Teaching for Impact

Today’s global society – with its fast technological developments, unlimited choice, uncertainty and complexity – requires new knowledge, dispositions and abilities from academically educated legal professionals. This challenges academic legal education to reconsider its theoretical foundations, aims, curriculum and pedagogy.

This research explores how educators in legal education can contribute to the academic development of law students in contemporary times. A reinterpretation of the 19th century educational ideal of Bildung – which entails critical thinking, creative thinking, ACT responsibility and play and playfulness – is proposed as central to legal education’s academic core.

This book offers teachers, course and curriculum designers, and policy makers in academic legal education a theoretical foundation as a basis for their educational efforts. Furthermore, it proposes practical models and appropriate instructional interventions for the integration of critical thinking, creative thinking, ACT responsibility and play and playfulness in the everyday practice of legal education.

Hedwig van Rossum is assistant professor in Legal Theory at the Law Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.