The System of Professions

Description

In The System of Professions Andrew Abbott explores central questions about the role of professions in modern life: Why should there be occupational groups controlling expert knowledge? Where and why did groups such as law and medicine achieve their power? Will professionalism spread throughout the occupational world? While most inquiries in this field study one profession at a time, Abbott here considers the system of professions as a whole. Through comparative and historical study of the professions in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England, France, and America, Abbott builds a general theory of how and why professionals evolve. Copyright Title Page Dedication Contents Preface 1. Introduction The Professions Literature The Concept of Professionalization Cases of Professional Development I. Work, Jurisdiction, and Competition 2. Professional Work Objective and Subjective Diagnosis Treatment Inference Academic Knowledge 3. The Claim of Jurisdiction Audiences Settlements Internal Structure 4. The System of Professions The Implications of Exclusion: A System of Professions Sources of System Disturbances The Mechanisms of Jurisdiction Shift: Abstraction Conclusion II. The System’s Environment 5. Internal Differentiation and the Problem of Power Internal Stratification Client Differentiation Workplace, Workplace Structure, and Internal Divisions of Labor Career Patterns Power 6. The Social Environment of Professional Development Forces Opening and Closing Jurisdictions The Internal Organization of Professional Work Changing Audiences for Jurisdictional Claims Co-optable Powers, Oligarchy, and the New Class 7. The Cultural Environment of Professional Development Changes in the Organization of Knowledge New Forms of Legitimacy The Rise of Universities III. Three Case Studies 8. The Information Professions The Qualitative Task Area The Quantitative Task Area The Combined Jurisdiction 9. Lawyers and Their Competitors Potential Jurisdictional Conflicts of the Legal Profession Complaints about Unqualified Practice and Other Invasions Conclusions 10 The Construction of the Personal Problems Jurisdiction The Status of Personal Problems, 1850-75 The First Response to “American Nervousness” The Psychiatric Revolution The Rise of Psychotherapy Conclusion: The Clergy Surrender 11. Conclusion The System of Professions History Theory and the Professions Notes References Index