Expertise

In this book, Stehr and Grundmann outline the theoretical significance and practical importance of the growing stratum of experts, counsellors and advisors in contemporary society, and claim that the growing spectrum of knowledge-based occupations has led to the pluralisation of expertise. As decision makers in organizations and private citizens, for various reasons, increasingly seek advice from experts, the authors examine the nature of expert activity, and suggest that the role of experts needs to be distinguised from other roles such as professionals, scientists, or intellectuals. Experts, they argue, perform knowledge based activities that mediate between the context of knowledge creation and application. Existing approaches tend to restrict the role of the expert to scientists, or to conflate the roles of professionals with experts. In avoiding such restrictions, this book sets out a framework to understanding the growing role of expertise in a better way. Experts provides thought-provoking discussion that will be of interest to postgraduate students and academics working within the fields of social theory, knowledge, and consumption.

"In the early 1990s, a small group of "AIDS denialists," including a University of California professor named Peter Duesberg, argued against virtually the entire medical establishment's consensus that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Science thrives on such counterintuitive challenges, but there was no evidence for Duesberg's beliefs, which turned out to be baseless. Once researchers found HIV, doctors and public health officials were able to save countless lives through measures aimed at preventing its transmission"--

What makes an expert? What strategies do they use? If you're an expert in one domain, are you more likely to become an expert in a second? In examining questions like these, Professor Fernand Gobet provides a comprehensive overview of the field of expertise. With research from a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, philosophy, education, law and artificial intelligence, this is the definitive guide to the subject. Understanding Expertise: A Multidisciplinary Approach - Considers expertise on a number of levels ranging from the neural to the psychological and the social; - Critically evaluates current theories and approaches; - Addresses issues of key importance for society, with implications for training methods and the development of artificial expert systems.

Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers challenges many current assumptions about primary education. Tony Eaude uses international research and the experiences of teachers at different career phases to indicate that primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise adopt a wide repertoire of strategies and a flexible, reciprocal and intuitive approach to planning, assessment and teaching. He explores why a deep understanding of how young children learn, the ability to create an inclusive environment, relationships of care and trust and teachers who are attuned to children are essential. Eaude argues that to develop qualities such as confidence and resilience, to exercise informed intuition and to create a robust professional identity, many constraints on manifesting expertise, some of which are emotional, some more structural, must be overcome. Drawing on the research on professional learning, Eaude shows that these abilities and qualities are learned over time, through regular, sustained, contextualised opportunities, relating theory and practice, with the years soon after qualification particularly significant. He highlights that the professional knowledge and judgement required in complex, changing situations is acquired and refined mainly through guided practice and experience backed by reflection and engagement with research. The need for supportive professional learning communities and for policy which encourages primary classroom teachers' enthusiasm, creativity and willingness to innovate is emphasised and an enriched apprenticeship model – using a variety of processes, including observation of other teachers, practice, mentoring, case studies and discussion – is advocated.

In the last several decades, there has been a surge of interest in expertise in the social scientific, philosophical, and legal literatures. While it is tempting to attribute this surge of interest in expertise to the emergence and consolidation of a "knowledge society," "post-industrial society," or "network society," it is more likely that the debates about expertise are symptomatic of significant change and upheaval. As the number of contenders for expert status has increased, as the bases for their claims have become more diverse, and as the struggles between these would-be experts intensified, expertise became problematic and contested. In The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics, Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz have brought together a broad group of scholars who have engaged substantively and theoretically with debates regarding the nature of expertise and the social roles of experts to examine these areas within sociology and allied disciplines. The analyses take an historical and relational approach to the topic and are motivated by the sense that growing mistrust in experts represents a danger to democratic politics today. The chapters will be organized into three general parts: key theoretical and historical debates, the politics of expertise, and expertise within and across professional, disciplinary, legal, and intellectual spheres. Among the topics considered here are the value and relevance of the boundary between experts and laypeople; the causes and consequences of mistrust in experts; the meanings and social uses of objectivity; and the significance of recent transformations in the organization of the professions. Bringing together investigations from social scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars into the political dimensions of expertise, this Handbook connects interdisciplinary work done in science and technology studies with the more classic concerns, topics, and concepts of sociologists of professions and intellectuals.

The primacy of experts and expertise in current fields of public policy, governance and non-governmental organizations has accompanied increasing confusion on the foundations of their practices and the adequacy of their methods. Fields of Expertise clarifies the complex heritage of experts by exploring their relationship with legal, political and administrative powers from a comparative historical and interdisciplinary perspective. Specifically, the authors offer case studies on expert procedures in the two capital cities of Paris and London since 1600 in the essential areas of risk management, medical procedures, economic policy, and administrative reform. In doing so, they provide insight into the evolution of expert procedures while at the same time taking into consideration the interdisciplinary nature of scholarship on expertise drawn from Sociology, Science Studies and Political Science. The following articles thus challenge traditional views on the nature of expertise and provide a synthesis of the vast and disparate literature that has been written on the subject. Fields of Expertise’s international perspectives and multi-disciplinary grasp of the literature in political science, sociology, science studies and history will be useful to scholars and students alike in addressing this highly topical issue. The essays reference mainstream sources and widely-documented cases on experts and expertise, making it accessible to the general reader as well.

The relevance of expertise to professional education and practice is explored in this collection of original contributions from educationalists, philosophers and psychologists. Discusses the increasingly prominent debates about the nature of know-how in mainstream analytical epistemology Illuminates what is involved in professional expertise and the implications of a sound understanding of professional expertise for professional education practice, curriculum design and assessment All contributions are philosophically grounded and reflect interdisciplinary advances in understanding expertise

Offering the broadest review of psychological perspectives on human expertise to date, this volume covers behavioral, computational, neural, and genetic approaches to understanding complex skill. The chapters show how performance in music, the arts, sports, games, medicine, and other domains reflects basic traits such as personality and intelligence, as well as knowledge and skills acquired through training. In doing so, this book moves the field of expertise beyond the duality of "nature vs. nurture" toward an integrative understanding of complex skill. This book is an invaluable resource for researchers and students interested in expertise, and for professionals seeking current reviews of psychological research on expertise.