quality of legal education, and experiences, for lawyers-to-be. My thesis argues dominant structures in legal education impede the espoused and tacit objectives, and impede PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning.

A utilitarian argument: laying the foundation for a coherent system of law

Even the most ardent legal positivists agree that as a matter offact there is a connection between law and morality. In most Western legal systems this association is very strong. Underpinning most legal rules is a (real or  purported) moral principle - certainly it is difficult to find examples of laws which are clearly immoral. The foundation upon which a coherent and justifiable legal system must be built is a theory of morality.

The minimum moral content of law : a critique of Hart's descriptive theory of positive and natural law

Review of H.L.A. Hart's account of the minimum moral content of law - assesses its consistency with the methodology provided in his description of the focal meaning or central case of law - particular focus is Hart's consideration of the ultimate end of man - how difficulties faced by Hart's account of the minimum moral content of law can be overcome.

The rule of law as an Australian constitutionalist promise

The author poses the question whether the rule of law is a constitutionalist promise that protects all Australians or whether it is simply a juridical principle that may be balanced against certain social factors.  Constitutionalist promises involve the limiting and supporting of state power. The author examines several instances of state power exercised in Australia and concludes that we should not rely on the rule of law as an absolute means of achieving equality, human rights, justice, freedom and even democracy.

Making sense of law and disorder

This article tells the story of a cross-cultural encounter on a beach at King George's Sound in the south west of Australia in 1826, when Major Edmund Lockyer arrived to establish a British military garrison. The account we have of those early encounters come from the pen of Lockyer, and by taking a close reading of his journal this article attempts to reveal the meanings and context of Aboriginal actions. It also analyses how the Aborigines and the British made sense and subsequently responded to the encounter. Whilst this story is not given iconic status in Australian historiography, it is valuable in opening up a porthole into this contact zone at the moment when precarious relationships were being formed.

Remaking the body : explorations in the sociology of embodiment

As embodied social agents our lives are preoccupied with the production and reproduction of bodies. Making, unmaking and remaking our embodiment are ongoing activities. Eating, exercise, washing, grooming, dressing, for example, are activities in which the body engages in routine tasks of bodily management. Such activities can be seen as everyday rehabilitation. The study explores the impact of major physical impairment on embodiment, and on the processes involved in re-embodiment after catastrophic injury or disease. The experiences of the people in this study dramatically highlight the continuous, but largely taken for granted processes involved in our embodiment. Four analytical strands are interwoven throughout the study. The first strand relates to the frailty and vulnerability of the human body, characteristics which are epitomised by the bodies of the informants in this study. The second strand engages with key aspects of the context in which re-embodiment takes place, namely a context replete with crisis, danger, fear, uncertainty and risk. The third strand projects into the future in considering the ongoing project of self. The fourth strand addresses the institutional and social impediments which may confine vulnerable bodies and limit the exploration of more expansive bodies. The study is situated within the general theoretical approach of the sociology of the body. While recognizing the powerful impact of social discourse in the production of bodies, the study focuses on the critical role of embodiment in the reconstitution of self. The people in this study have experienced profound bodily change, but although this damage has disrupted, it has not annihilated their embodied selves. The people still possess and occupy their bodies. It is the obduracy of embodiment which directs the processes involved in remaking the body.

Facts, threats and reds : common law constitutionalism and the rule of law

In a concurring judgment in Thomas v Mowbray, a High Court of Australia case turning on the Constitutional validity of terrorism-related control orders, Callinan J offers a re-evaluation of the Court’s earlier decision in the Australian Communist Party case to curtail executive power. According to Callinan J, factual matters knowable (but not known) at the time of the earlier decision might have given rise to a different outcome. In a dissenting judgment by Kirby J in the same case the Court’s reasoning in the Australian Communist Party case is robustly defended. These contested issues connect with the theoretical dispute between ‘common law constitutionalism’ and ‘constitutional positivism’ analysed by Dyzenhaus in the context of states of emergency where the limits of executive action and the role of supporting facts become particularly salient. They press the question of the status of the rule of law in the international as well as in the municipal sphere.

Can education add value to values? A study of law students

In the global market place the value of education takes on many meanings. In transnational education forums it relates to the market’s assessment (in dollar terms) of a qualification. But can we measure the value-addedness of tertiary education in existential terms? Can we measure the value that tertiary education provides to the enhancement of societies as a whole?

This study attempts to investigate what values are characteristic of Australian lawyers in their last year of law school. It is part of a larger longitudinal study, which aims to determine how values develop or degrade over time and what effect, if any, tertiary education can have in building and perpetuating ‘appropriate’ professional values? Results show that differing values sets do significantly predict behavioural choices on ethical questions presented to participants. The implications of results are discussed in the contexts of ethics education in a tertiary context, and applications for the professions.

Sociology of cancer in men and women : sexuality, identity and body changes

Prostate and breast cancers are a common group of gender specific diseases that affect men and women respectively. This study explores the impact of the cancer and the social processes involved in re-establishing the self in the aftermath of cancer. The study's premise is that the self is an embodied social agent and that the body is the medium where illness is expresses and experienced by the embodied self.

The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and researching education policy

Bourdieu did not write anything explicitly about education policy. Despite this neglect, we agree with van Zanten that his theoretical concepts and methodological approaches can contribute to researching and understanding educational policy in the context of globalisation and the economising of it. In applying Bourdieu's theory and methodology to research in education policy, we focus on developing his work to understand what we call 'cross-field effects' and for exploring the emergence of a 'global education policy field'. These concepts are derived from some of our recent research concerning globalisation and mediatisation of education policy. The paper considers three separate issues. The first deals with Bourdieu' s primary 'thinking tools', namely practice, habitus,capitals and fields and their application to policy studies. The second and third sections consider two additions to Bourdieu's thinking tools, as a way to reconceptualise the functioning of policy if considered as a social field. More specifically, the second section develops an argument around cross-field effects, as a way to group together, research and describe policy effects. The third section develops an argument about an emergent global education policy field, and considers ways that such a field affects national education policy fields.