Professionalism and Social Change

Book excerpt: This book guides the reader in discovering contemporary professions and the critical changes they have lived through after the post-industrial transformation of advanced capitalist societies. Two interrelated concepts are used to interpret what is happening in professional work: differentiation, namely the set of processes by which professions and professionalism have become more diverse, and heterogeneity, the outcomes of such processes. A novel analytical framework delves into differentiation and understands heterogeneity based on three dimensions: within (how professions are structured internally), between (how professions distinguish themselves from other occupations and from each other), and beyond (how professions govern societal changes and influence differentiation processes). The book presents a collection of studies covering different countries and professions to demonstrate the analytical potential of the within-between-beyond model. The conclusions show how neo-liberal professionalism is putting the very idea of collegiate professions at stake while exposing emerging professions to market risks. Lara Maestripieri is Ramon y Cajal Distinguished Researcher, IGOP/Department of Political Science and Public Right, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, Spain. Andrea Bellini is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Economic and Labour Processes, Department of Social and Economic Sciences (DiSSE), Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.