Professional Education as if Social Relations Mattered

’Higher Education as if the World Mattered’, University of Edinburgh and Society for Research into Higher Education

25th-26th April 2013

INTRODUCTION

• The professions are of huge importance to societies based around the production and use of knowledge.

• Radical uncertainty leaves particular scope for exercise of power by professionals that prioritises:―the interests of the professionals themselves, especially in

market contexts;―agenda of governments or regulators.

STRUCTURE AND AGENCY

• Attempts by regulators to determine the scope or nature of professional actions.

• Teaching/curriculum (social structure in the educational setting) as an influence on intentional action by an individual (agency).

• Challenges exist in inculcating particular stances towards professionalism amongst students on HE programmes.

Socio-cultural structures

Reflexive deliberation Reflexive deliberation

Concerns → Projects → Practices

The mediation of structure to agency, after Archer (2003)

SOCIAL RELATIONS AND REFLEXIVITY

• Social relations influence the reflexivity of those involved (Donati, 2011)― Ensures a clear focus for concerns, actions, practices, …

• Scope to establish social relations on the basis of both human and non-human qualities― Relations involving reciprocal relations between subjects vs

functional/prescribed processes.― Provides a realistic basis to ground social justice or to

enhance moral conduct.

INTEGRATING RELATIONS INTO PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

• Integrating a relation offers a means to bridge between subjects with different perspectives.― Essential for professional practice with a direct function in

relation to others (e.g. as typically with medicine rather than engineering).

• Incorporating the perspectives of others plays a key role in the related literature on reflective practice.

• Introduce relations linking students to: ― clients, client activists, employers, experts, peers, those

from other professions …

PLANNING PROVISION

• Provides a focus for the student’s experience of learning, affecting:― time-tabled events, facilitation, use of social media,

residential arrangements, …

• Impact on the client or other party considered in the educational setting ― reflective assignments, joint projects, …

• To what extent is detachment from the client an important factor?― working with other’s clients rather than with one’s own.

SHIFTING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

• Provides a basis for specific forms of professional practice:― relations shape new ways of thinking, forms of practice,

social organisation, etc. in the subsequent professional setting.

• Reflexivity will be affected by the actual relations selected and the context for the encounter ― affects underlying ideals in play, addressing meta-reflexivity

as well as a professionally-oriented communicative reflexivity.

CONCLUSIONS

• Professional education that takes into account the notion of a range of goods that are associated with the stakeholders involved

• A means to refocus professional education on a more fully human basis.

• Things could be otherwise if social relations mattered to a greater extent in professional education and professional practice.

REFERENCESArcher, M. (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation.

Cambridge: CUP.

Donati, P. (2011) Relational sociology: a new paradigm for the social sciences. London: Routledge.

Note: please see the accompanying paper for a full set of references.

See also: Kahn P E (2013) ‘Theorising student engagement in higher education’, British Educational Research Journal, (available online 7th October 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3121/full)