Sociology of Professions

TRUST AS CRITERION AND HEURISTIC OF SOCIO-POLITICAL CONSULTATION IN THE ECONOMIZING SOCIAL WORK

Author(s): Andreas Langer

The introduction of incentive systems, quality controls, and new structures in social service had also impacts on the professional practice. In this paper the principal-agent theory will be applied to present an alternative analytical view on problems and dilemmas in professional agency. This might serve as the descriptive basis of institutional professional ethics. The main thesis is if the introduction of institutional incentive instruments causes dilemmas or problems, solely an individual ethical approach to professional ethics will be insufficient. The dominance of economic factors requires to integrate institutional ethics in social service policy making.
This thesis will be outlined/be argued for by an approach of principal-agent theory and institutional ethics applied to social work. (1) With help of the “dual-principal-agent-model” it can be reconstructed that the social worker (as agent) is in duty of a dual accountability: to the social service organization (first principal) and to the user (second principal) in a trust-based relationship. 
(2) Trust, in an economic view as an element of implicit contract relationship, becomes here the criterion (are there trust-based realtionships between professional and users possible and protected?) and anticipative scrutinizing heuristic (will planned reforms improve or endanger the conditions for trust based realtionship?) for institutional prerequisites. 
(3) If dilemma situations and normative conflicts are the consequences of specific institutional settings, it is needed to widen the view to the steering, coordinating and orientating effect of social institutions. Institutional professional ethics shows new perspectives on the moral dimension and moral quality of incentive systems and institutions.

Author(s): Andrew L. Friedman

Three different aspects of work can form the key basis for task control: inputs, outputs and processes. Friedman (1977) elaborated types of strategies for maintaining labour process control that focus managerial attention on the latter two: responsible autonomy based on incentives tied to outputs, and direct control based on detailed measurement of processes and/or on close personal supervision. Here professional autonomy, based on focusing attention on inputs, is elaborated and compared to the other types of strategies. It is argued that each of these types of strategies has a characteristic central underlying management technology, which relates to an 'ideal' of social control. The central focus of direct control is measurement and attendant required understanding of production technology through the engineering ideal. For responsible autonomy it is motivation and attendant required understanding of incentives often expressed through the ideal of human relations or psychological understanding. For professional autonomy it is competence and techniques for translating capability into consistent performance based on knowledge and socialisation. This is often expressed through the ideal of trust. Actual work situations are controlled by combinations of these types of strategies. It is argued that there is a connection between the opportunity costs of each type of strategy and: characteristics of the work tasks themselves, organisational frameworks, product and labour markets, information asymmetries among actors and broad social support for the ideals behind each type of strategy. These concepts are used to develop insights into the theses of professionalisation, deprofessionalisation, proletarianisation and their interrelation.

Author(s): Anita Cecilia Hirsch Adler 

In the Center for the Study of the University, in the National and Autonomuos University of Mexico (UNAM) we have a research project called University and professional values of the postgraduate students of UNAM. We divided the values in three types: scientific values, professional ethics and civic ethics and all the professions in knowledge areas. We will be able to compare results in students of different scientific, social and humanistic fields. Educational institutions have relevant cultural and social functions in the construction of society and the important changes of the global world, seeking, by example, to find different ways to diminish social inequality, promoting social mobility, studying and formulating resolutions for central issues and problems, etc. Values are part of these matters. Professional ethics is a vital theme for the institutions of higher education, because of the significant part the professionals have in society. To be useful, they have to be aware of the important role they have and search for the benefit of society and the specific public they serve. We defined: profession, professional ethics, ethics and deontology, principles, professional character ("ethos") and the rol of the university and we analyzed the researches made in Mexico about it (state of the art). With this frame of reference, we have specific questions for the survey we will apply in the first semester of 2003. Some of the questions are: which are the basic services that each profession provides?. Who are the beneficiaries of their work?, which are the principles involved?, ethic dilemmas, which part of the university formation is related to ethic problems? and if they know about the ethics codes and colleges in their own profession.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS IN DISINTEGRATION RESEARCH

Author(s): Annette von Alemann  

The application of scientific knowledge to practical problems is one of the core concepts of professional action. It will be analyzed by presenting the case of an interdisciplinary research network consisting of 17 projects from universities throughout Germany and financed by the German Ministry of Education and Research. The aim of the network is to analyze both the most fundamental processes of disintegration in a modern society and potentials for social integration from the perspectives of sociology, political science, social psychology, and education science, and to transfer this knowledge to relevant parts and actors of society (i.e. politicians, administrative personnel, teachers, social workers etc.). In addition, a research project has been established to study the knowledge transfer into practice. 
The paper analyzes how professionals such as scientists, consultants, journalists etc. work at the boundaries of two different social systems with different types of knowledge, rationalities, languages and types of rewards. Professionals have to deal with a situation of paradoxes and contrasts: a) Scientific knowledge is produced in a situation of relief of action whereas practical knowledge has to be applied under pressures of action and time. b) In the scientific system, rewards are given for universally valid assertions with a high degree of abstraction whereas practice rewards efficient solutions for individual cases. c) Scientific knowledge is departmentalized in disciplines whereas practical problems are always interdisciplinary. Professionals at the interface of theory and practice therefore have to reorganize their knowledge in a new and eclectic way and become themselves producers of knowledge.

SOCIOLOGISTS AS CONSULTANTS AND THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF SOCIOLOGY

Author(s): Annette von Alemann

PROFESSIONING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PRACTICE

Author(s): Arja Haapakorpi

The spheres of science are becoming wider and the functions multiplied due to economic, cultural and political changes. The productive function is emphasised and the application fields are expanding into new areas. The financial basis is widening and the sites of scientific work are becoming diversified. Research work is organised applying several patterns. The objective of research work is increasingly problem solving rather than producing knowledge for it’s own sake. The research work serving practical purposes is in-between science and professional practice: the professional position and working methods due to academic world, but the objectives and the context of work suggest expert work. Scientific working methods are based on the principle of producing new knowledge, whereas expert professionals apply knowledge to practical purposes. The interesting question is, how research work is shaped, when it is supposed to follow scientific criteria, but the aim of the research is to produce knowledge for solving practical purposes.
This article deals with the mode of work in applied research and it is carried out by studying a research group in the Finnish Game and Fisheries Institute. The position of the institute is based on practical objectives – producing expert services for the state administration and clients – and increasingly on scientific goals. The aim of the study is to analyse the research work in the field between science and practicing expertise. The crucial issue is, how the principles of science and practicing expertise are applied in the work. The analysis is framed, in addition to the dimension of science – practicing expertise, by the cultural and economic context of the institute. The article is included in a larger study focusing on the work, knowledge production and career structures of professions.

IMMIGRANTS AND PROFESSIONAL LABOUR MARKET

Author(s): Arja Haapakorpi

The studies dealing with immigrants on Finnish labour market often claim them to be in danger to be marginalised. Immigrants with university degree are discovered to hold positions inappropriate to their educational level: the significance of their professional knowledge and skills are perceived to be undervalued. University degrees are culturally valued: the degrees completed in the Finnish universities get the highest score, the German diplomas are accepted, but the value of higher education in the university of Cairo is suspected. The academic capital is culturally and socially shaped, in addition to the professional skills. The inferior position of immigrants with higher education is concluded to be based on racist discrimination and, on the other hand, lack of professional competences. The lack of professional competences covers particular context-related skills and knowledge base of the discipline, but also the necessary membership to the professional network.
However, professional career prospects are not impossible for immigrants. The studies dealing with immigrants on the Finnish labour market have proved that their position is often inferior, but the phenomenon is not determined. In addition, the employment of immigrants is structured in a special way. “Ethnic jobs” – for example social work among immigrants and assisting work in multi-cultural schools – are an important segment of the employment. The aim is to study how the professional labour market of immigrants with university degree is structured. The relationship between degree and placement, the labour market position and the particular characteristics in the employment – compared to the equivalent original population – are the dimensions of the primary question.

Author(s): Arturo Ballesteros Leiner

El trabajo presenta un recorrido por los textos de Weber en los que se trata el tema de las profesiones, a partir de hacer una diferenciación entre aquellos planteamientos que han definido una buena parte de las concepciones sobre las profesiones y los que se presentan como polémicos y de difícil solución teórico-racional. Para ello se aborda la genealogía del concepto de profesión y la concepción luterana; la formación del "ethos" profesional y burgués; los literatos y los mandarines; la ciencia como profesión, especialización y referencia valorativa; la política, ética de las convicciones y de la responsabilidad, y finalmente; la noción de profesión (definición, división y articulación) en el marco de las categorías sociológicas de la vida económica. De esa forma se parte desde la noción de profesión como una "tarea impuesta por Dios" a la noción de "posición en la vida, de un campo delimitado de trabajo", que ha contribuído, al decir de Weber, a "la construcción de ese poderoso cosmos del orden económico moderno". Así por ejemplo, se expone el caso del análisis de Weber sobre la ciencia, en la que presenta dos posiciones: una en sentido externo y en la que trata la forma de organización de la ciencia como profesión en la dimensión material; y otra, en la que aborda a la profesión académica como "el arte de enseñar" y como un "don personal" que no tiene nada que ver con la capacidad científica.

Author(s): Bente Abrahamsen

The nursing sector in Norway suffer from an increasing deficit of nursing staff. Occupational exits among nurses and auxiliaries are crucial to the future personnel situation. In this paper I focus on factors affecting occupational exit among nurses and auxiliary nurses.The attention is given both to occupation spesific factors and the labour market situation. In the study I examine both the proportion of exit and the point of time for the transitions. The nursing staff's input in the labour market depends upon how common these transititons are, and in what stages of the career they are effected. In the first part of the paper I examine the exits rates and the occupations nurses and auxiliary nurses enter the first 10 years of their career (in the period 1992-2002). This study may also be seen as an extension of previous work. In the second part of the paper I compare mobility patterns among different cohorts of nurses; persons educated in 1992 and 1977.

Author(s): Bernard Buron, Claudie Rey and Francoise Sitnikoff

Les technologies de l'information et de la communication (Internet) appliquées à l'activité productive tendent à remettre en cause les divisions spatio-temporelles qui définissaient le travail depuis la révolution industrielle. Elles rendent possible le travail des salariés, à distance de l'entreprise et hors du contrôle exercé par l'employeur. En ce sens, elles redéfinissent profondément : ce que l'on a coutume d'appeler le travail ; les frontières spatiales et temporelles antérieures entre vie au travail et vie hors-travail ; les modalités d'organisation et de localisation des entreprises ; les pratiques et les identités des groupes professionnels concernés. À partir d'une recherche en cours sur des ingénieurs cybertravailleurs, nous tentons de montrer comment se dessinent de nouvelles compétences et formes de travail, de nouveaux modes de communication, de relations professionnelles à ses pairs. En un mot, des savoirs, savoir-faire et savoir-être spécifiques. Ces changements bouleversent les frontières du groupe professionnel. Bernard BURON, Claudie REY & Françoise SITNIKOFF

TRANSFORMATIONS "THROUGH ACTION" OF A PROFESSIONAL GROUP: THE CASE OF AGRICULTURE

Author(s): C. Compagnone, B. Dégrange, N. Joly and B. Lemery

Our communication demonstrates that the agricultural sector provides an exemplary case for an analysis of the capacities of a professional group to respond to the pressures of change which characterise post-modern society. Firstly, we present how sociological research conducted by our laboratory (LISTO -Laboratory of Research into Socio-Technical and Organisational Innovations in Agriculture) is structured around the following problematic : confronted with the many perturbations which concern this sector (exigencies of competivity linked to the globalisation of the economy; consumer concerns; concerns with the risks associated with bio-technologies), we try to analyse what is conditioning farmers capacities to seize opportunities, to confront hazards while permitting them to “re-order” their practices, and thus conferring signification. In other words, in a context where the agricultural profession must undertake "a work on itself" to protect its freedom licence and maintain its mandate (Hugues, 1996), we are interested in what farmers do, or can do, when subject to manifold uncertainties. Our approach considers that farms are situated at the centre of transformations affecting this economic sector today. Through the perspective of a comprehensive sociology of action, we give attention to the way in which farmers assess their situation and how they attempt to translate their assessments into “substainable” pratices. 
Secondly, after historically outlining the formation of the agricultural profession, the professional model which serves as reference and the reasons why this model has been questioned and criticised over the last few decades, we show how our research sheds light on the different kinds of problems that this profession confronts . These problems can be simply stated as: gestion of agri-environmental plans; new production norms; organisational flexibility; and territorial limits on agency. Our paper does not attempt to present a synthesis of results from the fields investigated but instead illustrates the convergence in our approaches and illustrates the models of explanation and determining factors of change in different “worlds” of agricultural production. Finally, we illustrate the relevance of a comprehensive sociology of action to comprehend the dynamics of the transformation of a professional group. We also wish to question the relevance of the dominant form of analysis (centred on the prescriptions imposed on a profession, -or structuralist approach- and present an analysis firmly interested in individual and collective fabrication of identity through practice.

Author(s): Corinne Delmas

Nous étudierons la profession journalistique en partant du cas des journalistes sportifs. Nous procéderons à l'étude croisée de cette population (âge, diplôme, sexe, trajectoires, etc.), de leurs conditions de travail et des représentations de la profession (revue de littérature et enquête par entretiens auprès de journalistes et de représentants du milieu sportif), en privilégiant l'analyse du traitement journalistique d'" affaires " de dopage qui permet de saisir le travail des acteurs dans leur relation la plus ordinaire aux routines, aux catégories de pensée et aux savoir-faire mobilisés spontanément, et qui permet plus largement de rendre intelligibles les conditions de travail des sportifs et des journalistes en tant que déterminants des formes de régulation professionnelle effectivement en vigueur, avec l'étonnement que peut susciter chez le sociologue l'existence d'une situation paradoxale (avec d'un côté de nombreuses déclarat! ions d'intention sur l'éthique et de l'autre des praticiens chargés de résorber toutes les contradictions que l'exercice régulier du métier soulève) encourageant la recherche des responsabilités individuelles au détriment d'un débat plus large dont l'éthique serait la résultante, débat que rendrait possible justement la constitution des journalistes en corps d'experts autonome et indépendant. Cette étude nous permettra de comprendre les déterminants du " professionnalisme " journalistique, l'évolution de la pratique professionnelle, pourquoi et dans quelle mesure les journalistes sportifs ont du mal à s'imposer comme de " réels " professionnels de l'information, et les évolutions importantes de leur pratique (rapport aux sources institutionnelles, affirmation d'un journalisme d'investigation, évolutions d'une population davantage diplômée et se féminisant etc.)

Author(s): Cristina Rocha

Cette communication discute les conditions d'accès au métier de pharmacien Ces conditions articulent internement et avec une grande pérennité celles qui concernent les modèles de formation et celles qui concernent l'intérêt familial à propos de la reproduction de la propriété en Pharmacie. Les contextes de formation qui vont être en analyse concernent la fin du XIX siècle et la démarche selon laquelle se fait le passage séculaire du modèle de formation officinal des boutiquiers vers un modèle tendanciellement académique ; ils concernent aussi le XX siècle pendant lequel l'enseignement pharmaceutique se transforme en enseignement supérieur universitaire. Chacun de ces modèles sera approché tout en tenant compte de sa particulière signification pour l'incorporation des femmes dans la formation et dans la profession. Ayant comme référentiel empirique l'archive de l'École Médical-Chirurgical du Porto, nous soulignerons la perméabilité spécifique du modèle de formation officinal dans l'accès des femmes à la formation et à la profession pharmaceutique, tout en mettant en relief, dans ce modèle, de quelle façon la famille se constitue en structure de médiation dans la production et reproduction de ce groupe socioprofessionnel.

WHEN YOUTH BECOMES A JOB QUALIFICATION

Author(s): Charles Gadea and Sophie Divay  

In France, the Youth Employment Programm was set up to fight against joblessness among young people, who are thus attributed a title or label that, though seemingly harmless, is in fact a source of complexity. Looking at « social mediators », we see that the predominance granted to young people has partly hindered the reaching of the objectives set in legislation. The 1997 law on this programm provides for creating and professionalizing new occupations. How to meet up to these standards when « natural » qualifications, such as age or familiarity with a social or ethnic environment, are the pratical basis for the occupations in question ? This study of these « mediators » provides answers to this question and brings to light the factors that work against these young people being recognized as professionnals.

SOCIALISATION OF KNOWLEDGE, SOCIALISATION OF GAZE. THE TECHNICAL AND SOCIAL USES OF GEOMETRICAL KNOWLEDGE AND STEREOTOMY AMONG STONEMASON JOURNEYMEN

Author(s): Christéle Assegond

We are interested in the dynamics leading the group of stonemason journeymen to structure itself and assert its legitimacy through the definition of a practical and theoretical knowledge, the stereotomy (geometrical knowledge applied to stonemasonry). 
Within the professional social space there is a permanent struggle for the exclusive appropriation of professional knowledge revolving around the production and management of procedures allowing their diffusion and their control. In the professional field of stonemasonry it is the access to stereotomy knowledge which is at the origin of the social classification of practices. The awareness of what is at stake regarding this classification (the knowledge is associated to a power relation) leads the group of stonemason journeymen to elaborate a technical tradition contributing to the definition and the transmission of a professional collective expertise. This expertise is directly negotiated and legitimises a specific position on the stonemasonry labour market and on the one, more specific, of the technical conception. The analysis of the uses of geometry and stereotomy brings us to consider technique both like a prominently practical tool whose value is provided by its utilitarian aspect and as a collective cultural good bestowed of an effective symbolic content by the journeymen. We are voluntarily moving away from the symbolic repertoire of technique in order to apprehend the forms of appropriation of a knowledge as well as the elements at stake regarding this appropriation in the structuration of a professional group : assertion of professional specificities, identity assertion, prominence in a field of practices, dynamics of professional socialisation and constitution of internal hierarchies. The recent changes that the guild must cope with and more globally the profession impose a renegotiation of the frame of practice and involve a movement of recombining of the professional « culture ».

NEW CONSTELLATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND MARKET. THE CULTURAL PROFESSIONS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF PROFESSIONALIZATION

Author(s): Christiane Schnell

Changes in the constellation of knowledge, power and market have lead to new theoretical frameworks in the sociology of professions. The debate on professionalization has become more international as well as the term ‘professional’ is used in a more flexible and extensive sense. The paper points out that the discourse of professionalization profits in various ways by turning to new occupational groups, which are highly skilled yet not much established. The argument is based on empirical research on the cultural professions in Germany, particularly in the fields of journalism and book-translation. My special focus are the modes of work-regulation and risk-management in these occupations. I will argue, that processes of professionalization in these fields are embedded in specific organisational and institutional settings, which are different from those for traditional professions. Above these conditions, other dimensions, such as ‘gender’, ‘subjectivity’ and ‘social risks’ play a crucial role in for professional work in the cultural sector. To understand “new paths” of professionalization these dimensions should also be regarded.

Author(s): Denis Shevchenko

The most effective form of business organization in many fields of goods and services production is small enterprise. Small enterprises encourage market competition, liquidate lack of consumer goods, and promote realization of various business innovations and ideas. In high-developed countries, small enterprises are the main employers and tax payers. In Russia small enterprises arose few years ago, they rapidly progressed but then this development has stopped and stabilized at the level that is not acceptable in concern of country economic progress. Comparing to the other developed countries Russian small enterprising is not self-sufficient, self-adapted and self-balanced system. This fact is usually corresponded with tough labour market conditions and depressed political factors in reformed Russia. However, the results of comparative sociological researches show that: 1) modern economic and social policy have made it real to obtain the own private business and to organize small enterprise in Russia; 2) enterprises experiencing the greatest difficulties in the market are not those which have the worst economic start position but those which carry the wrong organizational internal and external policy; 3) mistakes and failures in enterprising are caused mostly by the traditional soviet lifestyle, outlooks and values. Thus, blaming the depressed economics and the lack of government support for the declines of small enterprises development in the former Soviet Union is just absolutely wrong. It is lifestyle, outlooks and values, rather than economic and political conditions that are responsible for the small enterprise progress.

FOMENTO A LA CREACION DE EMPRESAS Y RELACION DE CONFIANZA EN LOS EQUIPOS DE I+D

Author(s): Dominique Philippe Martín

Problemática : Estudio de las relaciones de confianza/desconfianza que puedan surgir en los equipos de I+D cuando varios miembros de los mismos deciden abandonarlos para crear su propia empresa. Para indentificar mejor la incidencia de las variables de contexto y de las decisiones organizativas, se llevará a cabo un estudio comparativo entre la política en la materia de una Universidad pública francesa y de una empresa privada. Marco metodológico : 
El estudio de las relaciones de confianza/desconfianza se hace mobilizando tres niveles de análisis en interaccción : 
- Las relaciones interpersonales en los equipos de I+D 
- El contexto organizativo dentro del cual se inscriben los departamentos de I+D 
- Los procedimientos en materia de Gestión de Recursos Humanos de los equipos de I+D, principalmente en cuanto a la evaluación y la gestión de las carreras profesionales Recolección de datos :
Se han realizado entrevistas : 
- Por una parte con responsables del Servicio de Actividades Industriales y Comerciales (SAIC) de una Universidad francesa y con el responsable de fomento empresarial de un equipo privado de I+D. 
- Por otra parte, con docentes e investigadores del sector público y del sector privado.
Finalidades de la presente investigación :
Lograr una mejor comprensión de las conexiones entre las decisiones organizativas, las prácticas de Gestión de Recursos Humanos, y las relaciones de confianza en los equipos de I+D, cuando algunos de sus miembros inician un proyecto de creación de empresa.

Author(s): Elena Sánchez and Juan Sáez

Desde que Bolton utilizara en 1978 el término Gerontagogía para referirse a un campo de conocimiento teórico que trataba de justificar la educación de personas mayores, los estudios y las investigaciones se han multiplicado. Se asocia esta educación a personas (los mayores) en una fase de la vida donde educarse es una elección muy personal que puede ayudar a orientar el resto de lo que queda por vivir. En España llevamos varios años ocupándonos de la Gerontagogía pero es en los últimos tiempos cuando se ha realizado un importante esfuerzo teórico y epistemológico por justificar el campo, al tiempo que se van cumpliendo imperativos investigadores. Esta situación crea algunos retos y expresa más de una paradoja, sobre todo cuando contamos con una tradición bastante asentada en Educación de Adultos. Algunas de estas paradojas que obligan a la reflexión tienen que ver con la especialización, toda vez que el esfuerzo que se hace procura diferenciar la adultez de la vejez para busca! r caracterizar dos campos que si bien presentan rasgos comunes también evidentes diferencias. Tras toda esta especialización aparece la figura del experto como profesional capaz de responder, con las competencias suficientes obtenidas por la formación y experiencia, a las necesidades de una población envejecida, "mayor" prematuramente, con más nivel cultural y educativo, que demanda más formación que la recibida. Esta comunicación tiene por objetivo sistematizar esta cuestión. ¿Cuál es la legitimidad profesional de los gerontagogos o educadores de personas mayores?

THE EMERGENCE OF CAREER ASPIRATIONS OF AMATEUR ROCK MUSICIANS

Author(s): Elie Arnaud

The objective of this paper is to point out the subjective and objective components wich influence the emergence of career aspirations of amateur rock musicians, and, indirectly, the making of professionnal rock musician. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu and by the interactionnist sociology of professional groups, this study is based manely on observations and in-depth interviews carried out with musicians and concerts organizers in a french city (Evreux 27000) in 2001-2002. From the perspective of a process of conversion and involvement, this study sets out to demonstrate that career aspirations in the professional field of rock depend, among other things, on strategies for recruitement and supervision by both amateur and professional concert halls, but also on the meaning that young musicians give to practising this music throughout their amateur musical career, as well as the representations they make of the occupation and of their career opportunities.

TRACES OF DOUBT AND SOURCES OF TRUST - HEALTH PROFESSIONS IN AN UNCERTAIN SOCIETY

Author(s): Ellen Kuhlmann

In the wake of uncertainty the call for trust is echoed by an extension of professionalism to new occupational fields and new actors, and at the same time by the need for control and bureaucratic regulation. In this paper I take the field of health care to analyse the seemingly contradictory developments and explore new technologies of creating trust. My analysis is based on a review of the literature.
I argue that trust does not loose significance, but 1) the sources and 2) the strategies of creating trust are changing. We can observe a pluralization of expertise; diverse actors – e.g. physicians, health professions, alternative medicine, patient-groups, the internet – compete for trust in their knowledge. There is a shift from trust in personal qualification and individual authority to trust in the information of 'neutralised' data and statistical prognosis. The information metaphor serves to amalgamate the call for control and the wish to seek trust, and strengthen the power of experts. It represents a new regulatory 'technology', where trust is separated from the body, and a 'disembodied' professionalism emerges. This new and highly effective regulatory mechanism bears opportunities to change the power relations, especially the gender relations, in the field of health care.

Author(s): Esther Ruiz Ben

Internal differentiations and the creation of hierarchies inside the growing fields of competence belonging to the jurisdictional field of a profession characterises the professionalization process of a task (Abbot 1988) . In the Software Branch in Germany this process is jet under construction. That means, that the monopolisation of activities in a specific jurisdictional field for a concrete group of persons, who become actors in it through a recognized educational career is not yet closed. In times of labour shortage, which was the case for the software sector in the last few years, professional experience and non-formalized skills became more important than academic certificates. This situation offered the possibility to enter into the software sector without specific university degree in computer science (side-step workers). None the less due to the actual negative situation in the IT-Branch side-step workers have no more optimistic job opportunities as in the past and many routine tasks like programming are posited in foreign countries (Computerwoche Nov. 2002). This is why some authors talk about a professionalisation of some sectors of the Branch (Dostal 2002). Based upon empirical material from interviews with personal managers in software enterprises in Germany and taking into account the evolution in the IT-labour market and the role of the different actors (discipline, professional associations, software enterprises, political institutions), we will explain on the basis of Abbott´s professionalisation theory the development of this process in the software development in Germany. (This project - PROFI - is founded by the DFG)

COLLECTIVE COGNITIVE RESOURCES AND SOCIAL INTENTIONS IN "CREATIVE OCCUPATIONS": ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN AND LANDSCAPING

Author(s): Florent Champy

This presentation deals with the relationships between professional knowledge, social intentions and the use of subjectivity in the work of what I call “creative occupations”: architecture, design, and landscape design especially. I will first focus on the importance of the issue, by showing how these groups try to conciliate the important place given to individual subjectivity in their activity and the necessity of putting the objectivity of their social utility and their knowledge at the centre of their professional discourse. In this way, I will try to show on the one hand that the discourse of professionalization is still strongly present among the references of governments, and on the other hand that researches on the occupations considered here are of great interest to change our representation of the conceptual borders between professions and artistic occupations, as it was theoretically put by Eliot Freidson in an article published in France in 1994 (the title of the unpublished English version was: Why art cannot be a profession). Considering seriously the question of the relationships between objectivity and subjectivity also in professional practices, I will then deal with the work of some professionals, as I observed it in the case of architects. This case study will help us work on the theoretical tools useful to conciliate internaliste and externaliste approaches of the creative work, to use a distinction taken from the sociology of sciences.

LOGIQUE DE PROFESSIONNELS ET LOGIQUE D'OCCUPATION: UNE TENSION CONSTITUTIVE DES GROUPES PROFESSIONNELS EMERGEANT

Author(s): Francois Aballea and Marie Christine Bonte

La constitution, l’affirmation et la reconnaissance d’une expertise propre, technique sinon scientifique, en tout cas distincte du savoir profane, ainsi que d’une déontologie, sont une des conditions nécessaires sinon suffisantes de la constitution d’un groupe professionnel. Evaluer la revendication d’une occupation à se transformer en profession suppose donc d’analyser la façon dont les membres du groupe émergeant cherchent à faire valoir leur savoirs et leur système de références normatives. Il s’agit donc là d’un bon indice de professionnalisation. Généralement, c’est ce processus de professionnalisation qu’a étudié la sociologie. Mais il existe aussi des occupations qui ne se transforment pas en profession et dont les membres ne cherchent pas nécessairement à affirmer un statut professionnel. Plus exactement, il existe des occupations dont les membres poursuivent des objectifs extrêmement divers, certains visant à la reconnaissance de la spécificité de l’expertise et du statut, alors que d’autres se contentent des revenus que procure l’activité. Le cas étudié est celui des assistantes maternelles, de ces personnes, des femmes dans la quasi totalité des cas, qui gardent des enfants à leur domicile et dont l’activité est soumise à un agrément des pouvoirs publics, une sorte de « mandat » et de « licence ». A ces femmes sont offertes des possibilités de formation. Certaines les utilisent, d’autres pas. Certaines engagent donc un processus de professionnalisation alors que d’autres voient dans cette activité une occupation, souvent provisoire, ne nécessitant pas de compétences particulières autres que celles dont est pourvue « naturellement » toute mère de famille, générant essentiellement un complément de revenus au ménage. 
Analysant cette tension sur la base d’une enquête de terrain ( par analyse de dossiers d’agrément, et en entretiens), et en nous focalisant essentiellement sur le rapport aux savoirs et aux valeurs, nous chercherons à développer la connaissance « concrète » des processus de professionnalisation, c’est-à-dire à mettre au jour les contraintes et les conditionnements des représentations, des pratiques qui conduisent à rechercher ou non une reconnaissance professionnelle.

WHAT ONE RELIES ON. AN EXPLANATORY CONCEPT OF CLIENT TRUST

Author(s): Gaia di Luzio

In sociological writings on professions client-trust has customarily been described as a component part of the professional-client relationship, while trust in professions has been described as a feature of professionalism. This paper sketches the use of the term trust in a variety of concepts of professions in an attempt to come up with its own definitions of profession and trust. On the basis of these definitions, I examine why trust is involved in the relationship between professional and client and in what way it works. The paper explains client trust, firstly, by contrasting it with trust in other service occupations and by discussing the implications of technical autonomy and the barrier between the professional and the lay person. For this purpose it draws on concepts of trust by Simmel, Luhmann and Giddens. Secondly, it analyses how trust is generated through the display of the alleged non-market character of professions in communicative acts following Goffman’s interaction theory and Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological concept of trust. In conclusion, the consequences of this explanatory concept for assessing changes in client trust are discussed.

Author(s): Gilles Verpraet 

The formation of professional groups (Larson , Torstendahl) meet to day two directions and two methodologies of analyzis. The analyzis of professional system focus on the stabilization of the professional systems and the competence repartition inside a competitive market. Generation analyzis focus on Age class and Diploma strata, on the insertion channels and blockages, on human ressources provision inside organizations. The dynamic analyzis of generation as ressource analyzis has to be crossed with the analyzis of professional system as analyzis of competence distribution and power configuration - for distribution of generation, - for the ageing of profession - on the pressure of new generation and new educational systems In the case of french planning professions facing decentralization during 1980 / 2000, the change of professional system is faster/ quicker that the change of generation (20 years). so we have to specified - Old professional inside ancient professional system - Old professional inside the new professional system - Young recrutee inside the new professional system. This methodology of interrogation could be enlarged to other professions ( as teachers) . It could contribute to the condition of professional and referentiel transmission between generations inside an accelerated society, acceleration of knowledge reference. ( Mannheim, Collins)

NORMATIVE OR PROFESSIONAL CRITERIA IN THE ALLOCATION OF PUBLIC GOODS?

Author(s): Hanne Kilen, Erik Oddvar Eriksen and Lars Inge Terum

How do professionals perceive of their role and how do they conduct their work when acting as gatekeepers in the welfare-state? The professionals have decisional autonomy and are licensed to make decisions on behalf of the society with regard to who shall get what, when and how. How can we know that their judgments are correct when they have to make decisions in cases were neither the law nor politically set standards or documented knowledge give clear cut instructions? The handling of ethical dilemmas as well as what constitutes the basis for professional discretion is analyzed with regard to the general practitioners’ role in the Norwegian social security system. To become eligible for a disability pension illness must be confirmed by a general practitioner. The general practitioners have to make decisions even when they are not sure as to how the condition of the patients should be classified; whether the work-ability of patients actually is reduced with at least 50% and whether further medical treatment and/or vocational rehabilitation may reduce the patients’ impairment. In this article, which is based on a study of 360 general practitioners, we find that they describe and classify the same illness-vignettes in quite different ways. Our assertion is that the decisions of the general practitioners not only are founded on scientific and well-documented knowledge and that their decisions demonstrate values and norms of another kind, which hence threaten the legal protection and equality before the law.

Author(s): Hélène Bretin, Nicky Le Feuvre and Claudine Philippe

Speech-therapy is a para-medical profession that has seldom been analysed from a sociological point of view in France. Although the profession has been highly feminised from the outset, it is characterised by stringent selection criteria at the point of entry and by relatively high levels of social esteem and financial reward. On the basis of the preliminary findings from an on-going collective research project directed by Laurence Tain (Université Lyon II), we propose a gendered analysis of speech-therapists in France. This approach seems to us to be particularly enlightening in relation to : 1. The Origins of the profession. Our analysis underlines the emblematic role played by women from upper-middle class backgrounds, whose desire for professionalisation resulted in the successful delimitation or closure of a professional jurisdiction centred on young children, notably through the creation of a national training programme and an official qualification. 2. The professional structure. Having gained recognition for the legitimacy of their professional jurisdiction, the profession is nevertheless fraught with tensions related to its autonomy (frontier conflicts with the medical profession and other professional groups). However, professional unity is maintained through the national federation of speech- therapists (a typically masculine mode of professional recognition), which provides a strong and highly feminised professional identity. 3. Modes of practice and career paths. The numerical superiority of women has generated a professional identity which immediately translated into modes of practice that are compatible with the articulation of domestic and professional constraints. The career choices and ambitions of the few male speech-therapists can be analysed in relation to this dominant female profile, particularly as far as their over-representation in the corporatist institutions of the profession is concerned. A series of quantitative and qualitative data on male and female speech-therapists will be presented, in order to underline the paradox of this subordinate female profession (whose activities centre on the transmission of legitimate language skills, which are largely defined by other social groups), but which nevertheless generates a series of secondary benefits (social recognition, financial rewards, flexible working arrangements, professional cohesion) for the women involved.

Author(s): Ignacio Martínez, Mariangeles Molpeceres and Lucía Gómez

Among other relevant trends, European labour markets have evolved in the last two decades towards a search for new spaces of job creation to face the crisis of employment. From this point of view, the associative sector has acquired an important potential for economic growth, specially as regards care and proximity services. As a consequence, in the discourses about work circulating inside the associative sector, tipically work-related elements such as an econocmic emphasis or conflicts over employees' rights and duties interact with other dimensions or rationalities such as altruist self-sacrifice or civic participation. This piece of research focuses on the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with professionals working in vocational training for at-risk youth in nonprofit organizations in the Valencian Community (Spain). From these data, approaching them from a social discourse analysis perspective, we intend to analyze how conflicts among the above referred elements and dimensions are revealed (i.e., in tensions such as that between precarious working conditions and requirements of high dedication, legitimated through vocational and political arguments). In this way, the construction of work-related identities based on moral keys (i.e., civic or altruist keys) acts as an strategy by means of which subjects render understandable and justifiable a work experience that would not be consistent if decoded from a different key (i.e., professional success, career development, protection of labour rights). But such discourses also have important effects in the weakening of welfare policies and structures and the delegitimation of labour conflict and collective concertation strategies. Key words: Discourse analysis - work-related identities - nonprofit organizations - third sector - social and educational policies - vocational education and training (VET) -neoliberal rationalities

EXTRA EMPLOYMENT IMPACT ON SUCCESSFUL ADAPTATION STRATEGIES IN DIFFERENT PROFESSIONAL GROUPS

Author(s): Irina Popova

My paper analyses extra employment role and its versions in successful adaptation strategies with working population in contemporary Russia. Hypothesis is contemplated that adaptation strategies – involving extra employment – might be set apart among other strategies and ways for population adaptation to sweeping social change. Certain criteria allow to talk of their primarily active character and successful realization. Success depends on the kind of extra employment, its place in the structure of other resources used by various social groups, as well as conditions of its realization. The study involved a combined criterion for adaptation success including a number of objective and subjective indices. Another aspect of extra employment usage is often the fact of de-professionalisation, erosion of social and professional status and, as a result, one's marginalisation, as well as professional exhaustion and other negative effects. The study has a special focus on specifics of successful usage of extra employment to continue or develop the initial one depending on one's professional and skill resources. The study is built on the secondary data analysis of representative all-Russian VTSIOM - Public opinion study center data - for 1998 to 2001with additional analysis of semi-structured interviews with members of 'weaker' groups in Russian labor market (1999-2001 INTRAS project) and International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data for 1997. The study was made with support of IISP nº SP-03-2-3.

PROFESSIONAL DYNAMICS IN A JOURNEYMAN GUILD: DEFINITIONS OF TRAINING AND USES OF TRADITION AMONG STONEMASONS

Author(s): Janique Fourré-Clerc

We analyse the journeyman “culture” and the “professional culture” in a stonemason guild by putting into question the trips around France of the journeymen. We highlight the tools of professional training and journeyman socialisation. This situation allows us to consider the « journeyman profession » not as a backward structure but rather as a modern movement which permanently adapts to training and production constraints. It is by observing what is at stake in the conflict between the stonemason guild and the managers of the Association Ouvrière des Compagnons (AOCDDTDF) and by analysing what is at stake around the training modes that one can move away from the fixed vision of a journeyman tradition. The protagonists of the conflict mobilise traditional references and journeyman representations to defend their position and to legitimise their actions. This tradition hence introduces an interpretation, a reconstruction of the past according to the situations, the constraints and the changes experienced by the journeymen. It is this reconstruction, detectable in the narratives and practices that one should take into account when analysing the journey around France. It is possible to identify in the current practices the implementation of permanent cultural tools beyond the elements of a fixed tradition, selected by historians and some sociologists. The uses of tradition can be observed in the practices that are apparently the most innovative; those that are the result of the confrontation of the journeyman profession with the recent upheaval of its working conditions, those which are the result of the negotiation of ongoing conflicts within the movement.

LA PART DE L'AEUVRE : REGIMES D'APPROPRIATION DES CO-PRODUCTIONS EN ART NUMERIQUE

Author(s): Jean-Paul Fourmentraux

La conception des œuvres d’art pour ordinateur engage différentes contributions, artistiques et informatiques, qui instaurent un morcellement de l’activité créatrice et des modes pluriels de désignation de ce qui fait « œuvre » : - En amont, l’activité créatrice met en scène une polyphonie énonciative et un travail de négociation permanent confrontant des logiques d’actions antagonistes. Le dispositif numérique est tour à tour désigné comme « produit » dissocié de l’œuvre comme fragment d’application logicielle ou algorithme informatique, et comme « œuvre » intégrant la part informatique du programme ; - En aval, l’épreuve de validation des productions suppose une redistribution des fruits du travail collaboratif. Ceux-ci sont « publiables » avec l’aura de qualité conférée par et dans les deux univers de la valorisation artistique et scientifique.
Cette communication propose d’interroger les différents régimes d’appropriation des co-productions en art numérique, et de souligner les déplacements engendrés par ce partage sur les traditionnelles notions d’œuvre (d’art) et d’ouvrage (industriel). De ce point de vue, la production apparaît modulable, façonnée différemment selon le marché (scientifique ou artistique) auquel elle est destinée. Cette marchandisation qui met en avant tel ou tel aspect du produit selon le contexte pose alors la question de l’œuvre (scientifique et artistique) « comme un tout cohérent et inaltérable ».

THE LORRY DRIVER'S PROFESSIONAL DYNAMICS AS REGARDS THE REORGANISATION OF ROAD TRANSPORT MERCHANDISE

Author(s): Jean-Philippe Fouquet

For a decade the lorry driver profession has been affected by political (legislation harmonisation, working hour regulations) economic and organisational changes (generalisation of just in time, setting up of relays, of lines) and technical transformation (the use of computers in the trucks themselves, new communication tools and the possibility of keeping tracks of the merchandise). 
The transformation of the working condition which results from the above have provoked the reorganisation of hierarchy and have obliged the drivers to constantly redefine their professional identity (depending on the type of businesses they work in, their experience in the profession and the training they have received). To understand how the profession is integrating these changes we will not only apprehend the professional sphere. We will also consider the non-working sphere (place and influence of their companion, whether they have children or not, their social and neighbourhood networks). We consider that the interaction between both spheres will allow us to understand how these changes and innovations are being perceived, accepted or rejected by the lorry drivers. This approach will allow us to tackle the different stages of the job, from training to professional and social insertion right up to the borderline of their professional field. We will also be able to analyse from a new angle the development in relocation, the labour demands and the industrial disputes, which exist in this professional group.

PROFESSIONAL CHANGES OF INFORMATION MANAGERS IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY: LIBRARIANS, ARCHIVISTS AND DOCUMENTALISTS

Author(s): Juan Sáez and José Antonio Gómez

Professions all over the world are in a process of transformation. Their conception, strategies and goals are under scrutiny. However, over the past dacades the performance of some professions have been evaluated and new orientations have emerged taking into consideration the role of information and knowledge assets in a changing society. Professions have evolved from occcupations or non-professional roles to be fully recognized; some of them are experiencing a new professional dynamics. The information profession that includes the librarian, the archivist and the documentalist is one of the professions that badly needs to be reconstructed in order to fulfill the challenges that society is imposing over professionals: information is a basic asset for society, i.e. as citizens, social groups or the politicians in office.
Information professionals have to manage information; they have to make it available in order to facilitate the right of individuals to have access to information and culture. As information is complex information professionals require new competencies: technological, educational and entrepenurial besides those that have traditionally being performed by these professionals as keepers and bridges between culture and knowledge.
The multidisciplinary approach and the diversity of its goals as well as the professional profile and the interaction with other related professionals: informaticians, journalists, managers of cultural activities make it difficult for the profession to be fully recognized. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the profile of the information professionals in todays society. A series of basic skills is suggested.

Author(s): Juan Sáez and Mariano Sanchez

En España la sociología de las profesiones nunca llegó a cuajar del todo. Con la democracia, a finales de los setenta, la sociología de las profesiones, en la Europa Continental y en el mundo anglosajón, estaba sufriendo una "ola revisionista". Este fenómeno tuvo sus repercusiones en las universidades españolas y, particularmente, en los departamentos de sociología, que acabaron asociando las profesiones a formas históricas que colaboran y confirman la reproducción de clases y la desigualdad social. Esta situación generalizada sesgó algunas de las virtualidades que encierra la sociología de las profesiones. Si, como bien ha clarificado la sociología francesa, no pueden identificarse los elementos del "triángulo cautivo" (estudios o carrera no es igual a profesión, ni ésta es igual a empleo), es patente que los formadores de profesionales carecen, en sus diferentes espacios de formación, de una visión descriptiva y explicativa pero también comprensiva y práxica de lo que es la profesión para la que están preparando a sus estudiantes. Que la sociología de las profesiones no haya tenido en España hasta ahora el eco que ha tenido en otros países no significa que no pueda aún abrirse a líneas de investigación que permitan tanto deconstruir imágenes predeterminadas sobre las profesiones como construir el discurso sociológico que auspicie conocer lo que caracteriza a las profesiones en la actualidad. La potencialidad de una sociología de las profesiones en España para este y otros objetivos está, a nuestro juicio, fuera de duda.

Author(s): Juan Sáez and Mariano Sanchez

La falta de una historia y sociología de las profesiones en las facultades o instituciones superiores españolas sigue obstaculizando la construcción de imágenes sólidas y creíbles acerca de qué son las profesiones. La crisis general pública que las profesiones están sufriendo, más allá o más acá de las peculiaridades y contingencias que cada una presente en este o aquel país, no es obstáculo para que el profesionalismo siga siendo una lógica, junto a la consumista [libre mercado] y burocrática [racionalista], capaz de explicar no sólo los movimientos de mercado y la dinámica laboral sino también, y en no poca medida, la fenomenología social. En esta comunicación pretendemos, por un lado, adentrarnos en la crisis de legitimidad que vienen presentando, desde hace años, las profesiones pedagógicas (no sólo dedicadas a formar ciudadanos sino también profesionales de la educación que, a su vez, preparan como formadores a profesionales de otras carreras), viviendo contradicciones y disyuntivas que más que profesionalizarlas, a nuestro juicio, las desprofesionalizan; por otro lado, dada la situación anterior, y conocidas las nuevas necesidades generadas en la ciudadanía europea, deseamos enfatizar el papel que están cumpliendo las llamadas por los sociólogos "profesiones sociales": ese campo multiprofesional, vertebrado en torno a la acción social, tiene en común el servicio a las personas (y no la transmisión de conocimientos acotados en disciplinas) y se despliega en diversos perfiles (el asistente social, el trabajador social, el educador social, el psicólogo social, el pedagogo social...) y caracterizaciones.

REGAINING TRUST: PROFESSIONAL STRATEGIES

Author(s): Judith Allsop

The proposed paper will examine, and critique, the concept of trust as theorized from sociological and economic perspectives. It will draw on available survey evidence on trust but suggest that findings are ambiguous and limited in their explanatory power. On a societal level, general social trends, scepticism about specialised knowledge and highly publicised incidents resulting in harm to patients have led to a questioning of professional privileges. This has increased state-led increased formal and informal regulation and in some instances, taken the form of an organised consumer challenge. However, it will be argued that prospective 'blind' trust continues to apply for individual patients for practical reasons, even if clincial practice has come under greater surveillance from state procedures.
In second part, the paper will draw on an empirical study of health consumer groups (ESRC grant number R000237888) and professional stakeholders to argue that, particularly within medicine, a defensive strategy, has been to draw on collective lay expertise and to seek 'stakeholder regulation' and 'partnership' with patients both individually and collectively through alliances with health consumer groups. However, such alliances are conducted by professional elites. These elites have been involved in struggles with rank-and-file members as divisions within the medical profession increases.
While other professions, particularly nursing, have also sought alliances, these have differed in form and magnitude that reflects a continuing hierarchy in the division of labour in health care.

Author(s): Jussi Okkonen and Marko Seppä

A contemporary notion of post-modern business environment suggests failure in two vast experiments, partial failure of corporate capitalism and total failure of socialism. Moreover, there is tendency to go back to basics, i.e. back to entrepreneurial structures. The reason for that is not the lack of ideas, but difficulties to adapt and go on when ventures meet rigid corporate reality. The role of venture capital is significant as ideas, or ventures, are developed to new firms. Moreover to make ventures and venture capitalist meet there is also niche for venture-to-capital operative. The network of mutual and organisational relationships consisting of entrepreneur, venture-to-capital operative, or venture knowledgist, and venture capitalist forms system based on social capital and mutual trust. In the context of venture-to-capital activity social capital should be take in account as sum of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, network of social exchanges between actors engaging in transactions. Moreover the three dimensions of social capital affecting any actor in venture-to-capital action are structural, i.e. presence or absence of interaction, dimensional, i.e. mutual trust and trustworthiness, and cognitive, i.e. shared understanding of common goals and proper ways to act. The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of social capital in venture-to-capital activity from the perspectives of entrepreneur, venture knowledgist and venture capitalist. Contributions focus on the manifestations and behaviour of social capital and trust as assets and driving forces of a certain activity.

Author(s): Karine Gagneux

Catégorie centrale parmi les acteurs qui participent à la construction des données statistiques, les enquêteurs n'ont guère été étudiés. Leur recrutement, leurs caractéristiques sociales et les conditions de leur travail ont fortement évolué et restent très variables. 1) Dans le cas de l'INSEE ( Institut National de la Statistique et des études économiques), on observe un bouleversement des structures d'âge et de sexe : des femmes plus jeunes ont remplacé, de 1978 à 1988, les retraités. Plusieurs facteurs externes à l'INSEE ont été à l'origine de cette transformation morphologique. Avec l'urbanisation la relation de proximité n'est plus aussi nécessaire, les compétences ont changé. 2) Malgré l'importance de son rôle dans une étape essentielle des enquêtes, ce groupe professionnel reste instable et peu formé. Les enquêteurs constituent le plus souvent un personnel non permanent, de vacataires intermittents, privés d'avantages. D'où un turn-over élevé et un manque de formation qui affectent les données récoltées. 3) Les conditions techniques du travail sont en train d'évoluer fortement avec l'introduction des T.I.C. (nouvelles technologies d'information et de communication). Le " questionnaire-papier " disparaît et, actuellement, les enquêtrices de l'INSEE, par exemple, enregistrent les données directement sur des ordinateurs portables. 4) La situation et l'évolution du recrutement varient avec les différents types d'organismes (publics et privés), qui n'utilisent pas les mêmes méthodes de collecte des données, techniques d'échantillonnage et n'attendent pas les mêmes compétences des enquêteurs. A chaque organisme correspond une population d'enquêteurs spécifique, avec une discipline et des modes de fonctionnement différents. LES ENQUETEURS : STATUT ET CONDITIONS DE TRAVAIL Catégorie centrale parmi les acteurs qui participent à la construction des données statistiques, les enquêteurs n'ont guère été étudiés. Leur recrutement, leurs caractéristiques sociales et les conditions de leur travail ont fortement évolué et restent très variables. 1) Dans le cas de l'INSEE ( Institut National de la Statistique et des études économiques), on observe un bouleversement des structures d'âge et de sexe : des femmes plus jeunes ont remplacé, de 1978 à 1988, les retraités. Plusieurs facteurs externes à l'INSEE ont été à l'origine de cette transformation morphologique. Avec l'urbanisation la relation de proximité n'est plus aussi nécessaire, les compétences ont changé. 2) Malgré l'importance de son rôle dans une étape essentielle des enquêtes, ce groupe professionnel reste instable et peu formé. Les enquêteurs constituent le plus souvent un personnel non permanent, de vacataires intermittents, privés d'avantages. D'où un turn-over élevé et un manque de formation qui affectent les données récoltées. 3) Les conditions techniques du travail sont en train d'évoluer fortement avec l'introduction des T.I.C. (nouvelles technologies d'information et de communication). Le " questionnaire-papier " disparaît et, actuellement, les enquêtrices de l'INSEE, par exemple, enregistrent les données directement sur des ordinateurs portables. 4) La situation et l'évolution du recrutement varient avec les différents types d'organismes (publics et privés), qui n'utilisent pas les mêmes méthodes de collecte des données, techniques d'échantillonnage et n'attendent pas les mêmes compétences des enquêteurs. A chaque organisme correspond une population d'enquêteurs spécifique, avec une discipline et des modes de fonctionnement différents. En anglais Research : status and working conditions Main class of people involved in statistical analysis, researchers have not been get properly studies. Their recruitment, social characteristics and working conditions changed over the years and remain changeable. 1) taking example of the INSEE (Institute National de la statitique et des études economies), a variation of age and sex is noticeable : younger and younger women took over retired people from 1978 to 1988. Several external causes can explain these changes. Growing urbanisation made proximity relationship less necessary, abilities changed. 2) Despite its essential influence in any survey, this professional class remains unstable and unclearly defined. These researchers are mostly working by mission, therefore missing many social benefits. This leads to a great turn-over and a lack of professionalism penalising the data collection. 3) Working conditions novaday change rapidly with the introduction of TIC (IT). The " paper-based " survey disappears and, for example, the INSEE researchers directly record data on their laptop. 4) Situation and evolution of recruitment vary with the employer (private or public), which are not using the same skills from researchers. Each organisation has its own researcher profile with its specific discipline and operating conditions.

Author(s): Laurence Tain and Laurence Kotobi

This paper is based on the preliminary findings from a collective social science research project(Kalliopé)on speech- therapists in France. The notion of "territory" is taken to refer both to the internal divisions of the profession around particular specialties (the example of voice training will be developed) and to the territorial delimitation process, which operates through the confrontation with other medical or para-medical health professions. A preliminary analysis of qualitative data (biographical interviews)will enable us to identify different forms of inter- and intra-professional collaboration and the different levels of "total care" offered to patients. These vary according to the mode of practice(private practice, institutional settings...)and according to the individual or collective strategies adopted within the professions under consideration. From an anthropological point of view, the daily points of tension and discord can be identified through sensitive in situ observation of concrete professional practices. This approach can later be combined with analysis from an interactionist of organisational perspective. In much the same vein, observation of professional practices in the specialist field of voice training reveals the different modes of intervention of an array of professional experts. Analysis shows the concurrent modes of "voice normalisation" at play, and the strategies used by speech-therapists to affirm their legitimacy in this field. The characteristics of the patients and the different types of therapeutic practice adopted are also analysed in order to better understand the mechanisms through which speech-therapists have succeeded in gaining a socially effective and legitimate role in the field of voice training in France.

Author(s): Lennart G Svensson

Legitimacy is of fundamental importance for the stability and authority of social organisations in general and maybe for professions in particular. Legitimacy is defined as the process by which a social system is justified by its members, i.e. the rulers are given the power to rule by the ruled. Legitimacy is closely connected to the concepts of trust, confidence, and social capital and also related to the concept of status. They all have been reviving as central concepts in social science for some time for reasons of presumed increasing complexity and reliance on experts. Evaluations, audits and accounting have expanded as various new ways to produce and reproduce legitimacy in organisation, for professional occupations and for professional performance, changing the conditions of trust reproduction by the empowerment of individual and collective clients. Thus, there are relevant reasons to re-use trust and status in analyses of professions and recent alterations of the organisations for production of professional services. This paper discusses the relevance of and the relations between the concepts trust, status and audit, particularly focussing teachers and physicians and their respective institutions and organisations. The paper also delivers some survey data and other empirical evidences as illustrations to the conceptual discussion and the alterations of the relations between professions and their environment. There is a certain purpose to investigate studies on professions, trust and audit in different countries to initiate comparative international studies in the network for sociology of professions.

Author(s): Lorenza Villa Lever

El interés de la investigación estará centrado en indagar los caminos y estrategias que el académico siguió desde su ingreso, hasta alcanzar su nivel profesional actual, haciendo énfasis en los cambios y buscando explicarlos. el trabajo parte de la idea que las reformas educativas y la implementación de políticas académicas inciden en un cambio en las trayectorias laborales y en las estrategias seguidas por los académicos. Los académicos del área de ciencias sociales, tanto mexicanos como franceses, norman sus trayectorias laborales, más por sus intereses intelectuales o disciplinares, que por los límites impuestos por las diversas políticas que norman su actividad profesional, pero desarrollan estrategias que los mantengan dentro de dichos límites Las trayectorias más exitosas están relacionadas con actividades de investigación y con una producción académica que denota la participación en redes científicas y la capacidad de liderazgo académico. La base empírica del trabajo son entrevista a profundidad realizadas a sociólogos frances y mexicanos. Tendremos dos puntos de partida: 1. el análisis de las políticas públicas orientadas a la educación superior y particularmente hacia la profesión académica en ambos países, lo que permitirá establecer sus periodos y características. 2. las trayectorias laborales de los académicos entrevistados y las estrategias que utilizaron para lograr ubicarse profesionalmente en el lugar que ocupan actualmente.

Author(s): Manfred F. Moldaschl

Scientific work is not a favorite object neither in the sociology of professions nor in the soci-ology of work, to say it cautious. If that kind of work has a home as a research topic itself, then it's the New Sociology of Science (NSS), particularly the new sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). While the SSK is primarily interested in clearing up the social construction of facts within science, the sociology of professions focusses on questions of legitimation and social inclusion/exclusion of professional expertise, still discussing whether science is a par-ticular profession or the academic part of the system of profession. The sociology of work, at the other hand, puts strategies and institutions of control and domination in/over work in the center. Thus, and ironically, we find the same type and process of fragmentation and differen-tiation of professional knowledge, which is studied by the sociology of professions, in our own scientific practice. That gives reason enough to examine and discuss the effects of the professional formation (in the double sense) in sociological thinking itself, by a systematic comparison between the three distinctive sociological perspectives. What do they reveal and hide, or what's their respective pattern of thematic inclusion and exclusion? This kind of questions is part of a reflexive sociology, or a reflexive practice in science.

Author(s): Marianne Daehlen

The daily care for children, elderly and the sick is to a high degree left to the professionals. In the case of Norway this shift in responsibility from family based to public care is firmly connected to the growth of the welfare state and women's increasing participation in the working life in the post war period. Simultaneously a variety of new professions have arisen as well as a seemingly ever-increasing demand for qualified professionals. The principle aim of this paper is to examine the quality of tomorrow's professionals. To a high extent this quality depends on the professionals' training in educational programmes and working life. However, it seems reasonable to expect that the motivation of students' recruited to the different educational programmes have an impact of the quality of tomorrow's professionals. Among other things, this paper intends to examine the impact of students' gender and social class origin on their motivation for choosing a professional career as well as their planned academic effort. Previous sociological theory has focused on the impact of gender and social class origin on educational choice (Boudon 1974, Bourdieu 1996, Ve 1998). However, others have implied that the impact of gender and family background is of less importance today and that educational choice is a result of a desire to fulfil oneself (Maccoby 1989, Inglehart 1990). Data - a brief description The data is based on a survey carried out in 2000 among first year students on several educational programmes, and include answers from approximately 2 000 students (72 percent of the students). The data is obtained from a larger database that intends to create a foundation for panel- and longitudinal studies. In this paper the analyses are based on data from the first wave. References: -Boudon, Raymond (1974), Education, Opportunity and Social Inequality, New York, Wiley -Bourdieu, Pierre (1996), The State Nobility, Polity Press, Oxford -Inglehart, R (1990), Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press -Maccoby, M (1989), Hvorfor jobber vi? Om motivasjon og nye generasjoners verdivalg og krav til arbeidsmarkedet. Oslo: Dagens Næringsliv Forlag -Ve, Hildur (1998), "Rationality and identity in Norwegian feminism" in Fehr, Rosenbeck & Jónasdóttir Is there a Nordic feminism? UCL Press Ltd., London

Author(s): Marte Feiring

The aim of this paper is to explore the knowledge systems of the occupations of the Welfare State. Three aspects of knowledge are at issue i.e. abstract, technical and ethical dimensions. I focus on professions working in services of child welfare or child and adolescent psychiatry. These services may be seen as spheres of authorities. The borders of such domains may have to be revealed, and we may see them as products of negations, struggles or use of power by the main institutions or agents. I will discuss how such service-domains may be analysed by the approaches developed by Andrew Abbott on jurisdictional struggles within and between task areas; Pierre Bourdieu and his theory of practice with main emphasis on concepts, capital, habitus and doxa within a field; and finally the work of Michael Foucault on power and knowledge, governmentality and the regimes of truth. My aim is to combine insight from these three scholars in order to develop an approach to analyse the main processes that take part in the world of welfare professions and welfare services. On the one hand, I am interested in the relationship between knowledge and politics. The main agents are the planners of public politics and welfare services, politicians, administrators, professional experts and the users of these services. On the other hand, I am interested in the relationship between the consumer and producer of professional welfare services.

Author(s): Mercedes Menchón, Mireia Florido and Nuria Rodríguez Ávila

Marco Teórico: El teórico Andrew Abbott nos muestra como el mundo de las profesiones se mueven en un mercado cambiante y en constante evolución. Las profesiones compiten por una jurisdicción y en el caso que nos ocupa, las profesiones del medio social se encuentran serias dificultades a la hora de encontrar un puesto de trabajo para lo que han sido formados. Objetivo: Esta investigación pretende estudiar las salidas del mercado laboral de los sociólogos catalanes y los factores explicativos de la situación actual. Así mismo, trata de analizar la percepción de los estudiantes al enfrentarse a las salidas profesionales. Proceso ecológico y evolutivo de la profesión. También se pretende estudiar la correspondencia entre la formación académica y las necesidades empresariales que hay existentes en el mercado laboral. Método: Las fuentes de información de esta investigación se basarán en datos primarios y secundarios. Los datos primarios consisten en entrevistas en profundidad a sociólogos reconocidos del ámbito académico como profesionales del mercado y una encuesta a estudiantes de los últimos cursos de carrera.

Palabras clave: Profesionalización, sociólogos, mercado laboral, salidas profesionales.

JOURNALISM AND PROFESSIONALISM: FROM OCCUPATIONAL PROJECT TO DISCOURSE OF OCCUPATIONAL CONTROL

Author(s): Meryl Aldridge and Julia Evetts 

Journalists in the UK have always been ambivalent about what form of occupational control to pursue. Although resistant to the structures of the conventional profession, they have embraced the idea of 'professionalism'. As the formations traditionally associated with Anglo-American professions become relevant to fewer and fewer employees and increasingly subject to external regulation it is more relevant, we suggest, to investigate how the discourse of 'professionalism' as a set of values and identities can be mobilized by employers as a form of self-discipline. Journalism, notable for its powerful occupational mythology, provides a vivid example of how this process has eased the imposition of radical changes to the organization of work. Now, ironically, recent changes in its social composition and training may mean that journalism, which has always cherished its self-image as socially marginal, will move into the mainstream of professional respectability.

CRISIS OR CRASH? PROBLEMS LEGITIMATION AND LOSS OF TRUST OF MODERN PROFESSIONALISM

Author(s): Michaela Pfadenhauer

The term couple “licence” and “mandate” (Everett C. Hughes) marks the characteristic of modern professionalism. On the one hand the professional has the licence, i.e. the permission to implement specific actions which are disallowed to other actors. On the other hand he is provided with the mandate to become authoritative active. This professional instruction authority resp. definition authority in a comprehensive sense underlies is connected with central values resp. general needs on which a social consensus can be presupposed.
With regard of both dimensions actually a crisis of modern professionalism can be diagnosed: This crisis constitutes itself relating to the claim for cognitive superiority – resulting from the certified acquirement of special knowledge – as a destruction process, which relating to the claim for normative superiority – resulting typically from the welfare orientation – as an erosion process.
Both processes are imbedded into social developments which are already described by modernisation theoreticians with the terms “Individualisierung” and “Pluralisierung” for a longer time – and which do not stop for the professional ones, wherefore the modern professionalism is undermined resp. caved not only from the outside but also form the inside. Profession members, which are insecured under these conditions, can be characterised as “reflexive professionals”.
On the side of the client this crisis of professionalism becomes manifest as a creeping loss of trust in professional expertise and achievement. From a structuralistic point of view this confidence is a kind of immaterial reward of the professional one. From action-theoretical perspective it is looked upon as a necessary condition for the “labour consensus” (Goffman) between professional and client which threaten to get lost on the change in a (however to be labelled) “other” modernity.
This at all times (in favor of the first) as asymmetric described relationship of the professional one and client changes itself at present to a relationship of a reflexive and insecured expertise producer and a self-confident and critical expertise consument.

Author(s): Mike Saks

There have been many recent changes in the position of the health professions in the United Kingdom. In the first half of the twentieth century the stature of medicine and other health professions generally increased, based on different forms of exclusionary social closure. However, with the development of a strong counter culture less tolerant of modernist ideologies centred on progress and technocratic solutions to problems from the mid-1960s onwards, professions came under increasing challenge. This provoked fierce controversy in the 1970s and 1980s over whether, and in what ways, dominant professions like medicine could be seen to have undergone deprofessionalization. Since that time, though, there have been further radical challenges to professional regulation as the trust of consumers and the state in the virtues of professionalization has faltered, with growing concerns over the protection of the public welfare. These and other trends have prompted self-generated and im! posed reform in many health occupations from medicine and nursing to the allied health professions. In a world that is often now depicted as post-modern, this paper considers the implications for the future of the health professions. If the recent spate of reforms means the end of health professions as we know them, how far does this represent another step on the road to deprofessionalization? This question is addressed with reference to studies drawn from both the national and comparative international context.

Author(s): Nuria Rodríguez Ávila and Josep Rodríguez

La investigación que presentamos hace hincapié en los aspectos formativos de los profesionales haciendo una comparación entre diferentes grupos profesionales. Marco teórico: Los teóricos de la sociología de las profesiones parten que el conocimiento es un elemento de diferenciación entre una ocupación y una profesión, asimismo, la formación e investigación son atributos esenciales. El sistema educativo es la forma en la que se adquiere el conocimiento abstracto y esotérico por las profesiones. La Unión Europea recientemente ha creado una comisión para la evaluación de los sistemas educativos de cada uno de los países miembros, para homogeneización a nivel Europeo. Objetivo: El principal objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una comparación dentro del conjunto de profesiones tradicionales y otras en procesos de profesionalización. Las profesiones estudiadas se agrupan en cuatro grandes grupos como son las profesiones sanitarias, profesiones jurídicas, profesiones técnicas, y por último las profesiones del medio social. El ámbito elegido es Cataluña por tratarse una de las zonas más dinámicas de la economía española. Análisis de las nuevas formas de formación continuada a través e-learning. Método: El método de investigación utilizado es principalmente datos primarios elaborados por el grupo de investigación Profesiones Poder y Privilegio, así como la colaboración de estudiantes de Sociología de las Profesiones.

Author(s): Olga Mamonova

The concern of identity is a social characteristic of professional community. This has common values, social roles and attitudes, actually identity provides the solidarity for a professional group and underpins its ability to become a subject for social action. From a sociological approach, if the sense of collective identity is weak the professional group can still be recognised by others. Identity as a mechanism of socialization and can be represented as personal, social, professional and occupational identity. Through personal identity person marks someone as unique and significant. Social identity is identity, which is shared with others (family, group, and society). In Parson's general theory of action, social identity is defined as a subsystem of personality and assigned a major role in determing a person's participation in the social system. Professional identity is assumed to be associated with a sense of shared experiences, understandings and expertise, common ways of perceiving problems and their possible solutions. Identities are produced and reproduced through a shared and common educational background and professional training, by similarities in work practice and procedures, by membership in professional associations and societies where practitioners develop and disseminate a shared work culture. Professional identity is one of main factors of a stable inner world of a person and an important element of social self-determination of an individual. Professional identity is a vital need within a community. It is necessary to have a social role, to belong to a social group or occupation, or profession.

Author(s): Paula Black

In recent years Higher Education in the UK has undergone far-reaching transformation. The Higher Education sector may be used as a case study within which to examine trends which have been investigated in relation to other professions. In this paper I will examine the processes of casualisation, intensification, de-professionalisation and audit. Whilst some of these changes are well documented, I shall focus upon academics as an exemplary sector where developments in these areas can be clearly understood. I will also examine the career trajectories of staff. In particular I will ask how gender, ethnicity and original class background impact upon changes within the profession to forge very different career paths through the university sector. Finally, I will set out a research agenda for future work in the area.

TELEOPERATOR OF CALL CENTERS: THE INFORMATION WORKER

Author(s): Quynh Delaunay

In this paper, we are presenting one result of an inquiry led in France about call centres within a European program : among changes which have passed through French society for more than twenty years, the teleoperator’s activity is most typical of a consequent outcome, from the employment and occupational landmark point of view.
Introduction :
Occupations and professions are human constructions resulting from social needs. They shape status and sense-endowed roles. But those stakes are lived as such only if social participants see their interest and intervene to structure them into an identified field.
What a call centre is in service and information economy : internal centres and outsourcers (corporates’ strategy, labour market) The teleoperator’s job : work organisation, wages, industrial relations and working atmosphere Who are the teleoperators : occupational paths (age and sex, education level, status), jobs (work organisation, wages, industrial relations and working atmosphere) The wagers’occupational landmark forms : expectations, evasion and struggles for social recognition.
Conclusion : 
With call centres, we attend the emergence of an activity and an occupational group who hesitate on its landmark. But events such as social conflicts, about work description, wagers and career problems, lack of job security, relocation, could lead to a collective consciousness and claims for true employment and not only a “job”, in keeping with the society as whole members of it, making them a new kind of workers, the information ones.

CONTRACT WORKERS IN MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS

Author(s): Ranveig Dahlen

The research question in this project is twofold. Firstly we investigate how Norwegian health institutions make use of medical contract workers, which is a recent feature. Secondly we will explore the implications and meanings of temporary work for the individual workers, regarding the professional prospects, and the working relations between them and the stable workers. The project will be started during Spring 2003.
Theoretically the project is inspired by the ideas of Richard Sennett (1998), Zygmont Bauman (2000) and others. Modernisation, individualisation, flexibility and mobility have become commonly used concepts to describe recent trends in the labour market The modern worker is one who seeks to avoid involvement in work because the working life no longer values such attitudes. The consequences, Sennett argues, may be lower investment in professional and personal careers, more fragmented working trajectories, and from which the collective spirit and traditional loyalties will suffer. In his most recent book (2003) Sennett discusses the move from a bureaucratic to a liberated state. In this project the gendered professional implications of such a new development will be under scrutiny.

Author(s): René Levy, Eric Widmer and Jacques-Antoine Gauthier

This paper deals with the hypotheses of standardisation, individualization and gendering of professional trajectories of men and women living in Switzerland, based on retrospective data from the recently started Swiss household panel. In order to identify distinct professional trajectories during a long period of the life course (twenty to fifty years of activity), we use optimal matching analysis, a sophisticated new multivariate statistical technic, which enables researchers to construct empirical types on sequence data. Focusing on professional activity (full-time, part-time, various kinds of interruptions), we find that professional trajectories of women belong to a variety of models, which are very sensitive to level of education, number of children, birth cohort and other indicators of social and demographic status. Trajectories of men, on the other hand, are much more homogenous and less sensitive to social and demographic status. The current hypotheses of standardisation, individualisation and gendering only partly account for the distribution of these types. These hypotheses have to be completed by the hypothesis of the master-status inspired by the principle of linked lives and the feminist critique of sociology.

NORBERT ELIAS AND THE GENESIS OF THE NAVAL PROFESSION

Author(s): René Moelker 

In 1950 Norbert Elias published the first of three studies in 'The Genesis of the Naval Profession' in the British Journal of Sociology.
At the time Elias was not the established scholar that he was to become in later days. In the 1950s his work on the 'Naval Profession' was not well received by the audience, even though all the major themes of the 'civilizing process' were interwoven in the article. 
The other two studies were never published in English journals (only one was published in a Dutch journal but received no international attention). A perusal of the Norbert Elias Archive in Marbach am Neckar in Germany - shows that the 'Naval Profession' project is larger than the intended three part series of articles for the BJS. From an outline to the project found in the archive it can be concluded that Elias intended to write a book with six to seven chapters. The key to the studies is a sketchy theory of institutions, which states that conflict promotes institutional development. 
Through the conflict between two occupational groups, sailors and soldiers, the naval officer becomes institutionalized as a new profession. During the period this process takes place England acquires maritime supremacy, secures the passages to the colonies and becomes an empire. 
KEYWORDS: Naval profession; axis of tensions; gentlemen and tarpaulins; midshipman; royal mechanism; maritime supremacy

REGULATION AND TRUST IN ACTION: THE SUBTLE BALANCE BETWEEN DOCTORS AND MANAGEMENT IN TWO BELGIAN HOSPITALS

Author(s): Rita Schepers

The aim of the paper is two present the results of a study with respect to the regulation of problem doctors in two large, prestigious Belgian (Flemish) hospitals. The two hospitals not only have a good reputation with respect to the quality of medical care offered but also with respect to management reform and the introduction of new quality instruments. As was to be expected, the formal mechanisms of control are of lesser importance than various complementary mechanisms of informal control. With respect to the latter it is striking that due to various factors, such as institutional structure and culture and people in charge, the hospitals offer a unique patterns of regulation and, where the regulation end, trust. The research is part of a broader project into the definition and regulation of problem doctors in Belgium.

WOMEN IN BUSINESS CONSULTANCIES: CHANCES OR RISKS FOR PROFESSIONALISATION?

Author(s): Rudolph Hedwig 

Business consultancies in Europe have shown substantial growth rates concerning turnover and numbers of jobs - with only some downward turn since 2001. Business consultant has not the status of a profession. As a kind of substitute, the organisations as well as the consultancy firms (particularly the big ones) have established standards for qualifications of new entrants and criteria for the quality of services. Does this organisational framework provide equally attractive career chances for women? Does the (slowly) increasing number of women in the branch endanger the project of professionalisation? 
The paper is focusing on the German situation, the country with the largest market for consultancy services in Europe. In contrast to the general increase of the female employment rate in Germany during the last decades women still form a minority (slightly over 20 per cent) in the branch of business consultancy. Why so few? And what are the work experiences and career perspectives of these token women? Are the conditions in the new Länder different from those in the old ones? Our empirical study of these questions is based on concepts of institutional and organisational theory, particularly Abbott’s dynamic concept of <professions>, the national business system-approach and Acker’s concept of <gendered organisation>. In our methodology we combine the analysis of official statistical data with own data collections via a www-supported survey followed by expert interviews (by phone and face to face) in firms of business consultancies in Germany.

Author(s): Steffen de Sombre

Following Abbott (1988) the boundaries of the jurisdiction a profession holds for a specific area of problems may be explained by taking into account the competition of professions for jurisdiction. A central means of this competition is the definition of problem-types. Mieg (2002) has transferred this analytical perspective to the field of environmental-problem treatment. Insofar as there is no "environmental profession" yet, the analysis looks at the competition between (established) professions and (environmental) "proto-professions" being active within the field of environmental-problem treatment. Based on the first study by Mieg 1997 a new and broader survey (10.000 questionnaires sent) has been launched in Switzerland in 2001. The results show i.a. the different problem-types assigned to environmental problems by the professions / "proto-professions" as well as leading to hypothesis concerning the professionalisation in the field. As a contribution to a theory of professions, the results seem especially interesting for possibly showing a case of a profession "in statu nascendi". On a more general level the results may be regarded as giving insight in the relevance of a moderate constructionist perspective for an analysis of the treatment of a central modern problem, the "environmental problem": the assigned problem-types presumably have a major impact on the factual treatment of the problems.

Abbott, Andrew (1988): "The system of professions", Chicago Mieg, Harald A. (2002): "Abstraction and Professional Competition", Swiss Journal of Sociology 28: 27-45

CONTESTED PROFESSIONALISM AND THE QUALITY OF (HOME) CARE

Author(s): Stijn Verhagen and Trudie Knijn  

Home care historically has developed into a professional, though low skilled, service, embedded in publicly financed institutions and conditioned by settled labour agreements. Recent developments in Europe, however, learn that home care can as well be delivered by for profit organizations that are nevertheless publicly funded and supervised. Moreover, there is especially in the continental European countries an increasing tendency towards cash benefits, mainly by way of payments for care dependants. Clearly this is not without implications for (the quality of) professional home care - which is the (theoretical) subject I in this paper want to explore. 
This article is about declining professionalism in home care for the elderly and the meaning of this decline for the quality of care and the quality of care work. It first aims to show how the political choice for cheaper and informal, mostly familial forms of care is embedded in two tendencies that characterize the last decade of the previous century: economic liberalism and communitarianism. This, secondly, sets path for a theoretical, ideal-typical exploration of the key forces  - the market, the state and the family - that encroach upon professionalism: professional home care, nowadays, has to compete with paid informal caregivers on the one hand and commercial home care deliverers on the other. Conceptualized this, we will determine how declining professionalism in home care infringes the kind of quality of care that is delivered. Finally, we ask ourselves if there are any reasons to plea for maintaining professionalism in this service.

INFORMAL AND FORMAL CARE WORK FOR THE ELDERLY - WELFARE STATE REGULATIONS AND THE CONTRADICTORY INTERPLAY OF FORMAL AND INFORMAL CARE WORK

Author(s): Theobald Hildegard

Characteristic for the process of occupationalisation respectively professionalisation of care activities is its contracdictory development of formal, partly professionalised activities and unpaid, informal work carried out mostly by relatives within the family framework. The establishment of a market for paid social services and protection against professional status find their condition and limitations within the political-economic and cultural framework of the state. In consequence a wide range of variations in the mode of combination of different forms of care work has been discussed in the literature under the term of different welfare cultures.
The mutual interaction of norms of family- and societal obligations have been analysed from the perspective of informal care work for the elderly and their relationship to social norms, cultural expectations and public policy approaches in different welfare states have been proved. Research results have revealed specific patterns of formal and informal care developing in the complex negotiation process between users and their informal and formal carers. This negotiation process and the resulting pattern of care arrangements seem to be largely determined by forms of inequality among different groups of users and their informal carers according to their social position, gender, ethnicity and family situation. The developing patterns of care arrangements reflect specific cultural values, assumptions on expert competence as well as the economic situation of both users and informal carers and are interlinked with the ideas of family- and societal care obligations in different welfare states.
In this paper the different arrangements of informal and formal social care activities for the elderly will be analysed from the perspective of users and their carers on the basis of a literature review. As a result the interaction between different cultural values, for example family obligations, definition of expert competence and economic possibilities, respectively, constraints will be shown. Further, the results will contrast the specific developments for users and informal carers according their social position, gender and ethnicity within the context of different welfare state regulations.

STATE AND PROFESSIONS: A CASE STUDY OF FRENCH INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS

Author(s): Thomas Le Bianic  

The anglo-saxon sociology of the professions frequently mentions a "continental model" in the formation of professional groups, both characterized by the leading role of the state in creating new jurisdictions and by the specific position of the latter as legitimating instance. most case studies, however, refer to the state as a monolithic entity and do not wonder about the specific interest of a given government agency or department in promoting any particular profession. My communication will be based on a phd research in progress on the profession of industrial psychologist in france in the period 1945-1970. this case study aims at opening a more general debate on the place of the state in the regulation of professional groups. In the post-war period, industrial psychologists appeared as tightly connected with a governmental project whose purpose was to prevent maladjustment of individuals on the labour market through mental testing and the scientific examination of aptitudes. the state was himself the first employer of industrial psychologists in this period (both in government agencies and in public firms) and made various attempts to rule professional practices of industrial psychologists, leading to the creation of a national diploma in 1953. the ministry of education and the ministry of labour were particularly involved in these attempts to promote the profession (and the scientific discipline that underlay it), at the expense of other professionals competing on the same field (such as the powerful graphologists). different questions will be tackled through this example such as : which are the government agencies that, within the state apparatus, support a given professional group, and why ? how! does the intervention of these agencies modify the balance of power between different professions competing on the same jurisdiction ?

SOCIAL STANDING OF WOMEN DOCTORS IN RUSSIA IN TRANSITION

Author(s): Valery Mansurov and Olesya Luksha

The political reforms of the 1990s in Russia and the subsequent trend towards market and liberalisation created the conditions for health care organisational changes. Medicine privatisation resulted in the change in Russian doctors' status. There are transformations in the common standards of practice, ethics, discipline, payment, etc. The medical profession has acquired some possibility of self-regulation: the scope of autonomy (clinical, cultural, social, etc.) has slightly increased. Soviet medicine had a lot of special features that set it apart from other advanced health systems. A much higher proportion of women doctors was one of the main peculiarities. Women predominance in medicine remains unchanged. In terms of administrative position, most women are rank-and-file doctors. Head-doctors' positions (the highest managerial posts) are mostly preoccupied with men. Many women work on a part-time basis. An analysis of women-doctors' status and their views on their current social standing has become one of the central issues in the ongoing INTAS-funded project Russian Doctors: Social Attitudes and Strategies for Adaptation. The Institute of Sociology in Moscow and the Faculty of Health and Community Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester conducts the research in consultation with the Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki. Our research project was based in three different regions within Russia so that comparisons could be made in doctors' working conditions, attitudes and responses in different areas of the country. The case studies were in Moscow, the capital and a dense urban area, Kirov, a provincial city to the east and Komi Republic, an area well to the north of the capital.

Author(s): Vera Borges 

Cette communication explore plusieurs pistes d'analyse pour l'étude des trajectoires individuelles des carrières des artistes et des destinées collectives des activités professionnelles en troupes, compagnies et projets de théâtre au Portugal. Le travail au sein des troupes et la nécessité de comprendre les trajectoires de professionnalisation des artistes comédiens et metteurs en scène ont permis la réalisation des entretiens thématiques et biographiques. La cartographie des troupes professionnelles a rendu nécessaire l'utilisation d'un autre instrument méthodologique, l'enquête. Cette enquête, que nous avons personnellement administrée, a été conduite auprès des troupes recensées par les institutions culturelles, alors émergentes, et d'autres, par effet de boule de neige, nous ont été suggérées par des structures théâtrales. L'enquête a privilégié la caractérisation des troupes, la gestion des membres et des équipes, l'activité artistique et le fonctionnement interne. Ainsi, notre objectif premier est de proposer une articulation entre l'encadrement théorique de notre recherche et les résultats empiriques du travail sur le terrain et, par la suite, de présenter une lecture des caractéristiques du monde du théâtre au Portugal, à partir de deux grands aspects : d'une part, les artistes professionnels en réseau qui sont conduits à gérer la diversité des expériences et les incertitudes d'une profession, d'autre part les troupes, entités d'engagement, préférentiellement de petites dimensions, qui fonctionnent comme des " viviers d'artistes " dans un régime de polyvalence professionnelle.

SCIENCE CONSTRUCTION AND PROFESSIONS IN ACTION. THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE TO SOCIOLOGY OF PROFESSIONS

Author(s): Vittorio Olgiati

Leafing through sociological literature o professions and professionalism it is apparent the neglect of major insights provided by sociology of knowledge and sociology of science. 
The paper focuses on the development of sociology of science from the pathbreaking study of R.K.Merton up to recent post-modern approaches - Latour, Knorr Cetina, the Edinburgh School, etc. - to show the challenges that it raises to still dominant sociology of professions. In particular current research on processes of knowledge and science construction will be analysed to point out their analytical potential for the advancement of the understanding of professional work in contemporary "advanced" society.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES AND PROFESSIONAL LABOUR MARKETS

Author(s): Yvette Lucas

A german study undertaken by german trade unions during the sixties asked this question : automation , risk or chance ?At this time was managed a range of researches on new technologies and changing sovciéty. In france they were achieved .mainly by Pierre Naville and collaborators .. I was one of them. After fifty years I propose to re-examine the social challenges of new technologies and to check the changes they provided with especially in the field of employment and workplaces surveying the main sociological researches in the field and the changing approaches observed, especially concerning convergenses or contradictions between "revolutionary" technologies and "nordic" declining civilisations