The role of research in legal education: An issue of power and coloniality

Abstract

This article breaks ground explaining the benefits of using legal and socio-legal research in legal pedagogy. It offers a critical review of research quality assessment systems currently in use in the social sciences, taking criminological research as a case to illustrate the analysis. Among its findings, it reveals that the quantitative, bibliometric, and formal model adopted by Colombia's Ministry of Science to rank the quality of journal articles in social sciences, based mainly on SCOPUS and WOS indexes, does not necessarily lead to top quality research. Instead, it damages sovereignty, restricts the freedom to research, reaffirms cultural colonialism, and negatively affects the potential benefits of using research as an input in legal pedagogy. It concludes suggesting a more open and pluralistic research quality assessment system for social sciences.