Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE CVL1022

 
TITLE Law and Society: Key Debates

 
UM LEVEL 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course

 
MQF LEVEL 5

 
ECTS CREDITS 4

 
DEPARTMENT Civil Law

 
DESCRIPTION This study-unit will commence with an examination of how law figures in some of the key works in Social Theory, paying particular attention to the work of the 'Law as Culture' school. This will be followed by an overview of current research in Law and Society, covering: (a) Legal Culture and Legal Consciousness, (b) Law and Narrative, (c) the Legal Profession(s), (d) Regulation, (e) Class, Race and Gender, (f) Legal Globalization, (g) Applied Socio-Legal Research. Students will be invited to relate this research to other topics they cover in the course of their studies in law.

Study-unit Aims

This study-unit aims:
(a) To help form a legal profession which is more socially aware and better equipped to research, discuss and intervene in relation to policy issues.
(b) To provide students with the tools they need in order to assess the social impact of regulation.
(c) To encourage students to incorporate the results of socio-legal research, carried out both locally and abroad, in their own legal research and writing.
(d) To encourage students to pursue further research in the field of law and society at a Masters or Doctoral level, thus helping to build up a body of local scholarship in the field.

Learning Outcomes

1. Knowledge & Understanding:

By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:
(a) Assess the social impact and the policy concerns behind legislation;
(b) Look behind the apparently neutral legal facade and highlight the way in which social class, race, gender and ethnicity can affect the law is formulated and administered;
(c) Comprehend and respond to popular perceptions of law, courts and lawyers;
(d) Participate intelligently in debates about legal institutions and rules (including criminal trials, the role of the jury, court delays, regulatory and enforcement issues...);
(e) Use the concept of legal culture to bring out the cultural dimensions of law.

2. Skills:

By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:
(a) Flesh out the social dimensions of any legal problem or issue;
(b) Analyse a court judgment from the standpoint of the factual issues involved;
(c) Handle statistics intelligently in the context of legal research and writing;
(d) Identify the role played by implicit and explicit narratives in shaping the outcome of litigation.

Main Text/s and any supplementary readings

Main Text:

- Kitty Calavita, Invitation to Law and Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law, 2010, Chicago: University Press.

Supplementary Reading:

- Richard Abel (ed.) The Law and Society Reader, 1995, New York: University Press.
- Austin Sarat (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society, 2004, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
- Selected Articles Published by the Law and Society Review.

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Assignment Yes 100%

 
LECTURER/S Ibtisam Sadegh
Kurt Xerri
David E. Zammit (Co-ord.)

 

 
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints.
Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice.
It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years.

https://www.um.edu.mt/course/studyunit