Professional competences and interdisciplinarity in Law: perceptions from students of a private college in Minas Gerais

Abstract

The objective of this study was to describe and analyze the contributions of the higher education in Law in general, and of an interdisciplinary pedagogical practice in particular, to the formation and development of professional competences in the students of a private institution of higher education in Minas Gerais, in the perspective of the students themselves. The theoretical framework is divided into three parts: professional competence; interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity in Law; national curriculum guidelines for the Law course. In the fieldwork, descriptive and of quantitative and qualitative character, data were collected primarily from a questionnaire applied to the students. In presenting and analyzing the data, the perceptions of the students were characterized as to the level of contribution of the course and of the interdisciplinary practice in the formation of their professional competences, based on two conceptual references (the competences model by Maria Teresa Fleury and Afonso Fleury, and the competences prescribed by the national curriculum guidelines), apart from their comments and suggestions. The level of contribution thus observed was considered satisfactory in the perspective of the respondents; however, challenges were identified, personally and institutionally, especially concerning the participation of the students and of the teachers. In view of the limitations observed in this study, other investigation steps were suggested with the purpose of deepening and widening these findings.