Abstract:

I. The topic in the scope of EDULEARN11.

The author presents this paper to EDULEARN11, the International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, in order to share with all its participants an experience that has carried out the course 2010-2011 with Law students. Specifically, the law lecturer wants to show the attendants of the Conference a communication that includes three topics of it:

->General issues: Last year (2010) 58 women were murdered by his husbands in Spain. Gender violence is increasing and it looks like a never end history. That is why Spanish Parliament passed a special law to try to fight against this phenomenon. This law, another other measures (social, labour, economic helps, different administrative organs,…), has created Courts of Violence against Women. In this way, Spain is the first European state that has created a special court to judge crimes related to domestic violence.

->Pedagogical innovations in Education: far away from the traditional teaching-learning system, the project has based on cooperative learning, problem based learning and the case method. Students of fourth course of Law Degree have realized a critical analysis of the functioning of Courts of Violence against Women using real and practice activities.

->Experiences in Education: our pupils are used to receive objective information. They are not used to think critically about the topics they study. That is why the school year 2010-2011 we have prepared a project to intervention in the classroom in order to encourage students to make a critical analysis about gender violence in Spain. Main lines of this project and its development are going to be explained in the paper. We will report the conclusions also.

II. Gender violence and Courts of Violence against Women in Spain.

One of the most important social problems of Spain, besides unemployment, is gender violence: violence exercised by the man against woman by the mere fact of being female. The reason of this social terrorism is cultural: the form of social organization, relations that humans establish in it and the way they relate themselves. Man dominates society and woman is considered a mere object of him in it. Religion and Law often have justified gender violence.

In Democracy era, once Spanish Constitution has recognized equality of all people, male and female, gender-based violence is nothing more than an attack on social peace and Law State. Therefore, law must use all tools to stop it. Without doubt, one of the most important tasks to achieve this aim are Courts of Violence against Women.

III. Activities with fourth course law students in order to make a critical analysis of the work of Courts of Violence against Women.

Based on the foregoing, during the first semester of 2010-2011 school year, the one who writes these lines has carried out some dynamics in order to make a critical analysis on the mentioned courts.

Concretely, 10 class hours have been dedicated to this project. Students have had to work more hours out of classroom. The pedagogical project has been integrated with three activities: (1) a researching work, (2) a visit to a Court of Violence against Women, where students could see a real trial on gender violence, and (3) a role playing.

In the paper all the details about this experience will be explained, remarking the positive attitude of pupils and their high motivation.

Keywords:

Gender violence, courts of violence against women, cooperative learning, problem based learning, case method.