Formative research in law: Toward a structure of methodological pathways

Abstract

In legal education, both students and professors often confuse epistemological and methodological concepts, leading to a reductionist view of the heuristic framework and disconnection between different methodological approaches. This article proposes a systemic and hierarchical architecture of methodological pathways for formative research in law, based on the interpretive paradigm and a qualitative descriptive approach using discourse analysis. The study employs document analysis to systematically review extensive literature. Four key points are addressed: critiques of the absolutist claim of science and qualitative methods, a proposal for heuristic architectures, the paradigm of complexity and transdisciplinarity, and the potential of qualitative heuristics for comprehensive understanding and social transformation. The proposed structure is envisioned as a system, where elements are interconnected and operate under complementarity and interdependence.