Adopting a Soft Transdisciplinary Approach via Inquiry/Project Based Learning: A Focus on Legal Education

Abstract

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore fundamental changes and challenges in education. This is also clear within legal education in BRICS countries and beyond, where issues emerged but created space for effective ways forward. In alignment with the special issue theme, this paper provides a vision for post-pandemic education – in this case, in one discipline, namely legal education. Based on an international literature review, it is argued that to deliver appropriate skills and create well-rounded graduates effectively, there is a need to rework the vision of law as a single discipline. Thus, considering the contemporary challenges to legal education described in this paper, a different approach to the curriculum is required in which support for the development of vital skills such as creativity, critical thinking and complex problem-solving is maximised. Furthermore, attention needs to be devoted to adopting a transdisciplinary perspective delivered through inquiry-based learning. This requires thinking about problem-solving from multiple viewpoints and seeking out tools, practices and pieces of knowledge from multiple fields to arrive at better questions and solutions.

Keywords

• Legal Education
• Law Teaching
• Transdisciplinary Approach
• Inquiry-based Learning
• Traditional Law Model
• Socio-Legal Studies