%0 Journal Article
%T Defining a Profession: The Role of Knowledge and Expertise
%A Mike Saks
%J Professions & Professionalism
%D 2012
%I Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
%R 10.7577/pp.v2i1.151
%X The paper highlights the importance of resurrecting the debate about how to define a profession. The drive to define a profession is traced back to the taxonomic approach ¨C encompassing the work of trait and functionalist writers ¨C in which professions were seen as possessing unique and positive characteristics, including distinctive knowledge and expertise. A range of critical challenges to this approach are then considered, particularly as they relate to the role of knowledge and expertise in defining a profession, covering interactionism, Marxism, Foucauldianism and discourse analysis. However, the most effective challenge to the taxonomic approach is considered to be the neo-Weberian perspective based on a less broadly assumptive and more analytically useful definition of a profession centered on exclusionary closure. With reference to case studies, the relative merits of neo-Weberianism compared to taxonomic and other approaches are examined in relation to the role of knowledge and expertise and delineating professional boundaries.
%U https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/pp/article/view/151