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Teaching justice? An experiment in group work and peer assessment

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References

  1. The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994.

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  3. The innovation of the group project scheme was a joint staff effort. Over a number of years the following lecturers in law participated in its genesis and evolution: Eileen Fegan, Marie Fox, John Jackson, Simon Lee, John Morison and Tony McGleenan.

  4. D. Tribe & A. Tribe, “Assessing Law Students: Lecturers' Attitudes and Practices”, 13Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education (1988), 195; D. Tribe, A. Tribe & J. Fitzgerald, “Law Students' Attitudes Towards Assessment”, 14Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education (1989), 31.

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  9. See also S. Fineman, “Reflections on Peer Teaching and Peer Assessment — An Undergraduate Experience”, 6(1)Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education (1980), 82, 87 (“Collaborative peer group assessment corresponds less well with tutor… than self-grading. No tendency to overgrade, if anything, a tendency to undergrade.”); Stefani,, HMSO, 1994, 25. n. 6.

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  10. For a selection of different views see, Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committeesupra on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994. n. 1; K. Johnson & A. Scales, “An Absolutely, Positively True Story: Seven Reasons Why We Sing”, 16New Mexico Law Review (1986), 433; D. Bell, “The Law Student As Slave”,Student Law (1982), 18; “Critical Legal Groups: A ‘Discussion’ With Students”, 1Law and Critique (1990), 19.

  11. Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committeesupra on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994. n. 1, Foreword.

  12. Ibid., Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committeesupra on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994. n. 11 (emphasis added).

  13. Ibid., Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committeesupra on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994. at 8 (emphasis added).

  14. See, e.g., I. Ward, “The Educative Ambition of Law and Literature”, 13Legal Studies (1993), 323 (arguing that law and literature studies can play a part in the reintroduction of ethics to law degrees); T.D. Eisele, “The Activity of Being a Lawyer: The Imaginative Pursuit of Implications and Possibilities”, 54Tennessee Law Review (1987), 599 (argues that this should not be left to stand alone jurisprudence courses).

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  15. This is in some extent responsive to theoretical arguments that standard legal models of legal education (from traditional to critical) share the assumption that students have little experience of “society” or law's assumed operation in it and so legal education must be conducted exclusively within a textualised domain which defers “real life” to a future that comes into being only at the end of education. See C. Douzinas, S. McVeigh, R. Warrington, “Postlegality: After Education in the Law”, 1Law and Critique (1990), 81.

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  16. For discussion of these questions and examples of attempts to subvert them through the process of the classroom and legal education, see M. Torrey, J. Casey & K. Olsen, “Teaching Law in a Feminist Manner”, 13Harvard Women's Law Journal (1990), 87; S. Gibson et al, “Define and Empower: Women Students Consider Feminist Learning”, 1Law and Critique (1990), 47; K.C. Worden, “Overshooting the Target: A Feminist Deconstruction of Legal Education”, 34The American University Law Review (1984/85), 1141.

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  17. For a fuller explanation of the rationale of this course and its context within the Queen's law degree see, The School of Law of Queen's University of Belfast, “Self Assessment for the HEFCE”, October 1993, available on consultation, Law Library Queens University of Belfast.

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  19. See R. Munck, “The Lads and the Hoods: Alternative Justice in an Irish Context”, in M. Tomlinson, T. Varley & C. McCullagh, eds.,Whose Law and Order? Sociological Association of Ireland, 1988, 41.

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  21. Informal discussions at “Enterprise Unit” indicate this; however, more structured research indicates that this method is satisfactory. Goldfinch & Raeside,supra “Development of a Peer Assessment Technique for Obtaining Individual Marks on a Group Project”, 15Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education (1990), 210; Stefani,supra “Self, Peer and Group Assessment Procedures”, in I. Sneddon & J. Kremer, eds.,An Enterprising Curriculum, HMSO, 1994, 25. n. 6.

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  28. Cf. Munck,supra n.19,“The Lads and the Hoods: Alternative Justice in an Irish Context”, in M. Tomlison, T. Varley & C. McCullagh, eds.,Whose Law

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  30. Ibid, n29. Rawls,J. Rawls, “Fundamental Ideas”, inPolitical Liberalism, Columbia University Press, 1993, 1; “The Rule of Law and Its Virtue”,The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality, Clarendon Press, 1979, 210;

  31. D Kennedy, “Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy”, in D. Kairys, ed.,The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, Pantheon Books, 1990, 38–58.

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  33. This is supportted by Stefani,supra n.6,“Self, Peer and Group Assessment Procedures”, in I. Sneddon & J. Kremer, eds.,An Enterprising Curriculum, HMSO, 1994, 25. at 36 (“Students proved to be very frank and very open about such matters and their assessments appeared to be realistic and honest. Very few groups had trivialised the issue by awarding full marks to undeserving colleagues.”)

  34. There are also complex gender and race issues in the use of humour, and difficult questions of how to deal with racist, sexist, or sectarian humour in the projects themselves, while not subjecting them to censorship.

  35. Supra n.12.Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committeesupra n.1, Foreword. on Legal Education and Conduct, “Review of Legal Education (Consultation Paper)”, June 1994.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Christine Bell (Lecturer in Law) & Damien Keaney

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  1. Christine Bell
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  2. Damien Keaney
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We would like to thank the Enterprise Unit at Queens' who funded research for this article and were helpful and encouraging throughout the project. Thanks are also due to the following people who commented on earlier drafts: Ray Geary, Simon Lee, Stephen Livingstone, Joe McMahon, John Morison.

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Bell, C., Keaney, D. Teaching justice? An experiment in group work and peer assessment. Liverpool Law Rev 17, 47–68 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02449953

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