1 methodological issuesppt9 2013Methodological Issues in Implementing an Internationalized Curriculum--Five Approaches to Internationalization.

Methodological Issues in Implementing an Internationalized Curriculum--Five Approaches to Internationalization

Larry Catá BackerW. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar &

Professor of Law,Professor of International Affairs

2013-14 Immediate Past Chair University Faculty Senate

Pennsylvania State University

Global Penn State Conference 2013: Internationalizing the

Curriculum

Context: Thick or Thin

Internationalization– We tend to think about internationalization in what I would call “thin” terms

• Thin—moving people into and out of a “home” institution– I want to consider some of the problems of “thick”

internationalization, sometimes overlooked• Thick—curriculum, deep institutional integration, globalization versus

internationalization – I believe the insights of the struggle for thick internationalization

in law might be of some use beyond professional education.– My point is simple: the US has seen the rise of multiple and

contradictory tendencies in internationalization that both are consonant with and also threaten consensus on internationalization.

Thickness Trouble• Many law schools are now wrestling with issues relating to

the incorporation of a transnational legal component– including elements of international, comparative, foreign and

transnational law—within their teaching and scholarship missions. • These changes mirror discussions within the legal academy

over a move from a “national law practice” to a multi-jurisdictional practice model of legal education.

Parallel Tracks?

– American legal education subject to two contradictory forces:

• Internationalist Model: transnational and outward looking.

– international, comparative, foreign and transnational law into curriculum as a part of basic legal training of law students

– Several models followed– Uneven application within the 200 US law schools

Opposing Trend• Nationalist Model: domestic and inward

looking.– Carnegie Foundation’s Report, Educating

Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law – Not universally accepted; greater support by ABA

and judges; less by elite law schools– Different philosophies of implementation

Roadmap• These two great reform efforts of the last 20 years have

developed along parallel tracks in substantial isolation.– This presentation looks at the development of these parallel

discussions of reform of U.S. legal education

• First examine internati onal ist model– Analytical framework (how to assess)– Disaggregation of FIVE models

• Integration Model• Aggregation Model• Segregation Model• Immersion Model• Multi-Disciplinary Department Model

More Roadmap. . . Sigh

• Second, examine Nati onal ist Model– Domestic Practitioner Model– Internationalization of American Model through

extraterritorial accreditation• ABA Consideration of Accreditation of Foreign Law Schools

• Third, Insights; no conclusions– Except: unless internalized institutionally and

seamlessly, the internationalization project will remain• Fragile• incoherent

Internationalist Model Analytical Approaches

• What shapes internationalist approaches?– Identifying stakeholders– Identifying the goals (comparative, international,

foreign or transnational and for what purpose)– Internal institutional preferences– Abilities of the faculty– Consensus – Available resources– Realistic expectations

Driving the Process• Law School Stakeholders drive the process of

internationalization– Faculty, administration, alumni, employers,

government, courts, clients.– Politics, Money, Vision and Interest Maximization

• The needs and attitudes of each stakeholder and their relative power will shape internationalization.

• RESULT: Stratification based on preferences, incentives, rewards and resources.

– Higher ranked and coastal schools more likely to more fully engage

– High resource schools better able to implement.

Internationalist Models: Integration

– Refocus the educational and research hub of the law school from the national to the transnational level to the greatest extent feasible.

• The goal is to produce domestic/international generalists.

• Complicated and expensive• Cultural Shift: may require all faculty to change

approach to teaching and research

Internationalist Models: Aggregation

– Most popular—field of law based• International and transnational issues are segregated

but emphasized among areas of study as one among equals law—like labor, corporate or tax law.

• Benefit: leverages conventional approaches to law teaching—no real change of culture.

• Detriment: reinforces conventional framework; privileges a strictly delimited territorial approach to legal education.

Internationalist Models: Segregation

– Law school creates an administrative device that serves as the institutional bases from which all international and transnational programs can be developed, offered, assessed and participate in the education and research mission of the law school.

• Institutionalization of aggregation model• Benefits:

– Avoids issues of systemic integration and faculty training across disciplines.– Easier to leverage programs: certificates, professional training– Easier to administer

• Detriments– Avoid cultural issue; two faculties created in effect.– Easier to terminate or downsize; easier to hire non-tenure faculty

(subordinate international track)– Becomes a ghetto

Internationalist Models: Immersion

– Emerging Model of networked education:• Basis is idea that foreign law is learned in situ;

internationalization through partnerships with foreign law faculties.

– Students must choose area study (national) focus within international education framework

– Benefits: no re-tooling of local faculty; licensing in multiple jurisdictions possible

– Detriments: no real incorporation of international or foreign within the law faculty; program depends on ability to cultivate and maintain networks; can be expensive and complicated to administer.

Internationalist Models: Multi-Disciplinary

Department– Two approaches: • Self-contained but porous unit of the law school• Autonomous unit with connections outside the law

school. Both require the establishment of a new department that stands apart from the law school.

Issues --segregation, acculturation are avoided--but internationalization is conceded as

something apart from the domestic curriculum and from law as traditionally understood.

Nationalist Models: Practical Training

– Focus is on the training of lawyers for domestic service

• Emphasis on local jurisdiction– Cases and statutes; if it does not apply locally it is of less

interest.

• Emphasis on practical training– Ties to judiciary and local lawyer associations.– De-emphasis on academic lawyering

• THINK EXPERIENTAL LEARNING MODELS

Nationalist Models: Practical Training

– Current Model: Carnegie Report• Detach training from university culture• Practice over theory/policy• Has segregating effect

– Resources will determine the extent to which the model can be utilized without affecting academic orientation of modern law faculties

» Poorer, more locally oriented faculties more training oriented» Wealthier, more transnationally oriented faculty less so

Nationalist Models: Extraterritorial Extension of US

Law School System– Engagement with global market for law students;– But rather than expand international curriculum within

national law school, it seeks to expand national law school model internationally.

• Two prongs:– Reduce the availability of licensing through post

graduate programs (U.S. LLMs)– Encourage the establishment of U.S. law schools

on foreign

Current Efforts• Proposal for American Bar Association

accreditation of foreign law schools that operate like US law schools.– Two Reports to date:

• American Bar Association, Report of the Special Committee on International Issues , 2009.

• American Bar Association, Report of Special Committee on Foreign Law Schools Seeking Approval Under ABA Standards, July 19, 2010.

Committee Recommendations

– First, the accreditation project should go forward. – Second, the actual accreditation standards should be reviewed and

revised to avoid any barriers to this geographic expansion. – Third, a policy statement ought to be drafted to ensure the central

place of American law, the English language, a faculty made up primarily of recipients of U.S. J.D.s, and an American pedagogy in these foreign accredited schools.

– Lastly, the Committee recommended to trail run from a model school that might provide the acceptable template for this form of expansion. Report, supra, at 8.

Accreditation Plan as Challenge to Global internationalism

– Substitutes competition among states for dominance of legal cultures for building transnational consensus;

– Creates incentives for “creaming” students in the service of foreign jurisdiction;

– the teaching of law laced with American ideals and cultures eventually seeps out of the academic realm and into the realm of policy makers and judges to be practically implemented, often substantially changing or subverting national law.

– But large numbers of foreign lawyers in the U.S. system might change it as well—making it more global than national

Why Should We Care?• What does internationalization mean

– Stakeholders; who is this for?– Programs; integrated into curriculum or supplemental– Objectives; enrichment or core part of field of study– resources

• internalizing internationalization versus exportation of national models– Bringing international in or exporting national out– Mediating role of technology based learning

• Competition/complementarity with other models– Experiental learning; general education “bling”; active learning– Technology based learning

• Integration– Research; labor markets; thick or thin approaches

Conclusion– There is a tremendous amount of activity in the United States

touching on the internationalization of legal education– But the activity points in two incompatible directions

InternationalistNationalist

– Which will prevail and what the emerging consensus will be remains to be seen.

• But the choices will affect both U.S. legal education and the way in which international law and global curricula are developed both in the United States and abroad.

• Thank you

Further reading:

– Larry Catá Backer, “Internationalizing the American Law School Curriculum (in Light of the Carnegie Foundation’s Report),” in THE INTERNALIZATION OF LAW AND LEGAL EDUCATION 49-112 (Jan Klabbers and Mortimer Sellers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media B.V., 2008) (2 IUS GENTIUM: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON LAW AND JUSTICE (Mortimer Sellers series ed.) ISBN 978-4020-9493-4; e-ISBN 978-1-4020-9494-1 .

– Larry Catá Backer, Beyond Colonization—Globalization and the Establishment of Programs of U.S. Legal Education Abroad by Indigenous Institutions, 6 DREXEL LAW REVIEW – (forthcoming 2013) (with Bret Stancil).

– Larry Catá Backer, Global Law Schools on U.S. Models: Emerging Models of Consensus-Based Internationalization or Markets-Based Americanization Models of Global Legal Education, 2 REVISTA DE EDUCACIÓN Y DERECHO/EDUCATION AND LAW REVIEW (España) 4:1-53 (April-Sept. 2011) (with Bret Stancil).

– Larry Catá Backer, Human Rights and Legal Education in the Western Hemisphere: Legal Parochialism and Hollow Universalism, 21(1) PENN STATE INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW 115-155 (2002) .

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