WORKSHOP: Strengthening Sociolegal Research: Approaches That Involve Undergraduates, Washington, DC metro area, Summer of 2014

American University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop, led by an organizing committee of law and social science scholars affiliated with the Consortium for Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs (CULJP) and the Law and Society Association (LSA), will help identify and advance the next wave of research questions among four key subfields of sociolegal studies and expand the involvement of undergraduates in this research. Those subfields include legal consciousness, legal mobilization, cause lawyering, and judicial decision making. The workshop is targeted to 30 sociolegal scholars from primarily undergraduate programs and will be held over one and a-half days. Half of the participants will be selected by invitation with the other half open to application. The workshop will help chart and stimulate new waves of sociolegal scholarship while increasing the involvement of undergraduates in this research. One of the goals of the workshop is to create a network of research-active sociolegal scholars who are interested in expanding research projects at undergraduate sociolegal programs or involving undergraduates. The organizers will enable this process by creating a listserv of participants and facilitating conversations as planning begins for potential research experiences involving undergraduates (REUs). The organizers also will prepare an analytical article that synthesizes the discussions and conclusions of the workshop and how sociolegal scholarship might expand in four key subareas. In order to stimulate and broaden the participation of undergraduates in sociolegal scholarship, the resulting publication also will report on strategies derived from the workshop to recruit and involve undergraduates in research.