Being Casual About Our Teachers – Understanding More About Sessional Teachers in Law
27 Pages Posted: 4 Nov 2010 Last revised: 18 Dec 2011
Date Written: November 2, 2010
Abstract
The literature (and data from other sources) confirm that over the past few decades, there has been a significant growth in the numbers of sessional (casual) staff employed in universities in Australia and other parts of the world. The increased casualisation has been across all universities, faculties and schools. Despite this growth there has been very little research undertaken to find out more about sessional academics. This paper concentrates on sessional academics in law schools in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific and attempts provide a ‘snapshot’ of sessional law academics by asking, ‘Who are our sessional teachers in law (practitioners or postgraduate students)?’ and, ‘How do they contribute to the legal education of our students and how much teaching do they do?’. Understanding more about our sessional teachers is an important first step in a process by which we might devise more appropriate training and support to ensure the quality of our law schools’ teaching and our students’ learning.
Keywords: Sessional Teachers in Law, Australia
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