The Bachelor of Social Law Studies program provides a model for educating and training students in the study of legal ideas, institutions, and practices from the perspective of the social sciences, law, and humanities. Legal culture is one of the central concepts of the sociology of law. At the same time, the study of legal cultures can be considered as one of the general approaches of the sociology of law. Social law studies are now sufficiently established internationally as a field of research to warrant a thoughtful examination of one of the key elements of such a study; the “socio” of “social law”. The importance and scope of social law studies means that this examination is important not only for those who identify as specialists in social law, but also for a growing number of students, researchers and policy makers in law and other fields informed by these studies. This focus on the social also reflects a widespread and growing feeling – not limited to social law studies – that the rapid changes of late modernity, such as consumerism, globalization or neoliberalism, bring new challenges. Moreover, the profound social changes resulting from the economic crisis in many advanced capitalist countries in the new millennium provide further justification for this investigation. This chapter presents a book designed to address these issues. The book brings together a large number of scholars whose work has been selected for their particular contribution to an aspect of the social – whether in cultural studies, social policy or law, for example.1 The specificity of their contributions provides another justification: that diverse, dynamic and controversial understandings of the social require constant attention when it comes to the legal. However, before presenting these contributions, this chapter takes stock of the main characteristics of the existing field.

The chapter then concludes with an examination of possible avenues for future developments in the field of social law. Since the beginning of the sociology of law, legal pluralism has occupied a central place in the theorization of social law. The sociological theories of Eugen Ehrlich and George Gurvitch were the first sociological contributions to legal pluralism. Moreover, for many decades it has been the most consistent subject of social law debates in the sociology of law and legal anthropology. [92] and received more than its share of criticism from proponents of the various schools of legal positivism. [93] Critics often ask, “How does the law differ from other normative systems from a pluralistic point of view? What makes a system of social rules legal? [94] The ideology of legal positivism captured the imagination of lawyers and social scientists to such an extent that their image of the legal world was successfully disguised as fact and formed the cornerstone of social and legal theory. Interactionism had become popular in America in the 1950s and 1960s as a politically radical alternative to structural functionalism. Instead of viewing society as a system that regulates and controls the actions of individuals, interactionists have argued that sociology should be concerned with what people have done in certain situations and how they have understood their own actions. [66] The sociology of deviance, which included topics such as crime, homosexuality, and mental illness, became the focus of these theoretical debates. Functionalists have portrayed crime as a problem that must be managed by the legal system. In contrast, labeling theorists have focused on the process of legislation and law enforcement: how crime was constructed as a problem. A number of British sociologists and researchers in law schools have drawn on these ideas to write about law and crime.

[67] [1]Prof. Ranbir Singh et al., “Research methodology” (MHRD) , accessed August 24, 2018 Cotterrell, R (2002) “Subverting Orthodoxi, Making Law Central: A View of Sociolegal Studies” 29 (4) Journal of Law and Society 632-44 Lawrence M. Friedman is one of the socio-lawyers who introduced the idea of legal culture into the sociology of law. For Friedman, legal culture refers to “the public`s knowledge, attitudes, and patterns of behavior toward the legal system.” [112] They can also be “bodies of habits that are organically linked to culture as a whole. [113] Friedman emphasizes the plurality of legal cultures and points out that legal cultures can be explored at different levels of abstraction, for example at the level of the legal system, state, country or community. Friedman is also known for introducing the distinction between “internal” and “external” legal culture. The former refers to general attitudes and perceptions of the law among officials of the legal system, such as the judiciary, while the latter may refer to citizens` attitudes towards the legal system or public order in general. Notable practitioners of social law studies include Professor Carol Smart, co-director of the Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life (named after sociologist David Morgan), and Professors Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar, co-directors of the Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy (OXFLAP). The main difference between the sociology of law and law and society is, on the one hand, that the latter is neither theoretically nor methodologically limited to sociology, but tries to absorb the results of all the disciplines of the social sciences. [48] “It not only provides a home for sociologists, social anthropologists, and political scientists interested in law, but also seeks to include psychologists and economists who study law.” [49] From another point of view, both the sociology of law and law and society must be considered as multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary undertakings, although the sociology of law has special links with the methods, theories and traditions of sociology. [50] As a major or minor in social law, you study law and society from an interdisciplinary perspective.

By critically analyzing legal concepts and methods, feminists have challenged the conditions of legal debate. [114] Introduction to the right to freedom of expression and the media. Students learn how the American legal system works and gain an understanding and appreciation of the philosophical underpinnings of free speech. In addition, students face many of the problems that professional communicators face today. The roots of the sociology of law go back to the work of sociologists and jurists at the turn of the century.