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The Multicultural Classroom As a Comparative Law Site: A United Kingdom Perspective

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Comparative Law and Multicultural Legal Classes: Challenge or Opportunity?

Part of the book series: Ius Comparatum - Global Studies in Comparative Law ((GSCL,volume 46))

Abstract

This chapter studies the impact of the recent multicultural approach to comparative legal studies on comparative law teaching, with a focus on British debates and literature. I will argue that the multicultural turn of (comparative) legal teaching, reflected for example in a greater diversity of teaching techniques, a greater emphasis on minority issues and law &… disciplines, responds to a multiplicity of motivations. Pedagogically, it is a response to the increasingly diverse backgrounds of students and their differing intellectual starting-points. Pragmatically, it is a means to boost students’ employability and intellectual versality in a job market that now values “cultural awareness skills”. Finally, conceptually, it is a tool designed to unravel the pluralistic nature of law. From these diverse drivers to the multicultural turn in (comparative) legal teaching, it is possible to identify similarities with other recent trends of globalisation and internationalisation of legal education. However, this article will submit that differences remain. Having analysed these differences, I will go on to argue and reveal that in them lie the core features of a multicultural approach to legal teaching and its intrinsic connections to comparative law, as the multicultural classroom itself becomes a comparative law site.

I am indebted to Jean-Frédéric Ménard for his research assistance and suggestions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for example, Whitman (2003), p. 315; Bell (2002); Kahn (1999); Banakas (1994), p. 113; Curran (1998), p. 43.

  2. 2.

    Varga (1992), p. xv.

  3. 3.

    On the logics of comparison, Glenn (2001), p. 133; Merryman (1999).

  4. 4.

    Sacco (1991a), p. 15.

  5. 5.

    Friedman (2006), p. 189. See also the definition of legal culture given by Nelken (2004), p. 1, as ranging from “facts about institutions such as the number and role of lawyers or the way judges are appointed and controlled to various forms of behaviour such as litigation or prison rates, and, at the other extreme, more nebulous aspects of ideas, values, aspirations and mentalities. Like culture itself, legal culture is about who we are, not just what we do”.

  6. 6.

    Sacco (1991b).

  7. 7.

    See for alternatives to legal culture, “legal ideology”, Cotterell (1997), p. 13; law in action, Bruinsma (2003) or legal tradition, Glenn (2004). Legal tradition is usually seen as a wider concept than culture but at micro-level, it leads to a focus on ideas to the exclusion of social practices.

  8. 8.

    Using Roger Cotterell’s directives, the concept of legal culture when applied to a particular comparative exercise should therefore be split into its distinct components, Cotterrell (2004), p. 9.

  9. 9.

    See infra.

  10. 10.

    Menski (2006a), pp. 70–81.

  11. 11.

    Menski (2013), p. 43.

  12. 12.

    Shah (2003), p. 18.

  13. 13.

    On the discussion of the specific importance of this multicultural turn for comparative law, see infra.

  14. 14.

    For a list of the diversification of teaching techniques prompted by the multicultural classroom, cf. Hunter-Henin (2013). See Foblets et al. (2017).

  15. 15.

    On this divide, see Legrand (2010), who argues that civil law and common law approaches are “irrevocably irreconciliable”, representing different mentalités, cultural outlooks or worldviews. Comp. Markesinis (1997), p. 131, who argues that convergence is nonetheless possible.

  16. 16.

    Arjona et al. (2015), p. 267.

  17. 17.

    Platsas and Marrani (2016).

  18. 18.

    Gidoomal et al. (2001).

  19. 19.

    Husa (2009).

  20. 20.

    According to Menski (2006b), p. 13; Ballard (2006), p. 29.

  21. 21.

    Ballard (1992).

  22. 22.

    Flood (2011).

  23. 23.

    Flood (2011), pp. 6–7.

  24. 24.

    See for example, Sexton (1996) and Reisman (1996).

  25. 25.

    Jutras (2000), p. 793; Frankenberg (1985); Van Hoecke and Warrington (1998).

  26. 26.

    Valcke (2004).

  27. 27.

    Valcke (2004).

  28. 28.

    Flood (2007), p. 54.

  29. 29.

    Platsas and Marrani (2016), p. 304.

  30. 30.

    Basedow (2014), pp. 10–11.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Silver (2013).

  33. 33.

    Galloway (2016), pp. 18–19.

  34. 34.

    Twining (2009), p. 368.

  35. 35.

    Galloway (2016), pp. 24–25.

  36. 36.

    Jouannet (2011).

  37. 37.

    For a definition of transnational law as a form of socio-legal pluralism, Scott (2009), p. 873.

  38. 38.

    See Zumbansen (2010) and Berman (2007).

  39. 39.

    Douglas-Scott (2013).

  40. 40.

    Joerges and Falke (2011).

  41. 41.

    Jamin and van Caenegem (2016).

  42. 42.

    UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2016).

  43. 43.

    Platsas and Marrani (2016), pp. 299–300.

  44. 44.

    Anthea (2018), p. 3.

  45. 45.

    Frankenberg (2019), p. 42.

  46. 46.

    Del Vecchio (1909), p. 24, quoted by Zampetti (1949), p. 241.

  47. 47.

    See how the approach to what constitutes a source of comparative law has shifted, Vogenauer (2006), p. 869.

  48. 48.

    Lambert (1905), p. 47.

  49. 49.

    Muir Watt (2006).

  50. 50.

    Husa (2004).

  51. 51.

    Sacco (2001).

  52. 52.

    Muir Watt (2006).

  53. 53.

    Reimann (2001), p. 1114, also quoted by Siems (2007).

  54. 54.

    Siems (2007).

  55. 55.

    Sacco (1991a), p. 15.

  56. 56.

    For the view that comparative law could play in Europe the role performed in the US by critical legal doctrines, Muir Watt (2000), p. 522. But for the opinion that comparative law could be taken over by critical legal studies, Markesinis and Fedtke (2009), p. 4.

  57. 57.

    Fletcher (1998) and Muir Watt (2000).

  58. 58.

    Frankenberg (2019).

  59. 59.

    Samuel (2014).

  60. 60.

    Bhabha (2015), p. 93.

  61. 61.

    Macdonald and Glover (2013).

  62. 62.

    Frankenberg (1985), p. 411.

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  1. University College London, Laws, London, UK

    Myriam Hunter-Henin

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    Csaba Varga

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Hunter-Henin, M. (2020). The Multicultural Classroom As a Comparative Law Site: A United Kingdom Perspective. In: Varga, C. (eds) Comparative Law and Multicultural Legal Classes: Challenge or Opportunity?. Ius Comparatum - Global Studies in Comparative Law, vol 46. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46898-9_5

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