Encyclopedia of Professionalization

Didier Demazière is Director of Research at CNRS and a member of the Centre de sociologie des organisations, Sciences Po, France. As a labor and professions sociologist, his research focuses on the organization of labor markets, compensation systems, professional careers and working and employment conditions.Richard Wittorski is Professor and Director of the CIRNEF laboratory at the University of Rouen, France. He is also Director of the international Hybrida-Is research network, which focuses on social intervention activities and professions. His research focuses on the relationship between work and training and professionalization.

• Introduction XIIIDidier DEMAZIÈRE and Richard WITTORSKIPart 1 Professionalization, the Manufacturing of Professions 1Chapter 1 Professionalization, Practical Wisdom and Vulnerabilities 3Florent CHAMPY1.1 Introduction 31.2 Classic professionalization theories 41.2.1 The functionalist theory 41.2.2 The interactionist critique 61.2.3 Andrew Abbott’s theory 91.3 The protection of professions with prudential practice 121.3.1 The fragilities of practical wisdom and the theory of professionalization 121.3.2 The professionalization of American medicine 151.3.3 Medicine and doctors according to Osler 161.3.4 The “social case work” according to Mary Richmond 171.3.5 Professionalization theories and historical facts 191.4 Objectivity, professionalism metamorphoses and vulnerabilities 201.4.1 The end of the golden age for professions 201.4.2 Organizational professionalism, new public management and practical wisdom 211.4.3 The stubborn mirage of the scientificity of practices 261.4.4 Mobilizations and challenges to professionality 281.5 Conclusion 301.6 References 31Chapter 2 Professionalization: The Mystery of Boundaries 37Didier DEMAZIÈRE2.1 Professionalization as the selection of professions 392.1.1 Professionalization for all? 402.1.2 Is there a professions perimeter? 442.1.3 At a distance from the arrival point: professional groups 482.2 Professionalization as friction at the boundaries 502.2.1 Tensions around professionalization 512.2.2 The risks of deprofessionalization? 572.2.3 Professional groups as professionalizations 602.3 Conclusion 632.4 References 64Part 2 Professionalization, the Rise of Professionalisms 73Chapter 3 New Requirements and Standards at Work: Driving Forces and Limitations to the Recomposition of Professional Autonomy and Responsibility 75Arnaud MIAS3.1 Greater autonomy in the face of increasing work requirements? 793.2 Project, network and trust: new labor standards? 843.2.1 Professionals threatened by project management 853.2.2 The promises of the Agile method put to the test by employee commitment 883.3 Professionalization or standardization? New forms of work standardization 903.3.1 Quality management, between standardization and individual responsibilization 903.3.2 Lean management, an exacerbation of the tensions associated with the standardizing ambition 933.4 New Public Management: work standardization for public employees? 953.5 Experimenting with new forms of labor governance 983.5.1 The “liberated” company: a disruptive proposal? 993.5.2 What regulation of autonomy at work? The example of lean 1003.5.3 The problematic engineering of discussion spaces 1023.6 Conclusion 1043.7 References 106Chapter 4 Struggles Over the Definition of a “Job Well Done” 113Valérie BOUSSARD4.1 The definition of a job well done, the cornerstone of professionalism 1154.1.1 The rules of the art 1164.1.2 The professional ethos 1174.1.3 Boundaries and hierarchies 1184.2 A job well done, determined by the professionals themselves 1214.2.1 Rules of the art learned through professional socialization 1214.2.2 Rules of the art developed by the profession itself 1224.2.3 Sanctions for “poorly done” work 1244.2.4 A definition of a job well done which addresses audiences 1274.3 When the definition of a job well done escapes professionals 1294.3.1 Prescription of a job well done, by the state 1294.3.2 Prescription of a job well done, by management 1324.3.3 Prescription of a job well done, by users 1354.4 Struggles around the definition of a job well done 1374.4.1 Institutional struggles 1384.4.2 Pragmatic struggles 1404.5 Conclusion 1424.6 References 143Chapter 5 Professionalization as an Object of Tensions between Institutional, Collective and Individual Logics 149Mokhtar KADDOURI5.1 The ambiguous status of the term professionalization: between camouflage and the revelation of tensions between and within the configurations of actors 1505.2 Professionalization as a configuration of actors engaged in interdependent and tensional dynamics: illustration of configurations of actors in tension around a professionalization scheme 1525.2.1 The context of the professionalization project 1535.2.2 Actors in tension around the professionalization scheme 1545.3 Conflicting relationships and reconfigurations of variable actors around the professionalization scheme 1585.3.1 Some characteristics of the relationships between and within the categories of actors 1595.3.2 Multiple logics in tension 1615.4 Professionalization as the production of skills and of professional identities 1625.4.1 Professionalization as an institutional offer of skills and identities 1635.4.2 Professionalization as a claim to skills and collective professional identity 1635.4.3 Professionalization as a factory of skills and an individual professional identity 1635.5 Conclusion 1655.5.1 Professionalization as a tensional combination of interdependent actor logics 1665.5.2 Resistance to professionalization as a factor asserting our professionalism and claiming identity 1675.6 References 168Part 3 Professionalization, the Construction of Professionalities 171Chapter 6 Apprenticeship in Education and in Training: Foundation for Adult Training, Professionalization Analyzer of Educational Paths and Pedagogic Figure 173Philippe MAUBANT6.1 Contexts and conditions for the emergence of apprenticeship programs in education and in training 1746.1.1 Apprenticeship through the prism of everyday life 1746.1.2 Apprenticeship and its ambitions to master spaces and times 1756.1.3 Apprenticeship, environments and situations 1756.1.4 Three major philosophical debates echo three major questions posed to apprenticeship programs 1766.1.5 The ambitions of apprenticeship 1796.2 The apprenticeship pedagogy(ies): foundations, conceptions and uses 1846.2.1 From the learning pedagogies to the apprenticeship pedagogies 1846.2.2 Images, words and forms of apprenticeship pedagogies 1866.2.3 From learning models to apprenticeship pedagogic configurations 1876.2.4 Analytical theories of the work activity: new perspectives for thinking about an apprenticeship pedagogy 1886.3 Conclusion: apprenticeship, stage director of professionalization paths and critical friend of life paths 1896.4 References 191Chapter 7 The Relationships Between Professionalization and the Work Situation: Professional Challenges and Social Relationships 201Sandra ENLART7.1 The social order at the center 2027.1.1 When to learn is to obey: compagnons, artisans, workers in history 2027.1.2 At the end of the war: when to learn is to apply 2047.1.3 Learning means participating in a professional community in a “peripheral and legitimate” way 2057.2 The individual at the center 2077.2.1 The turning point of individualism and the coronation of the employee actor 2077.2.2 Learning: developing skills and transferring them 2087.2.3 The digital revolution and the health crisis: learning and working remotely from the organization 2107.3 Activity at the center 2127.3.1 WPL and communities of practice: an encompassing theoretical framework 2137.3.2 Professional didactics: professional activity, at the heart of schemes 2147.3.3 Empowering environments and feedback from the learning organization 2157.4 Conclusion 2167.5 References 217Chapter 8 Learning in the Workplace: Recurrent and Emerging Conceptions and Practices 223Stephen BILLETT8.1 Purposes of learning through work 2248.2 Utilizing, enriching and augmenting workplace learning experiences 2268.3 Learning through occupational practice 2288.4 Supporting, augmenting and guiding learning at work 2308.5 Promoting and engaging workers’ personal epistemologies 2338.6 Recurrent and emerging conceptions and practices: learning through work 2358.7 References 236Chapter 9 The Activity Analysis Approach in Education and Training Sciences: Challenges, Principles and Perspectives 243Joris THIEVENAZ9.1 The intelligibility of relationships between work and learning: a scientific and praxeological challenge 2449.1.1 A field of research constituting education and training sciences 2449.1.2 A professional and social challenge 2469.1.3 A rapprochement between two worlds: work and professional training 2479.2 The reference in education and training sciences to different theoretical trends or approaches which study the way in which humans act, learn and transform themselves by producing 2489.2.1 Pioneering work establishing the principles of work analysis in relation to formative and developmental concerns 2499.2.2 Professional didactics 2499.2.3 The activity clinic and the psycho-dynamics of work 2509.2.4 Ergology 2519.2.5 The course of action 2529.2.6 The psycho-phenomenological approach to experience 2539.2.7 Linguistic and interactional approaches 2539.2.8 The epistemology of activity analysis frameworks 2549.2.9 A Deweyan approach to experience 2549.3 Principles which structure and guide research work in education and training sciences 2559.3.1 The enigmatic nature of work and activities 2559.3.2 The distinction between task and activity 2559.3.3 The essential immersion in work spaces 2569.3.4 Taking into account both the productive and formative dimension of human activity 2569.3.5 Taking into account the unique and situated character of human activities 2579.3.6 An intention that is both epistemic and praxeological in the production of knowledge 2579.3.7 The co-construction of valid knowledge 2589.3.8 A holistic approach to human action 2589.4 A micrological mode observation and analysis of human activities in a situation of production of goods and/or services 2589.4.1 Attention to detail, the silent, the ordinary and the “almost nothing” 2599.4.2 From the singular to the universal 2599.5 Conclusion 2609.6 References 260Chapter 10 Professionalism and the Auto/Biographical Imagination 265Linden WEST10.1 Introduction: auto/biography and professionalism 26510.2 The central role of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) 26910.3 A case in point 27010.4 Doing “educational biography” 27110.5 More Canterbury tales 27310.6 Narrative competence 27410.7 Travelling south 27510.8 Imagining the future 27710.9 Conclusion: a wider world, constraints and new opportunities 28010.10 References 281Conclusion: Manufacturing of Professions, Production of Professionalities and Rise of Professionalism: Interdependence and Reciprocal Transformations of Individuals, Collectives, Organizations and Environments 285Richard WITTORSKIList of Authors 305Index 307