Module LAWM686 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Postgraduate Module Descriptor
LAWM686: Approaches to Research in Law (ESRC)
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Aims
Firstly, this module aims to make you aware of a range of possible approaches to legal research, to locate the specific socio-legal and empirical approaches in a wider methodological framework and to open up your methodological horizon. For each approach, you will be made aware of the key authorities, together with their respective merits and the possible difficulties generally associated with them. As a result, this module is meant to give you greater awareness of the methodological dimensions of research, and to guide you in choosing an appropriate approach (or combination of approaches) for your own research. Overall, it is meant to increase the scholarly rigour of your research.
Secondly, the module aims to encourage your independent research skills and participation in discussion through student-centred interactive teaching sessions. These sessions are further designed to give you the opportunity to put into practice a number of approaches, both separately and in combination, and to test your ideas and share experience with fellow students with the tutor’s guidance and advice.
Thirdly, the module aims to help you design your own methodological approach, by either following one of the approaches discussed in class and deepening your understanding, or choosing to combine two (possibly more) approaches in a way that makes most sense for your own research.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. Demonstrate deep and critical awareness of a range of possible methodological approaches to law, including empirical and socio-legal methods 2. Demonstrate deep and systematic knowledge of a specific set of approaches more appropriate to your own research 3. Compare, analyse and synthesise your understanding of these approaches and apply them in formulating research questions and in designing your own methodological framework. |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 4. Demonstrate detailed and comprehensive knowledge and understanding of a range of legal approaches and of the significance of methodological choices for legal research. 5. Demonstrate flexible and innovative ability to select an appropriate approach (or a combination of approaches) for your own research. 6. Demonstrate detailed and comprehensive understanding and critical awareness of how your chosen approach(es) to research is (are) situated in relation to other approaches, as well as of their respective limits. |
| Personal and Key Skills | 7. Clarify, plan and undertake tasks confidently and independently, individually and with others, to reflect critically on the learning process and to make use of feedback effectively. 8. Identify, retrieve and use the full range of resources efficiently and autonomously. 9. Interact effectively, confidently and proactively within a team/learning group, to share information and ideas, and to manage divergence of opinions in a professional manner. |
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Indicative Reading:
Auchmuty R., ‘Recovering Lost Lives: Researching Women in Legal History’ (2015) Journal of Law and Society 42(1): 34-52
Burton, M and Watkins, D, Research Methods in Law (Routledge, 2013)
Baldwin, R , ‘Why Rules Don't Work’ (1990) 53 Modern Law Review 321-37
Baldwin, R and Cave, M,Understanding Regulation (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Banakar, R and Travers, M (eds), An Introduction to Law and Social Theory,( Hart Publishing, 2002)
Bottomley, A. and Conaghan J. (eds), Feminist Theory and Legal Strategy, (Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
Frankenberg, G, Comparative Law as Critique (E Elgar, 2016)
Feely, M. and Rubin, E, Judicial Policymaking and the Modern State (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
Fineman M. and Thomadsen, N. (eds), At the Boundaries of Law (Routledge, 1991)
Kunz et al., The Process of Legal Research, (Aspen, 2000)
Harlow, C. and Rawlings, R., Pressure Through Law (Routledge, 1992)
Hart, H.L, The Concept of Law, ( Clarendon Press, 1961)
Merry, S., . ‘Global Human Rights and Local Social Movements in a Legally Plural World’ (1997) Canadian Journal of Law and Society 12(2): 247-271.
O'Donovan, K, Sexual Divisions in Law (Weidenfeld, 1985)
Robertson S., ‘Searching for Anglo-American Digital Legal History’ (2016) Law and History Review 34(4): 1047-69
Smart, C., Feminism and the Power of Law (Routledge, 1989)
Snyder, F., ‘Governing Economic Globalisation: Global Legal Pluralism and European Law’ (1999) European Law Journal 5(4): 334-374
Stychin, C. Legal Methods (Sweet and Maxwell, 1999)
Tamanaha, B., A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society, (Oxford University Press, 2001)
Teubner, G, Juridification of Social Spheres (De Gruyter, 1987 )
Thomas, P. (ed), Socio Legal Studies (Aldershot1997)
Twining W., Legal Theory and Common Law (Blackwell, 1986)
Wickham, G. and Pavlich, G., Rethinking Law Society and Governance: Foucault's Bequest (Hart, 2002).
Yilmaz, I. ,’The Challenge of Post-Modern Legality and Muslim Legal Pluralism in England’ (2002) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28(2):343-354.
