THE TASK OF TEACHING LAW IN A FACULTY OF PUBLIC POLICY - THE CHALLENGE OF INTEGRATING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EPISTEMIC COMMUNITY

Abstract

The assumption that guides the assembly of courses in the field of public policy is clear: to form a good professional or a good researcher in the area it is necessary to make it transition through several fields of knowledge that, historically, were separated from each other. The challenge is: how to understand and practice the interdisciplinarity intrinsic to this proposal? More specifically, how to make the constant and necessary transition between different fields of knowledge not result, at the end, only a deficient formation, when considered from the point of view of each particular discipline, and fragmented, when considered as a whole? To indicate the core of the challenge of interdisciplinary formation, we use the concept of “epistemic community”, which is characterized by the fact that its members share, to a greater or lesser extent: a) a common language, endowed with certain concepts that are supposed to be apt describing field study objects, but which, well considered, are also constructing these study objects; b) a common assessment of what are the relevant problems to be solved with respect to these objects; c) tendency to standardize certain basic, pre-theoretical beliefs, which allow structuring the field of study; d) a shared view of what are valid, acceptable methods for addressing and solving the problems of the discipline (ZITO 2001; HAAS, 1992). The challenge of teachers of the public field lies in the dilemma of moving away from their communities of origin to forge their own interdisciplinary epistemic community, or maintaining the bond with their first epistemic community.