Tidsskrift for Professionsstudier

Hvad er professionsforskning?

Martin Blok Johansen — 2020-11-12

This paper presents a discussion of what research in professions and professional work means, both generally, and in a Danish context. Initially we present a summary of the origins of the term profession, and the oldest occupations understood to be professions. Central questions when defining this origin is what constitutes the base of professional knowledge and whether such a base is specific to each profession. However, what such knowledge may be has proven hard to agree on, since such knowledge is what research in professions and professional work strive to produce. The paper instead proposes a different way to describe and categorize research in professions, which does not presume any one definition of neither profession nor knowledge. Instead, we suggest summarizing the different research practices found in the field, by way of three axes of difference: 1. Research in professions for – describing the different institutions and agents for whom the research is being produced. 2. Research in professions through – describing the different theoretical perspectives and assumptions upon which the research is based. Finally 3. Research in professions withdescribing the empirical methods and methodologies, which the research employs. On each axis, we exemplify a number of positions found in the field of research in professions. In conclusion, the paper points out correlations between positions on the three axes, which are indicative of the debates and struggles taking place in the field of research today.

Forskning i professionspraksis

Ida Schwartz — 2020-11-12

Taking its point of departure in an inclusion-research, social-practice-theory, and practice-research commitment, the article discusses how research at university colleges may be applicable relative to professionals’ work with inclusion. Thus, the article establishes a close link between the understanding of research into professions and the understanding of the practice of professions. The fundamental basis is a criticism of notions that research at university colleges is charged with the provision of solutions to well-defined problems in professional practice. An empirical example demonstrates the significance of research that contributes with knowledge about how professionals work actively with the transformation of dilemmas that are linked with problem understanding as well as participatory conditions under contradictory organisational conditions.

Mediating Profession and Discipline

Jessica Allen Hanssen — 2020-11-12

With increased focus on grade school teachers as subject professionals as background, this article articulates and explores some of the challenges and responsibilities that disciplinary scholars of school subjects in a teacher education context face. Using narrative and phenomenological approaches to document analysis as well as qualitative analysis of empirical data from 16 university teacher educators, this article explores ways in which conflict between two teacher education cultures, the old and the ‘new’, can be managed productively to the benefit of teacher students in this new professional paradigm. The article illuminates some of the key conflicts rising from the ‘universitization’ of teacher education (Hudson, 2017), and also some of the ways in which divergent university cultures can support one another, within the context of teacher education in Norway but also with Nordic and international relevance.

Professionsforskning som praksisforskning

Anders Buch — 2020-11-12

The article investigates the development in the research on professionalism and expertise over the last 50 years and makes suggestions for further development of the research field. Inspired by the ‘turn to practice’ within the social sciences the article sketches a research agenda that may advance the study of professionalism and expertise in promising ways.

Stunder av ingenting, der alt kan skje

Ida Pape Pedersen — 2020-11-12

Bodily communication with children is a central aspect of kindergarten teachers’ professional practice. In this article, the authors explore how bodily knowledge is practiced in kindergartens, and suggest perspectives and concepts that may enrich research within early childhood education and care, and the wider research field of professional practice. Theoretically the study is positioned in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception (1994), whereas methodologically it is designed as a sensory ethnography study (Pink, 2015) with place-sensitive interviews (Sand, 2019). During the analysis, three chiasm-stories (Olaussen, 2018) have been created as examples of situations where bodily knowledge is crucial for what unfolds in moments where everything can happen.

Anvendt forskning i umulige professioner

Brian Benjamin Hansen — 2020-11-12

The article raises some central questions regarding applied research by focusing on Sigmund Freud’s concept of “impossible professions”, e.g. educating, healing, and governing. It contributes with a discussion of the impasses and impossibilities of working professionally with subjects, not objects. To work with subjects requires not only (applied and effective) knowledge, but also the willingness to confront human actions and vicissitudes outside the framework of knowledge, as well as the disposition of the professional to give latitude to the subject. The article argues for these points through the lens of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic approaches. The overall project of the text is to argue for the expediency of the concept of the impossible in understanding and researching professional practice.

Professional Moral Reasoning and (lack of) Empathy

Eirik Julius Risberg — 2020-11-12

Empathy is seen as a virtue or even a necessary skill in many professions. However, while proponents of the concept argue that it plays a fundamental role in our moral judgements, critics have objected that our empathy is easily manipulated and that our dispositions to empathise more strongly with those close to or resembling ourselves makes it a poor moral guide. We argue that while not necessary for professional moral judgement, professional moral reasoning would be fundamentally amiss without the ability and willingness to perceive the situation from the perspective of those they are trained to serve.

Kontextuell professionalisering

Kerstin Svensson — 2020-11-12

The article shows how to study the growth, development and transformation of professionals in social contexts. It is based on results from a project in two parts: one historical and one contemporary. The method is comparative case studies, which aims to find common and different processes, forces and mechanisms. The concept of the professional landscape seeks to capture the professional layer as a whole and place it in social contexts. This landscape is shaped by professional fields of expertise. We focus on the fields: academia, education, social regulation, social integration, medicine, technology and economics. Within each field, we study three generations of professions: classic, welfare- and pre-professions.

Omkostningsbevidsthed i socialt arbejde

Per Nikolaj Bukh — 2020-11-12

This article examines how managers in a municipal social service department use and interpret accounting information and make sense of changes in social work when new methods of cost control, and consequently a need for a more cost-conscious behavior, are introduced. Previous studies have shown that the extent to which accounting information has been embraced by professionals is mixed. Based on a case study where top management, middle management, and staff specialists at a medium-sized Danish municipality are interviewed, it is shown that accounting information can link cost-consciousness with social work practices. The study shows how managers can influence how professionals interpret and use accounting information. Further, the study shows how cost-consciousness can be integrated with social work practices in order to reduce costs and improve the quality of the services. In addition, the study shows how management interpret accounting information as a contribution to the professionalization of social work, and that managers’ sensemaking and sensegiving processes are important in reducing resistance when professionals are introduced to new forms of accounting information.

Det ubemærkede

Charlotte Rosenberg — 2020-11-12

This article is a reflection on how resocialization in a low security ’open’ prison can be done. By focusing on the unnoticed, the analytical method I make use of here, I become aware of how resocialization is done in the interactions between prison inmates and employees. The article attempts to address how resocialization work in a low security ‘open’ prison can pass unnoticed and be difficult to describe. My purpose with the article is to create insight into additional ways the understanding of profession can express itself. The research takes its point of departure in a Norwegian low-security ‘open’ prison and is based on qualitative empirical material consisting of interviews, shadowing of employees, and ethnographic fieldwork. First, I will describe some of the informal relationships that arise in the formal forums and relational spaces of a prison, and how they may affect the creation of the framework for resocialization work when the prison has a focus on both the individuals and the community in their efforts to bring about lasting changes for the inmates. Then I will focus on how the prison employees make use of their knowledge of the criminal offences of the inmates in order to create a framework for change for them. My main theoretical framework is Deleuze and Guattari’s (Deleuze & Guattari, 2005) understandings of how space for change can be created.

Feltlaboratoriet som metode

Lene Teglhus Kaufmann — 2020-11-12

The article introduces the Fieldlaboratory as a participatory research method for creating knowledge on and with people whos lives are inflicted when new technologies are introduced to practice. Based on empirical material from a research and developmental project with the aim to examine how a network of seniors can be supported by a digital platform, the method is discussed in relation to the use of laboratories in design research and classical anthropological ideas on field work. The article argues that knowledge production in the Fieldlaboratory is based on recognising the new context provided by the intervention of a digital platform, as well as both the present and the possible future.

Laurent Thévenot

Anders Blok — 2020-11-12

Michel Foucault: Overvågning og straf. Fængslet fødsel

Jens Erik Kristensen — 2020-11-12

Ny udsathed i ungdomslivet

Michael Christensen — 2020-11-12

Litteratur i brug

Anne Bock — 2020-11-12

The Meritocracy Trap

Lene Mosegaard Søbjerg — 2020-11-12

Aktionsforskning i et læringsperspektiv

Mette Molbæk — 2020-11-12

Facilitating Injustice

Jacob Kornbeck — 2020-11-12

Den rumlige organisering af psykiatrisk praksis

Thorben Peter Simonsen — 2020-11-12

Tillidsarbejde og tydelighed

Ane Refshauge Høyrup — 2020-11-12

På vejen mod trivsels- og opærksomhedsfremmende didaktikker i skolen

Marie Kolmos — 2020-11-12

Til statens forsvar

Lone Bæk Brønsted — 2020-11-12

Formativ intervensjon i grunnskolen

Agnieszka B. Jarvoll — 2020-11-12