The System Of Professions

In The System of Professions Andrew Abbott explores central questions about the role of professions in modern life: Why should there be occupational groups controlling expert knowledge? Where and why did groups such as law and medicine achieve their power? Will professionalism spread throughout the occupational world? While most inquiries in this field study one profession at a time, Abbott here considers the system of professions as a whole. Through comparative and historical study of the professions in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England, France, and America, Abbott builds a general theory of how and why professionals evolve.

With a new preface outlining the most recent critical developments, this updated edtion of The Future of the Professions predicts how technology will transform the work of doctors, teachers, architects, lawyers, and many others in the 21st century, and introduces the people and systems that may replace them.

Self-regulation has long been at the core of sociological understandings of what it means to be a "profession." However, the historical processes resulting in the formation of self-regulating professions have not been well understood. In Regulating Professions, Tracey L. Adams explores the emergence of self-regulating professions in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia from Confederation to 1940. Adams’s in-depth research reveals the backstory of those occupations deemed worthy to regulate, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and land surveying, and how they were regulated. Adams evaluates sociological explanations for professionalization and its regulation by analysing their applicability to the Canadian experience and especially the role played by the state. By considering the role of all those involved in creating the professional landscape in Canada, Adams provides a clear picture of the process and illuminates how important this has been in building Canadian institutions and society.

In this vital new study, Andrew Abbott presents a fresh and daring analysis of the evolution and development of the social sciences. Chaos of Disciplines reconsiders how knowledge actually changes and advances. Challenging the accepted belief that social sciences are in a perpetual state of progress, Abbott contends that disciplines instead cycle around an inevitable pattern of core principles. New schools of thought, then, are less a reaction to an established order than they are a reinvention of fundamental concepts. Chaos of Disciplines uses fractals to explain the patterns of disciplines, and then applies them to key debates that surround the social sciences. Abbott argues that knowledge in different disciplines is organized by common oppositions that function at any level of theoretical or methodological scale. Opposing perspectives of thought and method, then, in fields ranging from history, sociology, and literature, are to the contrary, radically similar; much like fractals, they are each mutual reflections of their own distinctions.

Freidson guides his analysis by finding what power may be ascribed to formal, codified knowledge. He focuses on the institutions that provide intellectual workers with their knowledge, a regular living, organized political resources, and other means with which to translate formal knowledge into human activity. Surveying professionals, he establishes a basic foundation for tracing the sources and means of professional power. Key issues are discussed as to whether they exercise power in the workplace, in government policy-making, and in the shaping of our physical and social world.

Social systems occur in many contexts of social work. This book provides an easy-to-read introduction to systems thinking for social workers who will encounter social problems in their professional practice or academic research. It offers new insights and fresh perspectives on this familiar topic and invites creative, critical, and empathetic thinking with a systems perspective. Through introducing systems theory as a problem-oriented approach for dealing with complex interpersonal relations and social systems, this book provides a framework for studying social relations. The authors present a strand of systems theory (inspired by sociologist Niklas Luhmann) that offers innovative, surprising, and practically relevant understandings of everyday social life, inclusion/exclusion, social problems, interventions, and society in general. Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions should be considered essential reading for all social work students taking modules on sociology and social policy as well as students of nursing, medicine, counselling, and occupational health and therapy.

This much-needed book provides a systematic introduction, both conceptual and applied, to the sociology of the professions. Keith Macdonald guides the reader through the chief sociological approaches to the professions, addressing their strengths and weaknesses. The discussion is richly illustrated by examples from and comparisons between the professions in Britain, the United States and Europe, relating their development to their cultural context. The social exclusivity that professions aim for is discussed in relation to social stratification, patriarchy and knowledge, and is thoroughly illustrated by reference to examples from medicine and other established professions, such as law and architecture. The themes of the book are drawn together in a final chapter by means of a case study of accountancy.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.