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Educating the Deliberate Professional pp 29–44Cite as

Educating for Professional Responsibility: From Critical Thinking to Deliberative Communication, or Why Critical Thinking Is Not Enough

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Part of the book series: Professional and Practice-based Learning ((PPBL,volume 17))

Abstract

Complexity and challenges characterise twenty-first century western democratic societies, and our everyday lives are highly dependent on well-qualified professionals. We need to trust that professionals perform in a competent and responsible way within the uncertainty of current societies and work life. Realising this calls for deliberate professionals who are able to understand and cope with the unforeseen. Thus, students in higher education qualifying for work must not only learn and critically evaluate the knowledge of their profession, but also develop an awareness of the relationship between theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and the moral and social dimensions and implications of and in professional work. To develop the capacity needed, critical thinking is often referred to as an important learning outcome of higher education. In this chapter, we review the ways in which different meanings of critical thinking are articulated within some of the highly ranked research literature on higher education. We argue that critical thinking, as an individual capacity, is necessary yet insufficient for learning and enacting professional responsibility and propose an extended mode. Deliberative communication provides a more adequate model for building the necessary collective capability for making nuanced judgments and decisions tailored to individual circumstances.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For other perspectives on Bildung, including applying it to professional education, see Beck, Solbrekke, Sutphen, and Fremstad (2014).

  2. 2.

    The model was originally developed for use in schools and presented in Swedish (Englund, 2000). More elaborated evaluations and uses of the model can be found in Andersson (2012) and Forsberg (2011). The model in this chapter is slightly adjusted to higher education, especially professional programmes (Englund, 2002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke, Berit Karseth & Eevi E. Beck

  2. Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Tomas Englund

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  1. Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke
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  2. Tomas Englund
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  3. Berit Karseth
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  4. Eevi E. Beck
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Correspondence to Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Silverwater, New South Wales, Australia

    Franziska Trede

  2. The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Silverwater, New South Wales, Australia

    Celina McEwen

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Solbrekke, T.D., Englund, T., Karseth, B., Beck, E.E. (2016). Educating for Professional Responsibility: From Critical Thinking to Deliberative Communication, or Why Critical Thinking Is Not Enough. In: Trede, F., McEwen, C. (eds) Educating the Deliberate Professional. Professional and Practice-based Learning, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32958-1_3

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