Material resources for teaching constitutional principles and values with audiovisual resources

An educational proposal with a historical and global perspective

Abstract

The teaching of constitutional law at university requires a critical approach that goes beyond the mere exposition of rules, dogmatic categories or decontextualised principles. Constitutional texts do not emerge in a vacuum; they respond to deliberate legal and political decisions in the face of historical experiences of institutional breakdown, structural violence and the denial of human dignity. Studying them requires reconstructing the material and cultural conditions that justify their existence, shifting the focus from the rule to the foundational conflict that precedes it. In this context, the training of lawyers cannot be limited to the acquisition of interpretative techniques, as it requires a focus on the construction of a legal rationality rooted in history and committed to the values that sustain the constitutional order. The didactic use of audiovisual language, especially in relation to 20th-century totalitarianism, provides a particularly fertile pedagogical framework for representing the breakdown of law, the unlimited exercise of power and the deterioration of legal guarantees. Articulating these resources with the study of comparative constitutional history makes it possible to identify common normative patterns in the constitutions that emerged after the catastrophe of war. This approach combines memory, critical analysis and ethical reflection, and contributes to positioning constitutional law as a humanistic discipline, aimed at preserving democracy in the face of its possible degradation. The article concludes with teaching proposals applicable to the university classroom, aimed at fostering critical analysis, legal argumentation and the construction of a solid constitutional awareness in future legal professionals.