This workshop assesses progress toward greater intellectual unification within the Law and Social Sciences field; a field comprised of scholars interested in the study of law using empirical, social scientific methods. It is the first workshop of its kind designed to investigate the extent to which new approaches to graduate training and new directions in scholarship in this field might facilitate a greater sense of unification within the larger discipline of Law and Social Sciences. To date, this discipline has been comprised by a variety of disparate research movements with relatively independent professional associations, journals, conferences, graduate programs, etc. The current workshop brings together junior and senior scholars -- criminologists, sociologists, legal scholars, economists, anthropologists, political scientists, and psychologists ? to consider the means by which university programs, journals, and associations might maintain the strengths brought by these divergent disciplinary backgrounds, while simultaneously fostering increasing cohesion among scholars and scholarship.
This workshop provides a fresh perspective on the future intellectual development of the Law and Social Sciences field -- particularly as it relates to the training of future scholars and expected research directions. The discussion and recommendations of the workshop are expected to be disseminated via the leading journals in the field.
Scholars in the field of law and social science ground their research in a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropology, criminology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Because they conduct most of their research within these disciplinary boundaries, they do not always share their findings and theories with others studying law, even though they are working on very similar questions about particular legal institutions and legal processes. We planned this workshop to bring together these researchers to discuss their common interests and to promote more collaboration. We expect more collaboration to produce a clearer, more thorough picture of how these institutions work. The participants in the workshop identified emerging trends in the current research on law and social science and the many different methodological approaches used to conduct that research. We also discussed different possibilities for training graduate students, including providing opportunities for them to obtain training across disciplines. The participants also identified ways to encourage more collaboration in the development of a research agenda, including organizing workshops along more focused topics and ensuring that scholars from a wide range of disciplines attend and share their insights. After attending the workshop, the participants went back to their academic departments and professional associations and developed plans to implement the ideas discussed. Participants have, for example, added cross-training components to their graduate programs, and professional associations have become more proactive in encouraging interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration.
