Defining IoC in relation to Law

• How had you defined IoC up to now?

I had originally thought that IoC (and indeed this course) was a way of preparing our teaching materials to make them more applicable to non-home students. I thought this was a good thing and that I would be more sensitive to teaching foreign students my subjects. Instead this definition is turned up on its head and it is allowing your subject to be seen not just in a domestic sense but an international inter-connected and multifaceted way. It is the awareness of others. I am lucky that teaching international banking and finance law I am already talking about how laws are inter-connected and joined up, having affects and implications on other nations and other people.

• What is new to you in the ideas presented in the readings?

What is new to me is conscious realisation that the materials I am teaching in my course is allowing students to become more global, realising the cultures and politics of other countries which impact upon their own. The global financial crisis has been a great leveller of laws and situations countries now find themselves in. UK students cannot help to know that the EU and EU countries have a profound effect on their subject. They cannot help but realise the impact of the G20 or the Basel I II or III on their domestic laws. For me it is the realisation that banking and finance in an international context is already contemplating social economic and political aspects of globalisation, and thus preparing my students for entering the work place equipped with the necessary international skills.

• Are there ideas here that you think you could find useful in your work?

I like the idea that this notion of globalisation should be a conscious and not subconscious part of the course. More thought should be given as to how we extend what is already being done on a subconscious level. In Clifford et al’s paper he speaks about “global perspectives included an engagement with issues of equity and social justice and the reduction of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination”. These things are entrenched in not only the LLB law degree course but in each module for example, employment laws derive from Europe and well as domestic legislation and case law and also allows for discussion of social and equitable perceptions.

I agree also with Clifford who states that non-western students learn in a different way to western students who feel freer to question the lecturer. However in my experience I find that once the seminars are integrated with western and on western students they pick up on each other social norms and adapt to the situation at hand. The non western students asks more and the west students pays more respect and listens more out of respect to the non western student. This has to be a benefit to both students.

• Are there ideas here that you think might not be useful - why is this?

The IoC ideas are all useful and I believe that most law subjects are tackling these issues in a subconscious way however I am cautious as to the use of them being used in an overtly conscious way. By this I mean it is harder to enforce the nuisances that are created organically in a seminar group. The tutor has to be aware of the importance of global learning but to force students to do it would be detrimental to their learning. One of the greatest hurdles I think is to show that law lecturers are already teaching IoC in their courses.  I am not in any way saying law does all of this and we need not learn more but rather I was surprised as how much of my course I could relate to this paper and also how much of my own law degree I could realte.

I wrote down some quotes of the definitions supplied which I thought applied to law.

Luong et al (1996:1) Curriculum “which values empathy and intellectual curiosity”.

Nilsson (2000:22) IoC as “aimed at preparing students for performing in an international and multicultural context”.

Schoorman (2000) “knowledge and practice where societies reviewed as subsystems of a larger inclusive world”.

I have posted a tweet to my law students asking whether they think their LLB is internationalised and whether it is important to them for it to be. I wait to see how they respond.