Monday, June 17, 2024
Jamie R. Abrams Publishes Book on "Inclusive Socratic Teaching" with UC Press
I am excited to share with blog readers that I have published a new book on Inclusive Socratic Teaching: Why Law Schools Need it and How to Achieve It with the University of California Press. The book's synopsis is pasted below. Of particular note to readers is the way in which the book draws upon the sustained and impactful contributions of Feminist Legal Theorists naming and documenting critiques of problematic Socratic performances for over a half of a century. It then maps a set of implementable techniques to adapt and modernize the Socratic method to be more inclusive, effective, and equitable.
For more than fifty years, scholars have documented and critiqued the marginalizing effects of the Socratic teaching techniques that dominate law school classrooms. In spite of this, law school budgets, staffing models, and course requirements still center Socratic classrooms as the curricular core of legal education. In this clear-eyed book, law professor Jamie R. Abrams catalogs both the harms of the Socratic method and the deteriorating well-being of modern law students and lawyers, concluding that there is nothing to lose and so much to gain by reimagining Socratic teaching. Recognizing that these traditional classrooms are still necessary sites to fortify and catalyze other innovations and values in legal education, Inclusive Socratic Teaching provides concrete tips and strategies to dismantle the autocratic power and inequality that so often characterize these classrooms. A galvanizing call to action, this hands-on guide equips educators and administrators with an inclusive teaching model that reframes the Socratic classroom around teaching techniques that are student centered, skills centered, client centered, and community centered.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/gender_law/2024/06/jamie-r-abrams-publishes-book-on-inclusive-socratic-teaching-with-uc-press.html