Rogers, constructivism and jurisprudence: educational critique and the legal curriculum

Abstract

The focus of this chapter initially is the educational writings of Carl Rogers and the relevance of them to contemporary legal education. Rogers focuses upon the primacy of experience, and can therefore be cited as one sympathetic to many of the aims of Dewey in the US pragmatist tradition. His work is part of the tradition of humanist education, yet his views also sit well beside a number of contemporary educational and cognitive research directions, all of which have relevance for the teaching and learning of law. In this article I shall put forward two arguments. First, I shall argue that Rogers, seldom cited in legal educational literature, has relevance for those involved with legal skills education. Perhaps more signi®cantly, his views on the diþerences between teaching and learning resurface in contemporary theory on learning processes, especially constructivist theories and phenomenographical methodologies, which similarly focus on the learning experience. Secondly, and on a wider front, I would argue that both Rogers and constructivism lead us to consider issues which are not only at the heart of educational debates, but are also the concerns of jurisprudence. In this respect I hope that the article will illustrate the overlap between jurisprudence and legal education, and the extent to which educational issues (particularly epistemological ones) are also jurisprudential ones.