A profession is a field of work that has been successfully professionalized.
[1] It can be
defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical
standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as
possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived
from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this
knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others.[2][3]
Professional occupations are founded upon specialized educational training, the
purpose of which is to supply disinterested objective counsel and service to others, for a
direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business
gain.[4] Medieval and early modern tradition recognized only three
professions: divinity, medicine, and law,[5][6] which were called the learned
professions.[7] In some legal definitions, profession is not a trade[8] nor an industry.[9]
Some professions change slightly in status and power, but their prestige generally
remains stable over time, even if the profession begins to have more required study and
formal education.[10] Disciplines formalized more recently, such as architecture, now
have equally long periods of study associated with them.[11]
Although professions may enjoy relatively high status and public prestige, not all
professionals earn high salaries, and even within specific professions there exist
significant differences in salary. In law, for example, a corporate defense lawyer working
on an hourly basis may earn several times what a prosecutor or public defender earns.
Etymology
The term "profession" is a truncation of the term "liberal profession", which is, in turn,
an Anglicization of the French term profession libérale. Originally borrowed by English
users in the 19th century, it has been re-borrowed by international users from the late
20th, though the (upper-middle) class overtones of the term do not seem to survive re-
translation: "liberal professions" are, according to the European Union's Directive on
Recognition of Professional Qualifications (2005/36/EC), "those practised on the basis
of relevant professional qualifications in a personal, responsible and professionally
independent capacity by those providing intellectual and conceptual services in the
interest of the client and the public". Under the European Commission, liberal
professions are professions that require specialized training and that are regulated by
"national governments or professional bodies".[12]
Formation
A profession arises through the process of professionalization when any trade or
occupation transforms itself:
"... [through] the development of formal qualifications based upon education,
apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to
admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights.[13]
Major milestones which may mark an occupation being identified as a profession
include:[6]
1. an occupation becomes a full-time occupation
2. the establishment of a training school
3. the establishment of a university school
4. the establishment of a local association
5. the establishment of a national association of professional ethics
6. the establishment of state licensing laws
Applying these milestones to the historical sequence of development in the United
States shows surveying achieving professional status first (George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln all worked as land surveyors before entering
politics[14][15][16]), followed by medicine, actuarial science, law, dentistry, civil
engineering, logistics, architecture and accounting.[17]
With the rise of technology and occupational specialization in the 19th century, other
bodies began to claim professional status: mechanical
engineering, pharmacy, veterinary
medicine, psychology, nursing, teaching, librarianship, optometry and social work, each
of which could claim, using these milestones, to have become professions by 1900. [18]
Regulation
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Profession" –
news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2024) (Learn how
and when to remove this message)
Regulatory organisations are typically charged with overseeing a defined industry.
Usually they will have two general tasks:
1. creating, reviewing and amending standards expected of individuals and
organisations within the industry.[19]
2. Intervening when there is a reasonable suspicion that a regulated individual or
organisation may not be complying with its obligations.[20]
Originally, any regulation of the professions was self-regulation through bodies such as
the College of Physicians or the Inns of Court. With the growing role of
government, statutory bodies have increasingly taken on this role, their members being
appointed either by the profession or (increasingly) by the government. Proposals for
the introduction or enhancement of statutory regulation may be welcomed by a
profession as protecting clients and enhancing its quality and reputation, or as
restricting access to the profession and hence enabling higher fees to be charged. It
may be resisted as limiting the members' freedom to innovate or to practice as in their
professional judgement they consider best.
An example was in 2008, when the British government proposed wide statutory
regulation of psychologists. The inspiration for the change was a number of problems in
the psychotherapy field, but there are various kinds of psychologists including many
who have no clinical role, and where the case for regulation was not so clear. Work
psychology brought especial disagreement, with the British Psychological
Society favoring statutory regulation of "occupational psychologists" and the Association
of Business Psychologists resisting the statutory regulation of "business psychologists"
– descriptions of professional activity which it may not be easy to distinguish.
Besides regulating access to a profession, professional bodies may set examinations of
competence and enforce adherence to an ethical code. There may be several such
bodies for one profession in a single country, an example being the accountancy
bodies of the United Kingdom (ACCA, CAI, CIMA, CIPFA, ICAEW and ICAS), all of
which have been given a Royal Charter, although their members are not necessarily
considered to hold equivalent qualifications, and which operate alongside further bodies
(AAPA, IFA, CPAA). Another example of a regulatory body that governs a profession is
the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union, which governs the conduct, rights,
obligations, and duties of salaried teachers working in educational institutions in Hong
Kong.
The engineering profession is highly regulated in some countries (Canada and the
United States) with a strict licensing system for Professional Engineer that controls the
practice but not in others (UK) where titles and qualifications are regulated Chartered
Engineer but the practice is not regulated.
Typically, individuals are required by law to be qualified by a local professional body
before they are permitted to practice in that profession. However, in some countries,
individuals may not be required by law to be qualified by such a professional body in
order to practice, as is the case for accountancy in the United Kingdom (except for
auditing and insolvency work which legally require qualification by a professional body).
In such cases, qualification by the professional bodies is effectively still considered a
prerequisite to practice as most employers and clients stipulate that the individual hold
such qualifications before hiring their services. For example, in order to become a fully
qualified teaching professional in Hong Kong working in a state or government-funded
school, one needs to have successfully completed a Postgraduate Diploma in
Education ("PGDE") or a bachelor's degree in Education ("BEd") at an approved tertiary
educational institution or university. This requirement is set out by the Educational
Department Bureau of Hong Kong, which is the governmental department that governs
the Hong Kong education sector.
Autonomy
Professions tend to be autonomous, which means they have a high degree of control of
their own affairs: "professionals are autonomous insofar as they can make independent
judgments about their work".[21] This usually means "the freedom to exercise their
professional judgement."[22]
However, it also has other meanings. "Professional autonomy is often described as a
claim of professionals that has to serve primarily their own interests...this professional
autonomy can only be maintained if members of the profession subject their activities
and decisions to a critical evaluation by other members of the profession." [23] The
concept of autonomy can therefore be seen to embrace not only judgement, but also
self-interest and a continuous process of critical evaluation of ethics and procedures
from within the profession itself.
One major implication of professional autonomy is the traditional ban on corporate
practice of the professions, especially accounting, architecture, engineering, medicine,
and law. This means that in many jurisdictions, these professionals cannot do business
through regular for-profit corporations and raise capital rapidly through initial public
offerings or flotations. Instead, if they wish to practice collectively they must form special
business entities such as partnerships or professional corporations, which feature (1)
reduced protection against liability for professional negligence and (2) severe limitations
or outright prohibitions on ownership by non-professionals. The obvious implication of
this is that all equity owners of the professional business entity must be professionals
themselves. This avoids the possibility of a non-professional owner of the firm telling a
professional how to do his or her job and thereby protects professional autonomy. The
idea is that the only non-professional person who should be telling the professional what
to do is the client; in other words, professional autonomy preserves the integrity of the
two-party professional-client relationship. Above this client-professional relationship the
profession requires the professional to use their autonomy to follow the rules of ethics
that the profession requires. But because professional business entities are effectively
locked out of the stock market, they tend to grow relatively slowly compared to public
corporations.
Status, prestige, and power
Main article: Occupational prestige
Professions tend to have a high social status, regarded by society as highly
important.[24] This high esteem arises primarily from the higher social function of their
work. The typical profession involves technical, specialized, and highly skilled work.
This skill and experience is often referred to as "professional expertise." In the modern
era, training for a profession involves obtaining degrees and certifications. Often, entry
to the profession is barred without licensure. Learning new skills that are required as a
profession evolves is called continuing education. Standards are set by states and
associations. Leading professionals tend to police and protect their area of expertise
and monitor the conduct of their fellow professionals through associations, national or
otherwise. Professionals often exercise a dominating influence over related trades,
setting guidelines and standards.[25] Socially powerful professionals consolidate their
power in organizations for specific goals. Working together, they can reduce
bureaucratic entanglements and increase a profession's adaptability to the changing
conditions of the world.[26]
Sociology
Émile Durkheim argued that professions created a stable society by providing structure
separate from the state and the military that was less inclined to
create authoritarianism or anomie and could create altruism and encourage social
responsibility and altruism. This functionalist perspective was extended by Talcott
Parsons who considered how the function of a profession could change in responses to
changes in society.[27]: 17 [28]
Esther Lucile Brown, an anthropologist, studied various professions starting the 1930s
while working with Ralph Hurlin at the Russell Sage Foundation. She published Social
Work as a Profession in 1935, and following this publications studying the work of
engineers, nurses, medical physicians and lawyers. In 1944, the Department of Studies
in the Professions was created at the Russell Sage Foundation with Brown as its
head.[29]: 183
Theories based on conflict theories following Marx and Weber consider how professions
can act in the interest of their own group to secure social and financial benefits were
espoused by Johnson (Professions and Powers, 1972) and Larson (The Rise of
Professionalism, 1977). One way that a profession can derive financial benefits is
limiting the supply of services.[27]: 18
Theories based on discourse, following Mead and applying ideas
of Sartre and Heidegger look at how the individual's understanding of reality influence
the role of professions. These viewpoints were espoused by Berger and Luckmann (The
Social Construction of Reality, 1966).[27]: 19
System of professions
Andrew Abbott constructed a sociological model of professions in his book The System
of Professions. Abbott views professions as having jurisdiction over the right to carry out
tasks with different possession vying for control of jurisdiction over tasks.[30]
A profession often possesses an expert knowledge system which is distinct from the
profession itself. This abstract system is often not of direct practical use but is rather
optimized for logical consistency and rationality, and to some degree acts to increase
the status of the entire profession. One profession may seek control of another
profession's jurisdiction by challenging it at this academic level. Abbott argues that in
the 1920s the psychiatric profession tried to challenge the legal profession for control
over society's response to criminal behavior. Abbott argues the formalization of a
profession often serves to make a jurisdiction easier or harder to protect from other
jurisdictions: general principles making it harder for other professions to gain jurisdiction
over one area, clear boundaries preventing encroachment, fuzzy boundaries making it
easier for one profession to take jurisdiction over other tasks.
Professions may expand their jurisdiction by other means. Lay education on the part of
professions as in part an attempt to expand jurisdiction by imposing a particular
understanding on the world (one in which the profession has expertise). He terms this
sort of jurisdiction public jurisdiction. Legal jurisdiction is a monopoly created by the
state legislation, as applies to law in many nations.
Characteristics
There is considerable agreement about defining the characteristic features of a
profession. They have a "professional association, cognitive base, institutionalized
training, licensing, work autonomy, colleague control... (and) code of ethics",[31] to which
Larson then also adds, "high standards of professional and intellectual excellence,"
(Larson, p. 221) that "professions are occupations with special power and prestige",
(Larson, p.x) and that they comprise "an exclusive elite group," (Larson, p. 20) in all
societies. Members of a profession have also been defined as "workers whose qualities
of detachment, autonomy, and group allegiance are more extensive than those found
among other groups...their attributes include a high degree of systematic knowledge;
strong community orientation and loyalty; self-regulation; and a system of rewards
defined and administered by the community of workers."[32]
A profession has been further defined as: "a special type of occupation...(possessing)
corporate solidarity...prolonged specialized training in a body of abstract knowledge,
and a collectivity or service orientation...a vocational sub-culture which comprises
implicit codes of behavior, generates an esprit de corps among members of the same
profession, and ensures them certain occupational advantages...(also) bureaucratic
structures and monopolistic privileges to perform certain types of work...professional
literature, legislation, etc."[33]
A critical characteristic of a profession is the need to cultivate and exercise
professional discretion - that is, the ability to make case by case judgements that cannot
be determined by an absolute rule or instruction.
