Chair: Terri Kim, University of East London and UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Local Chair: Anastasia Kesidou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
The question of how to balance professional autonomy and managerial control is a classic one in a range of educational settings and systems across time and space. Professionalism upheld by professionals came close to being a universal value in modern times. According to Myron Lieberman’s classic definition, a profession "performs a unique and essential social service; is founded upon intellectual techniques; has a long period of specialised training; offers a high degree of autonomy both to the individual practitioner and to the occupational group as a whole; accepts responsibility for judgements made and acts performed within the scope of professional autonomy; puts emphasis upon the service it performs rather than the economic rewards that the practitioner gets; is a self-governing organisation of practitioners, and finally operates on the basis of a code of ethics".
However, we would not set out to utilise as a tertium comparationis such a standard concept of ‘profession’. Such models are generally static and distract attention from the dynamics of the construction and transformation of professions and professionalism over time and space. Even where there has been some effort to tackle the issue of power and control, and to locate the State and its role in the (de)construction of the professions, the work has often remained at an abstract level and has not fully provided a comparative or descriptive closure to the issue.
The notions and practices of academic and educational professionals have continued to be challenged by changes in control regimes in (higher) education that have pushed it to the point of ‘de-professionalisation’ in some areas, and by the rise of precarious professionals in educational settings. A paradox exists between the increasing regulation of educational professions, intended to promote professional accountability and benefit teaching and research on the one hand, and the actual de-professionalisation occurring on the other hand. As Guy Standing points out, the precariat is the first class in history to lose acquired rights - cultural, civil, social, economic, and political. Those in it are reduced to being supplicants. The Latin root of precariousness is “to obtain by prayer”. The precariat must ask for favours, for charity, to show obsequiousness, to plead with authority figures.
Participants in this Working Group will engage with the notions of professional autonomy and its scope within the context and reality of control from comparative perspectives across time and space. We invite papers to explore the following topics (but not limited to):
- the impact of regulatory frameworks (policy) on the work and relations between teachers and students in various educational settings and (national and supranational) systems.
- organisational culture and leadership & followership in shaping professional autonomy in the changing regimes of control.
- ethical dimensions of control over professional practices and professionalism - whose interests are served, and how?
- the impact of technological innovation, AI, datafication, platform economy on the professionals.
- the professionalisation and de-professionalisation of educational professions simultaneously for the sake of ‘professional accountability’(?) and the impacts on education and pedagogic relations.
- the rise of academic ‘precariat’ as a new global (working) class. How does precarity shape the role of contemporary academic and educational professionals and redefine the professional identity, and what are the implications for the future of the academic profession?
The Working Group invites contributions which address or question any of the themes mentioned above as well as related ones, and which explore the tensions and competing imperatives that the professionals face. We especially welcome comparative studies but strongly encourage all submissions to set their work rigorously in national and international contexts.