Enhancing Criminal Justice and Criminology Programs: The Precarious Balance of Pedagogy and Content Knowledge

A 1991 article in The Criminologist raises questions about what the needs may be in graduate criminal Justice and criminology education. The article, however, failed to discuss teaching skills and faculty diversity among instructors in existing programs. Since the publication of that article, there has remained a dearth of consideration of these timely areas. criminal Justice and criminology as cognate emerging disciplines have begun to develop solid stands deeply rooted in multiple parent disciplines. The current article considers whether or not people educated in these diverse disciplines, who possess different levels of practical experience, offer similar kinds of content knowledge to their students. Also considered are different pedagogical approaches used in criminal Justice and Criminological programs. As well, this paper examines how administrations might encourage faculty to upgrade both their content knowledge and pedagogical skills.