ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notion of professionalism, noting the range of approaches and tending to favour those with a socio-cultural perspective as offering a synthesis of sociological observations of the behaviour of professions in society with deeper, unconscious motivations of individual professionals in constructing. Concepts of professions can be very broadly divided into those scholars who argue that professions play a supportive role inmaintaining social order, such as Durkheim and Parsons, and those who see professions as lacking intrinsic worth but emerging as the result of power struggles, like Weber, Abbott and Larson. Sciulli terms these groups functionalists and revisionists in his overview of professionalism studies. These professional associations would become, according to Durkheim, the very foundation of political life. These institutions were necessary to avoid what we might usefully call political anomie. Professional identity includes learning how to perform the role, as established by that groups history and cultural norms.
