Clinical Ethics Consultation (CEC) has grown significantly in the last decade, and efforts are being made to professionalize the practice. The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has been instrumental in this process, having published the Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Healthcare Ethics Consultants and founded and endorsed the creation of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certified (HCEC) Certification Commission. The ASBH also published “core competencies” for healthcare ethics consultants and has delineated a clear identity and role of (...) such consultants distinct from that other healthcare professionals. In addition, more enter the field armed with advanced degrees (MA and PhD) or certification in clinical ethics consultation. While some have questioned the trend toward professionalization, the momentum is clearly in its favor. This paper explores three questions: Does the professionalization of healthcare ethics consultation expose those engaged in the field to the types of liability claims faced by professionals in other fields? What specific liabilities could affect a healthcare ethics consultant? And finally, what should healthcare ethics consultants do to protect themselves against liability claims? We conclude that while the risk of liability remains low, those engaged in the field should accept that risk just as part of their status as professionals and, like those in allied professions, seek appropriate protection in the form of liability insurance. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, the debate around the process of professionalization of higher education has been characterized by two extreme positions. For some critics the process carries the risks of instrumentalizing knowledge and of leading the university to succumb under the demands of the market or the state; for other theorists it represents a concrete opportunity for the university to open up to the real needs of society and for reorienting theoretical and fragmented disciplines towards the resolution of concrete (...) and challenging problems. This article pursues three objectives. Firstly, we show that the debate is usefully informed not only by ideas of what a university is, but also by ideas of a profession. We suggest that both ideas help to overcome the conflict between the two afore-mentioned antagonist perspectives. Secondly, we demonstrate that a certain understanding of a profession can prevent the risk of viewing knowledge exclusively as scientific expertise and reducing training to the acquisition of technical skills. The position on professions adopted here is inspired by the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, whose work is instructive in understanding professions as “rational practical activities”, embedded in a social context with their own internal goods. Our third objective, therefore, is to argue, with MacIntyre, that the presence of professions within the university opens up the opportunity to rescue forms of rationality that are oriented towards action and, by implication, promotes spaces of training that are resistant to exclusively corporate or governmental interests and criteria of mere effectiveness. (shrink)

The need to deconstruct heteropatriarchal, elite, white knowledge and to reconstruct knowledge from peripheral locations and marginalized experiences gave the impetus to feminist knowledge production in informal groups and NGOs, but also in research centers and university programs. The expertise acquired is used to develop a feminist practice of work and feeds the policy process in the context of evidence-based policymaking. Feminist knowledge serves to legitimize the claims of the feminist movement and their policy recommendations in the official political arena, (...) but also their relationship with the movement’s base and to nourish their grassroots actions, such as raising-awareness campaigns. The build-up of a feminist professional practice of work stems from a web of interactions among actors—professionals within and outside the movement, activists and volunteers, and pro-bono professionals that shape the process of professionalization and the identity of feminist movement professionals. The recruitment of experts from outside the movement, coupled with a high turnover, amplified by the logic of project-based work was associated with an important risk of depoliticization. Activists were concerned about losing the critical and political grid of analysis, driven by the transformation of NGO work into a job like any other and addressing issues in a technical manner, reflective of the managerial style of neoliberal governance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:400 Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. L. Ayu Saraswati People, Professionalization, and Promises: Navigating the Politics of PhD Programs in Women’s Studies I have been housed at four different universities—all in women’s studies. My PhD is from the University of Maryland, College Park. I completed a postdoctoral program at Emory University. My first tenure track position was at the University of Kansas. (...) I am currently a tenured associate professor and graduate advisor at the University of Hawai’i. All of these places have strong women’s studies graduate programs. Yet, each program has its own vision of what a women’s studies doctoral program should look like. Some define their interdisciplinarity by asking students to master at least two disciplinary methods and methodologies as they focus on a particular major field; others offer “tracks” in other disciplines that the program has formally approved and collaborates with; and yet others ask students to credential themselves in two disciplines—the goal being students can then get hired in other disciplines, rather than simply banking only on getting a job in women ’s studies. Which model is best, one may ask? The answer, of course, depends on what one wants to do with a PhD in women’s studies. Hence, in what follows, I will lay out several factors to consider when deciding which program to choose. Then, I will share some challenges we have experienced as faculty members building women’s studies PhD programs so that university administrators can L. Ayu Saraswati 401 further build on and engage in this important conversation of shaping the future of women’s studies PhD programs. For Future PhDs: What I Have Learned as a Women’s Studies PhD Graduate The good news is that not all women’s studies PhD programs are the same. It is up to students to choose which one fits their goal. If students are wholly invested in being interdisciplinary scholars and willing to put all of their eggs in one women’s studies basket, then doctoral programs structured around areas of study or major fields may work better. The University of Maryland, for example, offers five major fields: Gender, Race, Racialization, and/or Diaspora Studies; Art, Culture, Technologies, and Social Change; Bodies, Gender and Sexualities; Gendered Labor, Households and Communities; and Women’s Movements, Global and Local. If none of these major fields fits perfectly—as the fields often reflect the faculty members’ expertise, students can create their own. After choosing or creating a major field, students will then take classes— in theories and methods—that will solidly ground their expertise in their chosen field. In this setup, students may take classes from many departments, such as history, anthropology, ethnic studies, and English, for example, that are centered around their field. The assumption (or the hope) is when students travel through and take these classes in different disciplinary locations, they will then synthesize and transform the knowledge they learn in each department to produce truly interdisciplinary knowledge. The drawback of this model, however, is that it may be harder for the students to land a job in a traditional discipline or in a discipline other than women’s studies. This may be because it is not uncommon that students end up crafting or adopting a more avantgarde method of analysis that does not simply sit neatly in one discipline, such as “literary ethnography,” for example. Many times, however, new and avant-garde methods that students design may not be perceived as innovative. Rather, they may be seen as incoherent. Indeed, as Mary Margaret Fonow and Sally Kitch argue in their article “Analyzing Women ’s Studies Dissertations: Methodologies, Epistemologies and Field Formation,” not devising and discussing a solid feminist methodology that would clearly link the argument and the evidence is one of the main 402 L. Ayu Saraswati problems found in many of these dissertations.1 Their suggestion, therefore, is to strengthen the “fundamentals of research design and writing.” (I will return to this issue later.) In cases where students would like to entertain the possibilities of securing a job in disciplines other than women’s studies, programs that offer concentrations based on... (shrink)

In Belgium, a service voucher scheme – known as Titres Services – was launched in 2004 in order to create employment and regularize the labor conditions of domestic workers. The extent to which this scheme has represented an improvement in domestic workers’ labor conditions, however, is still a matter of debate. This article explores the workers’ experience of the changes introduced by this scheme. It focuses on Latin American migrants that are currently working under this scheme in Brussels, situating them (...) in relation to their previous experiences and the experience of other migrants who currently work in the informal market. The authors distinguish two tropes in their informants’ discourse, which describe their ambivalence regarding these changes. Using the Titres Services scheme’s rhetoric, the first one seeks to increase the social status of this occupation by presenting it as a ‘profession’. Contrarily, the second trope highlights the limits to professionalization. (shrink)

This study examines the professionalization of political communication by focusing on changes to campaign posters for Bundestag elections over the course of five eras of German post-war history. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of both visual and textual elements of campaign posters (N = 1,857) in the period from 1949 to 2017 with regard to personalization, de-ideologization, and negative campaigning. The study revealed differences related to the five eras. Following the early conservative governments (1949–1969), high levels of personalization (...) and ideologization first became defining features of election campaigns during the social-liberal era (1969–1982). After the Kohl era (1982–1998), these trends have occurred again since the Schröder era (1998–2005) and have been reinforced in the Merkel era (2005–2017). Furthermore, we found neither a clear upward nor a downward trend for negative campaigning. Overall, our study demonstrated that political parties adapt their communication strategies to the context of the respective election. (shrink)

A recent article by physician Ronald Dworkin, echoing research from the last five years, suggests that physicians find little value in clinical ethics consultations. At the same time, clinical ethicists have worked to create more structures and standards to ground the field's professionalization in health care. Why the disconnect? We suggest three reasons: internal professionalization work is opaque to those outside of the discipline, weak external accreditation requirements imply a lack of professionalization of ethics, and the fundamental (...) nature of clinical ethics is distinct from other disciplines. (shrink)

Journalism is viewed here as being in danger of becoming a profession, thereby changing the field into a narrow, monolithic, self‐centered fellowship of true believers devoid of outward‐looking and service orientations.

El propósito de la investigación es determinar el impacto de los programas formativos ofertados por las autoridades educativas en 2021, en el estado de Tabasco, México en docentes de educación básica que laboran en contextos vulnerables. La importancia del estudio se comprende ya que es una estrategia que el Estado Mexicano aplica para impulsar la calidad e inclusión educativas. El enfoque es cuantitativo, la validación y confiabilidad del instrumento se realizó a través del juicio de expertos y un alfa de (...) Cronbach de 0.92.Los resultados obtenidos proporcionaron información relevante relacionada con aspectos académicos y tecnológicos. (shrink)

Before the Second World War, French prehistoric archaeology was dominated by amateurs, allowing only marginal positions for women. With few exceptions, they entered prehistoric research through the back door as assistants to the men. Couples were also present in the interwar period, but wives remained in the shadow of their husbands and were, at best, associated as second authors in the publications. In the 1950s, after the creation of the National Center for Scientific Research, Germaine Henri-Martin was among the first (...) women recruited as a professional. In the 1970s, women were often recruited as technicians or engineers, rarely as researchers, and always around men. Research in prehistory remained predominantly male, and men took up themes valuing activities considered masculine, which were seen as the supreme achievement of “mankind,” particularly hunting and stone knapping. When women entered the profession, they investigated themes rarely approached by men and associated with feminine activities, for example, ornaments or skin work. Since 2000, the recruitment of young women in research has intensified, but their presence in higher rank positions is still less numerous than men. (shrink)

(1994). Exchange on professionalization as marginalization: The American home economics movement and the rhetoric of legitimation. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 123-132.

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, physics was regularly taught as part of instruction in philosophy and the arts at Central European schools and universities. However, physics did not have a special or privileged status within that instruction. Three general indicators of this lack of special status are suggested in this article. First, teachers of physics usually were paid less than teachers of most other university-level subject-matters. Second, very few Central European academics during this period appear to have made (...) a career out of teaching physics. And third, Reformation Era schools and universities in Central Europe emphasized language instruction; such instruction not only was instrumental in promoting the confessional-i.e., Calvinist, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic-agendas of those same schools and universities, but also helped to prepare students for service in nascent but growing state governments. (shrink)

The professionalization of modern nursing education from 1850 and forward is closely linked to values and virtues underpinned by Christian ideals, sex-based stereotypes and class. Development in the late 19th century of modern hospital medicine, combined with a scientific understanding of antisepsis and asepsis, hygiene, contagion prevention and germ theory, were highly influential insights to the dominant position of modern medicine in health care. This development constituted a key premise for what nurses, by virtue of being women, and combined (...) with their education, could offer in terms of medical assistance. It enabled them to challenge the prevailing sex-based stereotypes- and class-based hierarchies, allowing modern nursing to retain aspects of both traditional Christian and womanly values, while at the same time adhering to the medical science paradigm. In this paper, we argue that modern nursing education developed in a context characterized by traditional female and religious values, while at the same time being increasingly dominated by the influence of scientific and medical progress. This conflict between traditional and modern values caused dilemmas and tensions as the nursing profession developed. We argue further that similar dilemmas and tensions continue to pervade contemporary nursing and nursing education. (shrink)

Though there has been interest in philosophical counselling in South Africa since at least the 1990s little has been accomplished by way of formalizing and developing the practice into a profession. We ask what would be required for it to become a fully-fledged profession? We argue that in order to count as a profession, a practice must meet certain normative, cognitive, and organizational criteria, but that philosophical counselling in South Africa falls short both cognitively and organizationally. This has implications for (...) individual philosophical practitioners, it would seem, who cannot any longer consider themselves professionals. We argue that being a professional is not contingent on belonging to an established profession, but rather that to claim to be a professional is to claim that one can be trusted because one has the client’s good at heart. Exploring the idea of trust highlights again, though this time from an ethical rather than from a sociological perspective, that there is an urgent need to fill the cognitive and organizational gap that exists in South Africa. We propose that in order to facilitate the professionalization of philosophical counselling in South Africa, we should adopt an approach that focuses on the training of philosophical counsellors in the hopes that an organizational component will grow out of this rather than following previous attempts to put organizations first. (shrink)

Resumen: Uno de los mayores retos a superar por las democracias representativas electorales contemporáneas pasa por paliar la desafección ciudadana y, consecuentemente, suturar la brecha entre gobernantes y gobernados. Se podría llegar a un cierto consenso, si afirmáramos que la profesionalización de los políticos se está convirtiendo en uno de los obstáculos a los que se enfrenta la ciudadanía a la hora de confiar en el sistema político. En este sentido, el objetivo principal del presente artículo pasa por reflexionar sobre (...) los efectos nocivos de la profesionalización de la clase política, y analizar el potencial del sorteo como mecanismo neutralizador. A su vez, averiguar si este, a través de minipúblicos deliberativos, tiene o no la capacidad de minimizar sus excesos nocivos y, con ello, aumentar el grado de confianza de la ciudadanía con sus representantes políticos. Abstract: One of the greatest challenges to be overcome by contemporary electoral representative democracies is to alleviate citizen disaffection and, consequently, bridge the gap between the rulers and the ruled. A certain consensus could be reached if we affirmed that the professionalization of politicians is becoming one of the obstacles that citizens face when it comes to trusting the political system. I In this sense, the main objective of this article is to reflect on the harmful effects of the professionalization of the political class and analyze the potential of the sortition as a neutralizing mechanism. In turn, find out if this, through deliberative mini publics, has or not the ability to minimize its harmful excesses and, with it, increase the degree of trust of citizens with their political representatives. (shrink)

One of the challenges of modern healthcare ethics practice is the navigation of boundaries. Practicing healthcare ethicists in the performance of their role must navigate meanings, choices, decisions and actions embedded in complex cultural and social relationships amongst diverse individuals. In light of the evolving state of modern healthcare ethics practice and the recent move toward professionalization via certification, understanding boundary navigation in healthcare ethics practice is critical. Because healthcare ethics is endowed with many boundaries which often delineate concerns (...) about professional expertise and authority, epistemological reflection on the relationship between theory and practice points toward the social context as relevant to the conceptualization of boundaries. The skills of social scientists may prove helpful to provide data and insights into the conceptualization and navigation of clinical ethics qua profession. Empirical ethics research, which combines empirical description (usually social scientific) with normative-ethical analysis and reflection, is a way forward as we engage and reflect upon issues which have implications for practice standards and professionalization of the role. This requires cooperative engagement of the descriptive and normative disciplines to explore our understandings of boundaries in healthcare ethics practice. This will contribute to the ongoing reflection not only as we envision the professional role but to ensure that it is enacted in practice. (shrink)

This paper critically examines efforts to “professionalize” the field of healthcare management and its corresponding costs. Drawing upon the scholarly critiques of professionalization in medicine and the broader field of management, this paper seeks to explore the symbolic role professionalization might play in the psyche of its constituents, and specifically its function as a defense against uncertainty and anxiety. This psychodynamic heuristic is then deployed to put forth the hypothesis that an ongoing crisis of professional identity continues to (...) both propel and impede professionalization efforts in healthcare management, giving rise to a litany of standardization pressures that ultimately limit the field’s potential. To mitigate these pressures, the call is made for rekindling healthcare management’s moral, political, and existential aspects. Specifically, this entails engaging with the deeper themes that flow through the field: the experience of illness and what it means to suffer, the experience of life and what it means to have hope, and the experience of death and dying. It also entails squarely confronting questions of power, poverty and disease, and the pursuit of justice. (shrink)

Archival codes of ethics currently substitute lists of rules for moral guidance, possibly worsening a lack of societal respect for archives and archivists. This paper recommends the adoption of principal precepts to guide archivists in unfamiliar situations and to enhance the professionalization of archival enterprise. These principal precepts are confidentiality, dissociation, veracity, and "avoidance of the irreversible." Adoption of these precepts will move archival enterprise toward meriting the "Public Trust" and acceptance as a "trust profession.".

Much as is the case with all professions, the professionalization of clinical ethics is a response to a social need demanded by the current predominant healthcare model.

During the past hundred years or so, those scholars studying science have isolated themselves as much as possible from scientists as well as from workers in other disciplines who study science. The result of this effort is history of science, philosophy of science and sociology of science as separate disciplines. I argue in this paper that now is the time for these disciplinary boundaries to be lowered or at least made more permeable so that a unified discipline of Science Studies (...) might emerge. I discuss representative problems that stand in the way of such an integration. These problems may seem so formidable in the abstract that no one in their right mind would waste their time trying to bring about a unified field of Science Studies. However, those of us who limit ourselves to the study of the biological sciences have already formed a society in which workers from all disciplines can share their expertise -- the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science. (shrink)

In modern academic career systems there are a large number of entry positions, much smaller numbers of intermediate positions, and still fewer full professorships. We examine how this system has developed in Germany, the country where the modern academic system was introduced, tracing the historical development of academic positions since the early 19th century. We show both a differentiation and professionalization. At first, professorships and private lecturer positions were the only formal positions, but later, lower formal academic positions emerged. (...) Over the whole period, the share of higher academic positions steadily decreased. This differentiation process was closely connected to professionalization: remuneration through salaries was extended from professors to almost everyone working in the German academic system. We propose that the process of differentiation and professionalization was induced by the expansion and democratization of higher education. Finally, our study shows that the opportunities for PhDs to obtain salaried doctoral positions have increased since the 1950s. On the other hand, opportunities for PhDs to become a professor or obtain another tenured job have decreased since the 1980s due to a slowdown of higher education expansion. (shrink)

This text was conceived as an attempt to describe the organizational field of veterinary medicine of companion animals in Russia and its impact on the processes of formation of the profession of veterinarians of companion animals as a separate professional group. Having emerged in the early 1990s in Russia as a separate branch of veterinary medicine, veterinary medicine of companion aimals has gone from intuitive practices of treating dogs and cats to a complex organizational field with many actors. Despite such (...) rapid development, this area, unlike agricultural veterinary medicine, still considerably lacks strong institutional regulation. The profession of a veterinarian of companion animals does not live in the conventional continental model of professionalization for our region but it is market-oriented and develops through the veterinarians' own efforts while they do not exist outside veterinary clinics - their own organizational field. The article offers a description of this organizational field and analyzes the influence of its structure on the processes of professionalization of veterinarians of companion animals. (shrink)

For quite some time now, there have been discussions and debates in North America in the field of ethics concerning professionalization . From a talk given to graduate and undergraduate university students, the author tells the personal journey of an ethicist in the province of Quebec, Canada, and offers a narrative to illustrate some of the issues she faced since starting her work in the field of ethics at the end of the 1990s. Instead of taking the usual “for” (...) and “against” positions, the author addresses the issue of professionalization of healthcare ethics from her own point of view. Referring to her experience with ethics committees and research ethics boards and to the works of George A. Legault in Crise d’identité professionnelle et Professionnalisme (Presses de l’Université du Québec, Sainte-Foy, 2003 ), she pleads for the development of practice standards and the creation of a deliberative process (see Kirby and Simpson in this issue of HEC Forum 2012 ), a dialogical space for assuring professionalism in healthcare ethics interventions, not solely the act of becoming a profession. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 44-46.

This study explores how public relations professionals in three post-authoritarian countries—the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland—navigate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their daily work. It studies perceived opportunities and barriers as well as normative understandings of AI use among PR professionals. Drawing on the Transitional Public Relations Model and Professionalization Theory, the study examines how institutional legacies and democratic fragilities shape both ethical norms and professional practices. Based on 16 semi-structured interviews and a hybrid thematic analysis, (...) the findings reveal a paradox: AI is embraced for its utility in routine tasks, yet its use unfolds in underregulated environments with limited training and persistent distrust in institutions. Formal ethical frameworks for AI use are largely absent, leaving practitioners to rely on individual judgement. This research advances the understanding of technology adoption, especially in transitional democracies, and highlights the impact of systemic factors on responsible AI integration in communication practice. It contributes a region-specific perspective to global debates on AI ethics, digital transformation, and the evolving role of communication professionals. (shrink)

This article examines the development of modern nursing education in China through a case study of the Xiangya School of Nursing in Changsha between 1909 and 1926. Founded in 1911 by the Yale‐in‐China Association, a non‐denominational mission, Xiangya was among the earliest nursing schools in China to promote undergraduate nursing education and public health nursing. Drawing on archival materials, published primary sources, and Chinese and English historiography, we analyze the cultural, political, and gendered challenges that shaped the school's development under (...) the leadership of American nurse Nina Gage. While Gage initially sought to implement an Americanized model of nursing education, she and her colleagues adapted admission policies, educational goals, and curricula to local social and cultural conditions. Recognizing the need for Chinese nursing leadership, they prioritized the establishment of a Bachelor of Science degree to prepare nurses for teaching, administration, and public health roles. By 1926, Xiangya had trained approximately 16% of China's qualified nurses and had become one of only two schools in China offering university‐level nursing education. This history highlights the interplay of transnational influence, cultural adaptation, and gendered reform in the professionalization of nursing in early 20th‐century China. (shrink)

Historical continuities and constraints in the professionalization of nursingThe support of medicine and the state may be crucial to nursing's current professional aspirations for legitimation and implementation of nursing reforms and for new roles for nurses in health care. As such, medicine and the state are in the invidious position of influencing nursing's occupational future. This situation is not new. An historical analysis of the establishment of nursing at Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia, at the end of the nineteenth (...) century reveals that the State Government of NSW and the medical profession supported nursing's occupational development, yet set the framework within which this could occur. For instance, the state provided patronage to nursing through recommendations of the 1873 Royal Commission and because it financially backed Prince Alfred Hospital, while the medical profession defined nursing knowledge and practice through its control of the nursing curriculum. Membership of the hospital board provided both medicine and the state with powerful positions over hospital policies that affected nursing. While nursing became established as a distinct occupation for women with the aid of State and medical support, its subordinate position in health care was, and continues to be, constrained by these traditional supporters. This relationship between nursing, medicine and the state has implications for nursing's current professionalization strategies and aspirations. (shrink)

Scientific realists have suggested that changes in our scientific communities over the course of their history have rendered those communities progressively less vulnerable to the problem of unconcieved alternatives over time. I argue in response not only that the most fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have generated steadily mounting obstacles to revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox scientific theorizing, but also that we have substantial independent evidence that the institutional apparatus of contemporary scientific inquiry fosters an exceedingly and increasingly theoretically (...) conservative form of that inquiry. I conclude that contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives than their historical predecessors, and I briefly suggest how we might seek to pursue scientific inquiry in a less theoretically conservative way. (shrink)