Constitucionalismo digital no ensino de direitos fundamentais: um estudo dos currículos dos cursos de Direito das universidades federais brasileiras

Abstract

The digital revolution has been generating tensions within contemporary social structures. In the Law field, tensions have intensified between constitutional norms conceived for an analog reality and challenges associated with the internet, artificial intelligence, big data, and the algorithmization of social interactions. Such transformations compel Law to undergo processes of adaptation and theoretical re-elaboration, particularly with regard to the protection and effective realization of fundamental rights in the digital sphere. Therefore, digital constitutionalism emerges as an ideology that seeks to translate the values of contemporary constitutionalism into the digital domain, aiming to limit the power of the state and major private corporations, as well as to concretize fundamental rights. Considering the literature’s diagnosis of the persistence of dogmatic, traditionalist, and technicist patterns in brazilian legal education, and adopting a critical perspective on the curriculum as a cultural, social, and ideologically oriented artifact, this research investigates whether and in what ways digital constitutionalism, as an ideology, has produced formalized transformations in legal education oriented toward fundamental rights in a digital context. The study adopts a qualitative approach grounded in documentary analysis. The documentary corpus consisted of Pedagogical Course Projects (PCPs), syllabi, and teaching plans for the mandatory Constitutional Law courses within Law programs offered by Brazilian federal universities, identified through e-MEC database, totaling 69 programs. Document collection was conducted in the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Documentation was obtained for 68 of the 69 programs; 59 PCPs and teaching plans from 31 programs were collected. In all programs, it was possible to obtain the syllabi for the courses. The results reveal obstacles related to transparency and document updating, with PCPs at times revised only partially through changes restricted to curricula and syllabi, suggesting that such revisions were primarily aimed at regulatory compliance rather than substantive pedagogical reform. Terminological heterogeneity and an initial, fragmented, and asymmetric incorporation of debates on fundamental rights in the digital environment were also observed, largely concentrated in courses whose titles include the expression “Digital Law,” with limited integration of these discussions into the mandatory core of Constitutional Law courses. Explicit references to the term “digital constitutionalism” proved incipient and, as a rule, detached from mandatory constitutional courses, with four explicit mentions identified. Although still a minority, there is a nationally relevant movement toward incorporating these debates, which may suggest that the dominant logic of teaching about digital rights in Brazil appears to be tied to a privatist perspective. In conclusion, in an environment in which digital technologies reshape interaction and directly influence both the realization and the violation of fundamental rights, the tendency to circumscribe the debate to the realm of private relationships reveals a mismatch between legal education and the concrete demands of society. This misalignment undermines the education of professionals capable of understanding, applying, and defending fundamental rights in the digital context, reinforcing the need to rethink curricular content, methods, and approaches so as to align them with the demands of the current constitutional and technological landscape.