Wikipedia is a “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” This web-based encyclopedia, which the Globe and Mail has called a “glorious social experiment” (and which Wired magazine has called “a repository of knowledge to rival the ancient library of Alexandria”), now has over six million articles in over 250 languages. Until today, there was no article among those six million on PLE, PLEI, plei, community legal education, law-related education, or any of the other fields in our universe.
I have spent the morning putting together a starter of an article on PLE [link]. The first job—defining the term—took me all of the morning (plus the months I’ve spent mulling and attempting it already). Take a look and see what you think.
And if you don’t like what you see, you can fix it yourself! Wikipedia encourages all readers to “be bold” in editing articles. But staff and volunteers at PLE organizations should take note of Wikipedia’s conflict of interest guidelines [link], which urge you not to link to or trumpet your own organization.
I hope this article will grow to become a high-quality explanation of what PLE is, what it does, and why it’s important. Since Wikipedia is becoming a first reference source for journalists, scholars, and the public, the Wikipedia PLE entry could have a big impact on worldwide understanding of PLE.
March 26, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Ritchie, I don’t know if this turned up in your research but in February 2001, the Department of Justice Canada convened a meeting of public legal education organizations to discuss issues related to the renewal of public legal education. At that meeting, it was recognized that justice is experienced at several levels – in individual interactions, through experiences in communities, as well as through the formal justice system — and that justice renewal must attend to all these levels. A citizen-centred approach to justice needs to facilitate meaningful, informed citizen participation in shaping that justice. It must be accessible and equitable —respecting diversity and embracing justice from a holistic perspective that values prevention and that provides a variety of responsive and effective methods of preventing and resolving disputes at the individual, community, and societal levels.
In these discussions, public legal education providers generally supported the proposition that the role of PLE is two-fold:
1. Public legal education helps give members of the public the capacity to participate effectively in the systems for creating and administering justice in society by
helping them to understand and assert their rights and to understand and fulfill their responsibilities;
fostering opportunities for Canadians to play a meaningful role in creating justice; and
facilitating communication, coordination, and collaboration among partners and key stakeholders in the systems for providing justice.
2. Public legal education helps to ensure that the systems for creating and administering justice are, and continue to be, capable of doing so and that they recognize the necessity of and facilitate the effective involvement of citizens in achieving justice.
As far as I can remember, that’s the last time a group of us has wrestled with a “definition” for PLE. I know that for some of us, at least, the two-way dynamic of PLE in this representation is extremely important. I don’t think your Wikipedia entry captures this. You might want to reference this discussion in some way on the Wikipedia entry.
March 26, 2007 at 4:01 pm
This is an important point, Lois, and one that I’ll struggle with a bit as I plan my next contributions to the article (remember that anyone can edit it!).
Two initial thoughts:
1. This most recent Justice Canada definition might belong in the article, but only in a more thorough discussion of Canadian PLE. The “definition” reads more like a vision—and one that is so far only partly realized. Outside of a small list of programs I can think of, PLE in this country has only been doing (1)(a) (“helping … understand”) and (1)(c) (“facilitating … collaboration”).
2. I, too, think that the “two-way dynamic of PLE” is extremely important. I hesitated for a long time before writing, in the article, that “public legal education is principally aimed at people who are not lawyers, judges, or degree-seeking law students.” But, again, an encyclopedia entry must be mostly about what “is,” not what should or might be.