Environmental Law Clinics in Collaboration with Environmental NGOs in China

Pei-Pei He, Yu-Jing Zhuang, Ying Lin and Cheng-Hui Zheng
Additional contact information
Pei-Pei He: School of Law, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China
Yu-Jing Zhuang: School of Law, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China
Ying Lin: Fujian Green Home Environment Friendly Center, Fuzhou 350001, China
Cheng-Hui Zheng: Fujian Provincial Academy of Environmental Science, Fuzhou 350003, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of an innovative curriculum design on environmental education in China, specifically with regard to an Environmental Law Clinic (ELC) course, to be run in co-operation with environmental NGOs (ENGOs). Adopting a qualitative case study method, our researchers investigated the effect of this innovative curriculum, including the quantity of student environmental knowledge, the level of the sense of student environmental responsibility, and the ability of students to solve environmental disputes. We also investigated each participant’s attitudes toward this innovative design. Our researchers employed various methods to analyze the student questionnaires, and to simulate consultation records and interview records. The results of our study show that an ELC (in co-operation with ENGOs) would be innovative and indispensable in the field of contemporary environmental law education. In fact, our design largely solves the problems faced by China’s ELC education. The innovative curriculum we have designed is beneficial to the sustainable development of society, because it not only improves a student’s practical ability, necessary knowledge, and the skills to deal with cases, but the curriculum also increases a student’s sense of environmental responsibility. However, to promote the wide-range practice and sustainable development of this curriculum in China, sound and multilevel support systems and measures are required.

Keywords: legal clinic education; environmental law clinic; environmental law; sustainability; environmental NGO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/337/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/337/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:3:p:337-:d:91395

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().