Download to read offline
Uploaded byUniversity of Liverpool
Professional education as if social relations mattered
The document discusses the significance of social relations in professional education, emphasizing their role in shaping professional practices and reflexivity among students. It argues for the incorporation of diverse perspectives in educational programs to enhance social justice and moral conduct, while also examining the impacts of these relations on learning experiences. Ultimately, it calls for a reorientation of professional education towards a more human-centric approach that values the interactions among stakeholders.
More Related Content
Similar to Professional education as if social relations mattered
Professional education as if social relations mattered
- 1. Professional Education as if SocialRelations Mattered ’Higher Education as if the World Mattered’, University of Edinburgh and Society for Research into Higher Education 25th-26th April 2013
- 2. INTRODUCTION • The professionsare 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.
- 3. 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.
- 4. Socio-cultural structures Concerns →Projects → Practices Reflexive deliberation The mediation of structure to agency, after Archer (2003)
- 5. SOCIAL RELATIONS ANDREFLEXIVITY • 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.
- 6. INTEGRATING RELATIONS INTO PROFESSIONALEDUCATION • 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 …
- 7. PLANNING PROVISION • Providesa 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.
- 8. 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.
- 9. CONCLUSIONS • Professional educationthat 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.
- 10. REFERENCES Archer, 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)
Editor's Notes
- #3 Control of the NHS in the hands of doctors who can have a stake/interest in private companies linked to the provided service.
- #4 Control of the NHS in the hands of doctors who can have a stake/interest in private companies linked to the provided service.
- #5 The pursuit of specific projects ensure that an individual engages with social constraints and enablements. Archer emphasises how reflexive deliberation drives the concrete specification courses of action; but in educational settings, where a significant proportion of practice is negotiated and agreed at the level of the programme or department (but not all) – then social interaction plays an important role too. This affects the dynamic of individual (or primary) agency. We see here some points of contact between structure and agency. Communicative reflexives – share their deliberations with others before deciding on a course of action.Autonomous reflexives – prioritise performance in the face of contextual discontinuity.Meta-reflexives – prioritise social ideas in the face of contextual discontinuity.Fractured reflexives – deliberation intensifies personal distress.
- #6 Control of the NHS in the hands of doctors who can have a stake/interest in private companies linked to the provided service.
- #10 Trainee teachers taking in the perspective of parents? Or pupils themselves?Lawyers who develop relations with convicted criminals? Detachment as