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Friday, 26 May 2023

What is a profession?

Professions have been defined as "specific occupational groups that require specialised training, skills, and knowledge" (O'Reilly et al., 2020, p. 80). A profession has an identity, some type of social standing and a level of 'status' in the community. A profession by nature of its expertise has some level of "authority over other occupational groups to practise" within the community or within their specialised field (p. 80). A profession effectively negotiates with society and regulators to hold "autonomy, influence, and social standing" in order to practice as experts and keep the barriers to lesser-qualified competitor entry high (p. 80).

There appear to be “four key features of a profession […] identified in the literature” (Le, 2022, p. 23) which are listed as: 

  1. professional expertise” (p. 23), with members “possess[ing] specialised knowledge on which their expertise is claimed” (p. 24), knowledge which may be described as “advanced, or complex, or esoteric, or arcane” (McDonald, 2007, p. 3661, citing Murphy, 1988, p. 245); 
  2. professional credentials” (Le, 2022, p. 23), where “entry to a profession is often acquired through formally recognised training and credentials” controlled by some type of professional organisation with set entry criteria for particular levels of professional identity; 
  3. professional autonomy” (p. 23), where retaining “a high degree of control or autonomy over their work” (p. 24) is necessary, particularly as - alongside the recipient trust with which professional service delivery is imbued - professional services are a ‘credence’ good where “consumers [lack the knowledge and expertise to] evaluate providers’ performance” (Sandefur, 2015, p. 911); and 
  4. professional values” (p. 23), where “members […] share professional norms and values [which] identify them as a group” (p. 24). In academia, values of “autonomy, freedom, and collegiality” are considered to be ‘central’ (p. 39), with scientific truth tending to outweigh client- or student-focus.

These four elements of professionalism - expertise, credentials, autonomy and values - are interesting ideas. I am not sure that these are the 'only' key characteristics of a profession, but it will be interesting to follow them over time, and to see how they relate to our 'becoming' a professional (Scanlon, 2011, emphasis added).  


Sam

References:

Le, P. A. T. (2022). The academic profession from the perspectives of aspiring academics. [Doctoral thesis, University of Melbourne]. https://rest.neptune-prod.its.unimelb.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/3981b6f3-8c08-4608-a4e4-54dbce1b96a6/content

Macdonald, K. (2007). Professions. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (pp. 3660-3662). Blackwell Publishing.

O’Reilly, V., McMahon, M., & Parker, P. (2020). Career development: Profession or not?. Australian Journal of Career Development, 29(2). 79-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1038416219898548

Sandefur, R. L. (2015). Elements of professional expertise: Understanding relational and substantive expertise through lawyers’ impact. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 909–933. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122415601157

Scanlon, L. (Ed.) (2011). “Becoming” a Professional: an Interdisciplinary Analysis of Professional Learning. Springer.

2 comments :

  1. Being part of a professional may not be the only mark of a professional. CT

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, you raise a good point, Chris: you are coming at this from the other direction :-)

      Delete

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