The Political Reality and the Juridical Education

Abstract

The forms in which the teaching of law is at present conducted in Brazil are being incresingly, and contested. This article aims to suggest the reasons for this contestation, on the basis of an analysis of the following: the mode in which the concepts of education, society and the state are defined and transmitted to the students; the transformations which have occurred in the social function of jurists; and, in addition, the relations between juridical and social phenomena, and, on the other side, between positive law and theoretical models. This analysis, oriented by a conception of the social functions of law as a mechanism for the dispersal of contradictions, is followed by a proposal in favour of a reduction in the emphasis given to jurisprudence, and the development of an organic, flexible and interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of law, given that, in present-day societies, the State is obliged to practice a diversification of juridical forms and of the normative and institutional structure in which they operate.