Is educational research(ing) a profession? Examining issues of professional status and developmentalism

Linda Evans, University of Leeds

Paper presented at the conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, December 9-11th 2008, abstract submission number 0100

SUMMARY

‘How helpful and how necessary is it for at least some of us to see ourselves as professional educational researchers?’ asked Donald McIntyre in his 1996 presidential address to the BERA (McIntyre, 1997, p. 127). Still pertinent, this question is revisited through examination of whether or not educational research is a profession. In this paper changed and changing perspectives within the sociology of professions are considered, and the significance of individuals’ professionality orientations in relation to shaping professionalism is discussed. The paper examines the substance of professionalism, questions the importance and relevance of professional status to 21st century professional life, and proposes a new qualitatively discriminatory measure to replace it: developmentalism. It is argued that educational research is a relatively non-developmentalist ‘profession’, and that fostering a culture of developmentalism should become a priority.

INTRODUCTION

More than twelve years since Donald McIntyre raised it in his 1996 presidential address at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) annual conference, I am revisiting the issue of the professional status of educational research(ing). I do so not only from the perspective of one who shares many of McIntyre’s evident reservations about the quality of educational research, and who has, in her turn, expressed these openly (Evans, 2002; 2007), but also from the perspective afforded me by my interest in and analysis of theoretical issues in the sociology of professions. The composition and dynamics of professional society have continued to evolve since McIntyre presented his BERA presidential address, and so too has sociological thinking and theory. This paper therefore re-addresses McIntyre’s question, ‘How helpful and how necessary is it for at least some of us to see ourselves as professional educational researchers?’, and through examination of the professional status of educational research(ing), it proposes a new perspective on the bases for evaluating and labelling occupational groups.

PROFESSIONALISM, PROFESSIONALITY AND PROFESSIONS: CONCEPTS AND SUBSTANCE

McIntyre (1997) evidently sees professionalism as a prerequisite of professional status. His outline examination of educational researcher professionalism identifies ‘expertise’ (p. 130) as the key criterion: ‘to be a good educational researcher one needs extensive knowledge, wide-ranging expertise and creative intelligence, to an extent that is only likely to be achievable through the kind of disciplined commitment that is sometimes described as professionalism’ (p. 129), involving: ‘detailed advance planning and/or intensive reflection on what has happened’, and ‘problematising every aspect of one’s own practice and of the situation one has encountered’ (p. 132). Yet this is by no means a consensually accepted interpretation; there remain considerable lack of clarity and disagreement over how professionalism should be conceived. As Freidson (1994, p.15) writes: ‘we seem to be no nearer consensus than we were in 1915, and … usage [of the term, ‘professionalism’] varies substantively, logically, and conceptually.’

Consensus suggests that professionalism is perceived as the delineation of the content of the work carried out, as reflected in accepted roles and responsibilities, key functions and remits, range of requisite skills and knowledge, and the general nature of work-related tasks. Implicit in Freidson’s interpretation is homogeneity of values and viewpoints. It is this homogeneity amongst its membership that Johnson (1972) suggests as one of the features of a profession.

Although the majority of definitions suggest a general conception of professionalism as a collective notion - a plurality, shared by many – I contend that the basic components and constituent elements of professionalism (identified below) are essentially singular since they reflect the individuality representing the individuals who are the constituency of the profession delineated – a point that is at the core of Stronach et al’s (2002) thesis. The ‘singular’ unit of professionalism – and one of its key constituent elements – is, I suggest, professionality, as I define the concept: an ideologically-, attitudinally-, intellectually-, and epistemologically-based stance on the part of an individual, in relation to the practice of the profession to which s/he belongs, and which influences her/his professional practice (Evans, 2002). So defined, it seems broadly to equate with what Stronach et al (2002, p. 123) refer to as ‘personal/professional orientation’, within ‘ecologies of practices’ (p. 122).

It was Hoyle who coined the term, ‘professionality’ in the 1970s, applying it to teachers: ‘we can hypothesize two models of professionality: restricted and extended’ (Hoyle, 1975, p. 318). I use the term, professionality orientation to refer to individuals’ location on the ‘extended-restricted’ continuum (Evans 2007). Empirical evidence supports the existence of such a continuum within teacher culture (Evans, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002; Nias, 1985, 1989), giving credence to Hoyle’s heuristic models. Allowing for specific contextual differences it is a continuum that, I suggest, is applicable to all professions - including educational research (Evans, 2002). I perceive professionalism to be what may perhaps best be described as, in one sense, the ‘plural’ of individuals’ professionality orientation: the amalgam of multiple ‘professionalities’ – professionality writ large. Implicit in this interpretation is acceptance that a range of professionality orientations within any profession underpins a potential diversity of outlook, attitudes, values, ideologies and approaches to the job, which means that the homogeneity, commonality or consensus which are generally identified as essential to professionalism necessarily become elusive.

It is important to perceive professionalism not as a hypothetical or idealised concept, but as a real entity. Yet it is only such if it is operational. To be real, professionalism has to be something that people – professionals - actually ‘do’, not simply something any other agency wants them to do, or mistakenly imagines they are doing. Many interpretations of professionalism imply that it is effectively a service level agreement – delineated by employers and implicitly agreed to (however unwillingly) by workers. Yet it is only such when it is accepted and adopted, and thus ‘reified’, by the professionals at whom it is directed. Until that happens it is merely a service level requirement. Indeed, I have suggested (Evans, 2008a) a distinction between different reified states of professionalism (incorporating consideration of the question: real, according to whose perspective?). Thus one may, for example, distinguish between: professionalism that is demanded or requested (such as that reflecting specific professional service level demands or requests made of an occupational group or individual workforce), professionalism that is prescribed (such as that reflecting envisaged or recommended professional service levels perceived by analysts), and professionalism that is enacted; that is, professional practice as observed, perceived and interpreted (by any observer – from outside or within the relevant professional group, and including those doing the ‘enacting’). Such ‘enacted’ professionalism is the form of professionalism identified by McIntyre (1997) in relation to educational researchers. Yet since only the third of these conceptions of professionalism may be considered to reflect reality – albeit a phenomenologically defined reality – it remains the only meaningful conception; any others represent insubstantiality ranging from articulated ideology to wishful thinking. From this reasoning, and incorporating my interpretation of professionalism as the ‘plural’ of professionality, my most recently formulated definition of professionalism includes no reference to commonality of practice: professionalism is professionality-influenced practice that is consistent with commonly-held consensual delineations of a specific profession and that both contributes to and reflects perceptions of the profession’s purpose and status and the specific nature, range and levels of service provided by, and expertise prevalent within, the profession, as well as the general ethical code underpinning this practice (Evans, 2008a, p. 29).

The substance of professionalism, moreover, – such as is revealed by ontological analysis of it – highlights its complexity. My most recent ontological model of it (which space restrictions preclude my explaining in detail here) identifies three constituent elements or components of professionalism: intellectual, attitudinal and functional, relating respectively to what professionals know and understand, what attitudes they hold, and their practice (defined by what they do and how they do it). Each of these components, in turn, incorporates its own specific dimensions, so that professionalism may be represented – according to my current thinking – as my recently formulated ontological model (figure 1).

IS EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH A PROFESSION?

In questioning educational research’s professional status, McIntyre (1997) raises the overarching point that professional status has to be earned, and professionalism – as he interprets it - is the key requisite quality for earning it. If his correlation between professionalism and status as a profession is soundly based – that is, that professionalism must be exhibited by occupational groups claiming professional status - then according to his ostensive definitions of professionalism and his evaluation of the quality of educational research, the UK educational research community as a whole is ineligible for such status because it fails both consistently and therefore convincingly to manifest professionalism. His evaluation of educational research professionalism represents an illustration of professionalism as I define it: practice that is inevitably diverse in nature and composition because it constitutes the whole spectrum of individuals’ professionality orientations and reflects the heterogeneity that is a consequence of this. Since all occupational groups or communities are heterogeneous in this manner, and as a result their professionalism cannot entirely incorporate commonality or consistency, then according to McIntyre’s criteria for professional status, no occupational group, strictly speaking, would qualify. We would therefore have a workforce that is devoid of professions. On the basis of this reasoning, educational research(ing) is not a profession.

Yet denying professional status to educational research on the basis of this argument is essentially a semantic issue. It is also an issue that I dismiss as fairly irrelevant because ideas about professions and professional status have moved on since McIntyre presented his BERA presidential address. What is emerging as the ‘professionalization of everyone’ Williams (2008, p. 534) has led to a shift within the sociology of the professions away from a preoccupation with defining a ‘profession’ Evetts (2003).

‘Profession’ should no longer be – and, indeed, in everyday parlance often no longer is – a label applied to a few elite groups; we may now apply it fairly indiscriminately across the workforce’s diverse, role-differentiated groups, making it the terminological norm, rather than the exception. Moreover, as a result of the last two decades’ reforms, few public sector professions in the UK retain in full whatever professional autonomy they once enjoyed in relation to setting and regulating professional standards. Against traditional criteria, therefore, few would technically still fully qualify for full professional status. What is often perceived as the deprofessionalisation of these professions, coupled with the trend of what may be construed as wholesale mass professionalisation (if only from a terminological perspective) has had a levelling effect that, arguably, has served to rob the label ‘profession’ of much of its cachet. Considered from this perspective educational research(ing) is as much a profession as any other occupational activity.

FROM PROFESSIONALISM TO DEVELOPMENTALISM: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PROFESSIONAL QUALITY AND STATUS

Professionalism, as I have demonstrated, is a flawed and confusing concept, and the concept of a profession is evolving into a synonym for occupation. Referring to ‘professions’ more widely and indiscriminately than has previously been the tendency, we ought now to be evaluating these not on the basis of how long and intensively it takes to qualify for entry to them, nor of the levels of difficulty of their pre-service training, but, rather, on the basis of the developmentalism that they practise.

Developmentalism as a guiding principle and basis of professional practice

I introduce the term developmentalism to mean a commitment to (self-)develop(ment) - in the context of this paper, professional development, which I have defined concisely as: the process whereby people’s professionalism and/or professionality may be considered to be enhanced (Evans, 2007; 2008a). Potentially universally achievable, professional developmentalism (as a specific manifestation of professionalism, as I define it) ought now to start emerging as the new criterion for professional quality (and, as a consequence, status) encouraging occupational groups to strive for achieving cultures of developmentalism, rather than professional status. Developmentalism is, in a sense, professionalism re-invented and re-named for greater applicability to the 21st century work context.

Identifying professional developmentalism

Practitioners with strong developmentalist attitudes will typically be analytical and self-critical in evaluating their own practice. On Hoyle’s professionality continuum they will lie towards the ‘extended’ end in relation to all three of my components: intellectual, attitudinal and functional (fig.1). They will often manifest single-minded concern for the quality of their work and will problematise every aspect of their own practice, through intensive reflection – qualities that McIntyre (1997) incorporates into his interpretation of professionalism, which aligns with my interpretation of developmentalism in individuals. The developmentalist individual is likely to be predisposed towards perfectionism and to strive continually for excellence, according to her/his own definition and measurement of it. A professional culture of developmentalism would therefore be one in which such attitudes, predispositions and forms of behaviour prevail, constituting the norm.

Educational research: a non-developmentalist profession?

Some UK professions manifest such a culture insofar as they evidently embrace a commitment to CPD. Based on my experience of having been a teacher and of continuing to work with teachers, I place the teaching profession in this category. Medicine and social work appear similarly developmentalist; indeed, social workers are required, under the terms of their registration, to undertake a specified quantity of in-service CPD. There are, of course, qualifications to these observations (see Evans, 2008b) which, again, space restrictions preclude my developing here; nevertheless, it will suffice for the purposes of developing my argument to exemplify teaching, medicine and social work as professions whose members certainly do not expect what is generally known as ‘pre-service’ training to be their one and only experience of and opportunity for professional skills’ acquisition, for my key point is that, in contrast, educational researchers, for the most part, evidently do. Whilst, clearly, there are researchers who do strive throughout their careers to increase their skills and competence, there are many more who do not. Educational research, as Gordon’s (2005) and McIntyre’s (1997) analyses imply, is not a developmentalist profession.