Competencies and objectives

Provisional information. Pending approval by the School/Faculty Board.

 

Course context for academic year 2025-26

The course "Sociology of Law" aims to provide students with a critical understanding of law as a social phenomenon. From a sociological perspective, it encourages reflection on the role of law in organizing collective life, its legitimacy, its relationship with power structures, and its impact on social change. What is the purpose of law? Who truly benefits from it?

Rather than presenting law as a neutral, closed, or unquestionable system, this course invites students to challenge commonly held assumptions: the objectivity of those who apply the law, the supposed clarity of legal norms, or the idea that laws are applied equally to all. These conceptions, inherited from 19th-century legal thinking, fall short when it comes to understanding the complexity of contemporary societies.

Throughout the course, students will engage with classical and contemporary theoretical approaches to the relationship between law and society, while also exploring empirical studies and real-world cases that show how law operates in practice — how it evolves alongside social changes, and how it can both reproduce inequalities and open paths for resistance and transformation.

The course is designed to foster an analytical, reflective, and independent mindset, enabling students to develop their own perspectives on the many ways in which law interacts with social life, and its potential to help us understand, regulate, or change the world we live in.

 

 

Course competencies (verified by ANECA in official undergraduate and Master’s degrees) for academic year 2025-26

General Competences (CG)

  • CG.1 : Capacity to find, analyse and synthesise information.
  • CG.2 : Capacity for teamwork: collaborating with others and contributing towards a common project.
  • CG.3 : Capacity for self-learning and adapting to new situations.
  • CG.4 : Capacity to take decisions, putting one's knowledge into practice and handling technical instruments.
  • CG.5 : Capacity for criticism and self criticism.

 

General Competences acquired at University of Alicante (CGUA)

  • CGUA.2 : Ability to use information and communications technologies in one's professional life.
  • CGUA.3 : Capacity for oral and written communication.

 

Specific Competences (CE)

  • CE1 : Be able to describe fundamental concepts in the fields of psychology, sociology, law and natural sciences that are needed to provide a global analysis of criminal phenomena and deviation.
  • CE10 : Be able to explain and summarise empirical information and results of research into crime, victimisation and response to crime and deviation, and evaluate the methodology used (identify which methodology is the most appropriate, its ethical principles, results, etc.).
  • CE2 : Be able to describe the fundamental theoretical approaches to criminal acts, victimisation and responses to crime and deviation.
  • CE3 : Be able to extract and synthesise information from different sources, including: handling information and communication technologies, designing and applying appropriate research strategies for compiling data using quantitative and qualitative methods, and being able to apply basic statistical techniques to questions related to crime and victimisation when necessary.
  • CE5 : Be able to provide an analytical explanation of diversity and social inequality, as well as its consequences relating to criminal acts, victimisation and responses to crime and deviation.
  • CE8 : Be able to argue and describe different points of view and debate them in a logical and coherent manner and present conclusions in an appropriate academic format when dealing with questions of criminal policy, victimisation, criminalisation and responses to crime and deviation as well as on the perception and interpretation of the same by the communications media, public opinion and official reports.

 

 

 

Learning outcomes (Training objectives)

No data

 

 

Specific objectives stated by the academic staff for academic year 2025-26

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

• Distinguish, based on classical authors, the different theoretical approaches within the Sociology of Law
• Understand Law as a social fact
• Identify social processes involved in the formation of Law and in the application of legal norms
• Recognize Law as a body of knowledge that self-regulates through its interaction with society
• Analyze the influence of social factors in the production of contemporary Law
• Take a critical stance regarding the conflicts of interest that affect legal systems
• Explore the impact of specific elements (such as digital technologies or globalization) on the configuration of new legal spaces and forms of social regulation
• Understand how Law can contribute both to the reproduction and the transformation of social inequalities
• Critically analyze legal discourses through intersectional approaches (gender, class, ethnicity, etc.)
• Reflect on new forms of justice (restorative, digital, community-based) and their relevance in contemporary contexts

COMPETENCIES TO BE DEVELOPED

• Organize, search for, verify, investigate, systematize, identify and isolate variables when analyzing the social reality of Law
• Develop skills in written, oral or multimedia presentation of academic work
• Foster the habit of reading texts or consulting multimedia materials on sociological approaches to Law
• Participate actively in teamwork and group cooperation
• Develop an analytical attitude towards the social influences that shape legal systems
• Acquire the ability to critically interpret emerging legal phenomena in digital, transnational or intercultural contexts
• Apply sociological concepts of Law to real and current cases, with an ethical and socially engaged perspective
• Use digital tools for research and for presenting results in the socio-legal field
• Develop a critical perspective on the role of Law in sustainability, human rights and the challenges of the 21st century

 

 

General

Code: 18511
Lecturer responsible:
Llorca Asensi, Elena
Credits ECTS: 6,00
Theoretical credits: 1,80
Practical credits: 0,60
Distance-base hours: 3,60

Departments involved

  • Dept: SOCIOLOGIA I
    Area: SOCIOLOGY
    Theoretical credits: 1,8
    Practical credits: 0,6
    This Dept. is responsible for the course.
    This Dept. is responsible for the final mark record.

Study programmes where this course is taught