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Professional Work in Contemporary Contexts

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Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education

Part of the book series: Professional and Practice-based Learning ((PPBL,volume 14))

Abstract

A primary function for this chapter is to build a number of bridges between contemporary writing about the nature of professional work and professional education, on the one hand, and the theoretical exploration that we are providing in the body of the book. It summarises ideas that will be familiar to those who research the professions and to those who are deeply engaged in programs of professional education. It builds on these ideas by offering a preliminary description of the changing nature of professional work – emphasising the roles played by knowledge and the importance of being able to work flexibly and creatively with knowledge. The chapter also uses a brief summary of a number of common approaches to professional education to start an analysis of the relations between codified and other forms of knowledge in professional work and learning.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is important to note that many jobs that are not normally classified as ‘professional ’ involve substantial amounts of knowledge work, including the creation of new knowledge. The core ideas in this book are relevant to knowledge work in general; we do not see them as restricted to phenomena that are unique to professional workplaces (Gorman & Sandefur, 2011). We speak of ‘professional education ’ in quite a pragmatic way – what western universities currently deem to be professional education provides a space within which our empirical work is situated and also provides us with a sense of audience for this book.

  2. 2.

    Indeed, it can be argued that sociological research on the professions has been blind to a number of very significant developments. The growth of inter-professional work is one good example (Guile, 2014).

  3. 3.

    Intensification of work is not a simple phenomenon. In some countries – notably in Europe – new legal restrictions have been placed on the length of the working week, with major consequences for working practices in areas such as healthcare. Ongoing reductions in the real resources available for professional work in the public sector, and increasing competition in the private sector, nevertheless apply pressure to raise productivity and throughput, with accompanying stresses on the workforce. In contrast, increasing participation by women in areas of professional work previously dominated by men is often being accompanied by pressures to attain greater flexibility and control over work–life balance (Heiligers & Hingstman, 2000; Kelliher & Anderson, 2010).

  4. 4.

    For general summaries, see Billett, Harteis and Gruber (2014).

  5. 5.

    Chapter 4 explains different kinds of knowledge.

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  1. Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation (CRLI), Faculty of Education & Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Lina Markauskaite & Peter Goodyear

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Markauskaite, L., Goodyear, P. (2017). Professional Work in Contemporary Contexts. In: Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education. Professional and Practice-based Learning, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4369-4_2

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