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Challenging dualism : public professionalism in ‘troubled’ times

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Gleeson, Denis and Knights, David. (2006) Challenging dualism : public professionalism in ‘troubled’ times. Sociology, Vol.40 (No.2). pp. 277-295. ISSN 0038-0385

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038506062033

Abstract

In recent decades neo-liberal reform has significantly impacted on public sector professionals. Sociological interest in such impact has tended to focus on professionals as subjects of such reform: as either de-professionalized ‘victims’ who feel oppressed by the structures of control or strategic operators seeking to contest the spaces and contradictions of market, managerial and audit cultures. Such a dualism is reflective of wider separations of agency and structure that have plagued sociology down the years. Our approach challenges modernizing agendas which seek to re-professionalize or empower professionals without examining the changing conditions of their work or the neo-liberal conditions which frame their practice. It also questions the policy outcomes of reconciling the dualism between agency and structure through a ‘third way’ politics that purports to remove the tensions and conflicts between professions and various stakeholders, the private and the public, and markets and civic society.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Institute of Education
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Professional employees, Sociology , Public service employment
Journal or Publication Title:	Sociology
Publisher:	Sage Publications Ltd.
ISSN:	0038-0385
Date:	2006
Volume:	Vol.40
Number:	No.2
Page Range:	pp. 277-295
Identification Number:	10.1177/0038038506062033
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/437