Professional education as if social relations mattered
Abstract
The role that higher education plays in educating professionals is continuing to grow in
importance, given the development of knowledge societies across the world. We have also
seen a trend for market and state to play a greater role in higher education. Analysis by the
sociologist Donati suggests, though, that we cannot sustain what is distinctively human
simply through resort to these institutions of market and state. He argues that social
relations are an essential feature of what it is to be human, contending that relations frame
the reflexivity (and thereby the agency) of the parties involved. This paper undertakes a
theoretical analysis of why professional education might incorporate specific social relations,
as between students and clients. We advocate a partial reframing of professional education
around social relations to avoid increasing levels of alienation from clients, and to enhance
professional practice.
Introduction
The professions are of huge importance in societies based around the production and use of
knowledge. But at the same time it is clear that the professions are facing challenges around the
quality of the relations they are able to maintain with those that they serve. This mismatch may
stem in part from the very basis for the knowledge society itself. Barnett (2004) highlights ways in
which uncertainty is a characteristic aspect of life for experts as much as novices, given that with
increases in knowledge the world is increasingly now perceived as radically unknowable.
Professionals have significant scope to exercise power in their own interests in such a setting, and to
alienate clients as a result. But it is clear also that tensions are exacerbated where professions are
organised essentially on lines that are laid down for them by the market or the state, in order to
reduce the immediate cost to the taxpayer or increase profitability.
A basis for shifting professional practice?
It remains, however, a daunting task to inculcate professionalism amongst the student body on a
programme of professional education, and to ensure that their practice takes client perspectives
into due account. What is at stake here is the agency of specific individuals, something that cannot
automatically be shifted through manipulating a set of associated socio-cultural structures (e.g. a
curriculum or examination regime). The social theory produced in recent years by Margaret Archer,
indeed, suggests that one must look to an individual’s reflexivity as the critical determinant in their
agency (Archer 2003; 2007). Donati (2011), though, argues that social relations have significant
scope to influence the reflexivity of the parties involved. He points out that social relations may be
established on the basis of both human and non-human qualities, with what is human understood to
be ‘that which is distinctive of the human being’ (2011, p. 20). He argues that human qualities are
characterised by a reciprocal orientation of subjects to each other in relations, with non-human
qualities focused on functional processes.
We suggest that it is important to consider at least in part, the reframing of professional
education around social relations. Some professional education does already include some scope to
incorporate specific social relations into the curriculum, as with problem-based learning groups in a
medical school that are facilitated by those who have suffered from a particular condition. But there
is value in articulating a theoretical basis for practice, in order to develop and extend it.
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Integrating relations into professional education
Professionalism necessitates a way of thinking and understanding that frames practice, one in which
the perspectives of those served play an important role. This is especially so in professions which
involve a direct function in relation to others, as with health care, education, management and
others. If relations orient the reflexivity of the parties involved, and thereby influence their actions,
then the establishment of a relation across two different sets of perspectives offers great potential.
Brockbank and McGill (2007) also argue powerfully that reflective practice is effectively founded on
a social rather than purely individual basis on such grounds. Is it really possible to understand a
client’s perspectives when one becomes accustomed to decision-making processes that focus on
one’s own concerns and the profitability of the function entailed?
There is scope to include a range of reciprocal relations within professional education, as
between students and peers, clients, employers, experts, client activists and so on. The quality of the
social relations involved could become as much a focus for planning as any attempt to specify
intended learning outcomes. The strength of a relation will be affected by residential arrangements,
cohesiveness of the student cohort or the use of technology. One might expect to see enhanced
levels of student engagement, as the novice professional realises more completely ways in which
others benefit from their professional practice.
Shifting the nature of professional practice
There is a range of ways in which such a focus on social relations could affect professional practice.
Integrating social relations into professional education offers an effective means to bolster the moral
basis for professional practice. MacIntyre (1981) argues that one cannot expect virtue to thrive in
the absence of more stable relationships given that they are mutually constitutive. Indeed, such
consideration of others is a central feature of social justice more widely.
What we see, furthermore, is that social relations provide a basis for the reflexivity that
underpins corporate agency; Archer (2000). The nature of professional practice shifts when a client
and professional act together. In medicine, for instance, the response of the patient is often a key
factor in treatment. There would also be the scope for benefits felt more directly within the
profession itself in terms of its capacity to agree genuinely common standards or forms of practice,
taking one beyond a reliance on formal codes of practice in order to effect this.
Finally, we would suggest that it is important to consider ways in which the goods that are
associated with professional work are distributed to society in ways that reach beyond the interests
of market, state and the professionals involved. In the longer term professional education based
more directly on social relations could influence the profile of those individuals entering the
professions, as individuals increasingly identify with a profession and thus are prepared to enter it.
Our argument adverts to the scale of the challenge that is evident in ensuring fair access to the
professions.
Conclusions
It is essential that professional education takes into account a wide range of goods and the
perspectives of all stakeholders. The challenge here is to organise professional education on a more
fully human basis rather than merely functional basis. We offer in this paper theoretical grounds on
which to develop professional education. Things could indeed be otherwise in both the professions
and professional education if social relations mattered.
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References
Archer, M.S., 2000. Being human: The problem of agency, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M.S., 2007. Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M.S., 2003. Structure, agency and the internal conversation, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Barnett, R., 2004. Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research & Development, 23(3),
pp.247–260.
Brockbank, A. & McGill, I., 2007. Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education, McGraw-Hill
International.
Donati, P., 2011. Relational sociology: a new paradigm for the social sciences, London: Routledge.
Maclntyre, A., 1981. After virtue: A study in moral theory, London: Duckworth.
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