ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses attempts to define professions as a particular stratum of the labour force. It also discusses professions as special kinds of status groups – as organisations of workers who have gained a monopoly over the right to control their own labour. The chapter examines several trends and their implications for assessing the future of professionalisation. Very common in the macro-sociological literature is reference to a specific ‘class’ of professionals as a stratum of the labour force, which is treated as synonymous with society at large. It argues that a fruitful way of developing theoretical coherence in the field of the sociology of occupations lies in adopting as one’s central problem the analysis of the organisation of control over work, and its consequences for work, workers, organisations and society. The chapter concludes by reassessing both the problem of defining and studying professions and the problem of predicting their future.
