Environmental Sustainability and Legal Education : Swedish Law Student´s Value Orientation

• In this study we compare Swedish law students’ value orientation with students in economics and political science and investigate how law students’ value orientation change during their first year of training. Drawing on theories and research from environmental psychology “values” are operationalized in three main categories: altruistic, biospheric and egoistic. Considering our sample groups as future power-professionals and potential agents of environmental and social change, we believe that a better understanding regarding the impact of legal education on students’ value orientation is essential. Our starting point is that when coping with bigger-than-self problems, as climate change, self-transcendence values as altruism and biospherism are important. Our findings demonstrate that legal education beginners report weaker biospheric values than the comparison groups. Another finding is that egoistic value orientation is not strengthened after one year of law education, a result that is counter indicative to previous research and debate among law scholars from U S and other countries outside of Sweden.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Learning (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Didactics (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Law students

legal education

value orientation

agents of change

environmental problems

climate change

sustainability

socialization

Law

Rättsvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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