In this book, Eliot Freidson explores several broad questions about
professionalism in Western industrial societies today; how to
theorize about it, what its future is likely to be, and its value
to public policy. In analysing these problems, Freidson develops an
original and compelling interpretation of the professions and the
role of the professional. Professionalism is understood to be based
on the occupational control of work. As such, he shows, it is quite
distinct from either bureaucratic or market-based forms of
structuring work.
Freidson also discusses various predictions about the future of
the professions, pointing out that virtually all of them have
mistaken practitioners for the profession as a whole and ignored
members who generate new knowledge, set and implement policy, and
communicate with the public through the media. He predicts a
reorganization of the professions in which practitioners lose some
of their independence and become accountable to standards
established and administered by a professional elite.
In contemplating the political, economic, and ideological forces
that exert enormous pressure on the professions today, Freidson
departs from most writers by defending professionalism as a
desirable method of providing complex, discretionary services to
the public. He holds that market-based or bureaucratic methods
would impoverish the quality of service to consumers and suggests
how the virtues of professionalism can be reinforced. This book
will appeal to the growing international body of historians,
political scientists, sociologists, and policy analysts who are
concerned with studying and theorizing about the professions.
General
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