Pierre Bourdieu's work in the sociology of education took on the understanding that both economic capital (money) and social capital (family connections) played a part in smoothing the way for students from elite backgrounds. Given exactly the same learning environment, students found that access to these capital resources made the journey easier than disadvantaged students. Bourdieu found that there was also another form of capital at work – cultural capital.
Cultural capital involves many different factors including language and discourse, ways of thinking and seeing, a sense of belonging and the confidence to participate. Bourdieu also describes cultural capital as “the feel for the game”. Cultural capital involves a fluency in the language of power. There is a strong correlation with economic and social capital, but it is not dependent on these. For example, the child of a trade union representative may grow up with talk of law, power and compliance around the dinner table which may help them in their study of law where a sheltered middle class child might find it all confounding to begin with.
My idea of legal literacies was developed out of a university teaching and learning research project where we sought to understand the transition problems faced by disadvantaged learners – those who are first in family, do not have english as first language or are economically disadvantaged. We found that in the context of law, cultural capital involved at least three forms of literacy:
Legal Grammar and Expression
Legal education involves learning new words as well learning different ways of using words, of splitting hairs and understanding different forms of interpretation, such as literal verus purposive readings. Ordinary words like intention have a special meaning in legal contexts.
Rules Literacy
We all use rules systems but lawyers need a deeper understaning of meta rules, theory and strategy. The concept of ruleplay, working inside, outside and at the peripheries of rules systems has crucial importance for lawyers.
Legal Media and Intertextuality
Legal texts have their own rules for interpretation and, importantly, these texts exist in a network, where meaning is derived from the relationship between one authority and another. This is more than mere legal research skills, it is as much about understanding context as it is locating an authority.
Out of the original Legal Literacies project we developed learning modules which we embedded in our foundation units, strategies to give students a helping 'leg up' to speak as as a member of the legal community of practice. Rather than simply conferring knowledge, or training skills, we found that legal education also involved creating an environment where students could learn to express themselves as legal professionals, to gain the confidence they need through safe experimentation and to construct their own identity as law and justice practitioners.
This site involves research/discussion of the legal literacies concept as well as practical application through learning modules and teaching tips. These will be published under a creative commons license (see sidebar) and are available for you to use, adapt and remix as long as your use is non-commerical and you remember to attribute my contribution to your final creation.
