Disability and participation in the professions: examples from higher and medical education

Learners with disabilities remain under-represented in higher education and courses, such as medicine, that grant access to ‘the professions’. National and professional legislation, policy and guidance have changed over the last few decades in response to reforms in the way disability is viewed and valued by society. Principles of equal rights and equality of opportunity inform the negotiation of widened participation in the professions. However, drawing on the example of medical education, it is possible to see that widening participation agendas may be insensitive to the needs of learners with disabilities. Analysing the development of practice and policy from a participation perspective suggests that tokenism may have played a role in deprioritising the voices of individuals with disabilities, rendering policy disconnected from the needs of marginalised groups. The concept of participatory parity may provide an opportunity to readdress this misrepresentation.     

Why do they stay? A study of resilient child protection workers in three European countries

Whilst 50% of child protection workers across much of Europe and the affluent ‘West’ leave after two years, many stay and develop substantial professional careers. This paper discusses research in Italy, Sweden and England examining what factors explain ‘remaining’ for more than three years in this stressful job. Underpinned by a hermeneutic epistemology, qualitative interviews were undertaken and subject to an interpretative thematic analysis. The findings proved to be complex and multi-layered and this paper presents an overview of these. The theoretical framework for the project mainly drew on organisations and resilience, and the initial sections of the paper consider how formulations of resilience as contextual and relational can elucidate professional sustainability. Organisational issues are considered, including the impact of work management, of supervision and of allocation in different national contexts. The paper also focuses on the role of friendships and informal support at work. Threaded through these established themes are more, perhaps surprising, concepts: for example, creativity, power, reflexive spaces and interpersonal relations as explanatory of remaining in child protection work.     

Practical knowledge and occupational control: The professionalization of architecture in the United States

An analysis of the formation of a discipline of architectural design in the United States in the first part of the 19th century emphasizes the relationship between the substantive content of professional expertise and the social structure of professional practice. As a newly constructed practice of design was threatened by broad changes affecting the structure of occupational control, explicit professionalizing projects emerged from the ideological organization of professional work itself. This paper identifies limitations of the market monopoly model and outlines an alternative view that focuses on the way the rhetorical dimensions of professional work organize the efforts of actors within a self-reproducing structure of occupational control. Analysis of the production of practical knowledge opens up new directions for research, incorporating the cultural dimensions of work into a macrostructural account of a profession and the processes of professionalization.     

Animals and anomalies: an analysis of the UK veterinary profession and the relative lack of state reform

The sociology of professions literature would predict that the contemporary state would not allow groups to continue unregulated or unreformed. However, this is indeed the case with the UK veterinary profession, with legislation dating back to 1966. Using an interdisciplinary analysis of published literature and reports, this paper assesses whether wider social, political and ethical dynamics can better explain this intriguing anomaly. We conclude with critical implications for the sociology of the professions. Furthermore, we argue that continuing to ignore the veterinary profession, and animals more generally, in sociological research will result in an impoverished and partial understanding of contemporary healthcare and occupations.     

Social work and artefacts: social workers' use of objects in client relations

Social workers' use of physical objects—i.e. artefacts such as paper, computers and plastic models—in client relations is rarely investigated. Most often, research focus is on interpersonal relations, user groups, professional skills and treatment methods in social work. In a study of decision-making tools and their impact on caseworkers' decision making, examples were found of caseworkers using artefacts in client relations. This paper presents these findings and discusses the purposes for which the caseworkers use artefacts. The empirical data consist of 30 qualitative interviews with caseworkers from a study of three different decision-making tools used in eldercare, employment services and child protection in Danish municipalities. The analysis shows that the caseworkers are concerned with the issue of how to justify the questions they ask clients and their assessment of clients. Job counsellors use artefacts to justify sensitive questions, for instance, questions concerning substance abuse. Family counsellors use artefacts as proof that they are guided by a model rather than making up the questions themselves. The caseworkers who grant homecare service use artefacts when rejecting an application.     

Anthropology and Social Work: engagement with humans,moral dilemmas and theories of difference

This article compares similarities between two disciplines traditionally distinguished by applying a praxis–theory dichotomy. It is argued that this equally simple and historical opposition is reducing the current multiple realities of both fields in Europe inaccurately, as both disciplines have more in common than normally appreciated. Therefore, the contribution compares the subjects ‘culture’ and ‘social problem’, showing some interesting overlaps in recent definitions. Furthermore, methodological parallels are traced in concepts such as participant observation, empathy or in-betweenness. In the third step, common roots in social theory and moral dilemmas of the past and the present for both social work and anthropology are discussed. Finally, the paper argues in favor of more collaboration, respectively, in practical training and academic research.     

Formative Evaluation and Editorial Review in the Development of Videodiscs Related to Human Service Professions

Summary

The importance of formative evaluation and editorial review during the development of an interactive videodisc is often overlooked. The rationale for the integrated use of formative evaluation and editing during the process of design, production, post-production and programming is presented. The role of the instructional designer, as well as some of the focal points, in formative evaluation and editing is discussed.     

Adversarial Allies: Care,Harm, and Resistance in the Helping Professions

Professional encounters bestow moral esteem upon professional helpers while denigrating those who access services. Yet society is arranged in such a way that professional services are indispensable for many to survive, and service users can experience them as simultaneously helpful and oppressive. We explore the ambivalent figure of the professional “adversarial ally” working within these systems through accounts from two research studies that straddle or resist the common-sense line that separates care from harm. Professionals need to acknowledge how we are experienced as adversaries in order to better forge relationships of solidarity or “alliance” with those using social and medical services.     

Organic Public Sociology in the Pragmatist Perspective: A Multifaceted Approach

This article argues that American pragmatism provides a model for organic public sociology, defined by Michael Burawoy as the sociologist's direct involvement with a group in a collaborative effort to bring about change, which permits and encourages a combined professional research and activist project. I use my project involving medical licensing and disciplinary boards to illustrate how those projects can be successfully combined. I served as a public member, conducted research, and was an advocate for change.     

Are we ready for them? Overseas-qualified social workers' professional cultural transition

Developing sociocultural competence in a new country is essential for migrants practising social work within new and distinct cultures. An argument for interventions needed to support the cultural transitioning of a migrant social work workforce is made, informed by findings from a mixed methods study of the experiences of overseas-qualified social workers in New Zealand. One of the main findings relates to migrant social workers' professional adaptation to the new environment. We focus the discussion here on how the perceptions and practices regarding the cultural dimensions of the transition informed their adaptation. Although this is a highly contextual example of social work practice in a foreign setting, the dynamics have equivalents in many international contexts as migration of labour is common globally. We argue that a greater focus on the migrant workforce is required in debates on globalisation. The discussion of the findings will highlight the need for culturally informed interventions to enable an increasingly global workforce to successfully make a professional cultural transition.