ABSTRACT
In recent years the professions and the powers they wield have become the object of critical discussion. In part, the discussion is one aspect of the general challenge to existing status relationships which developed in the 1960s. Caplow has pointed out that in those years ‘practically all non economic status relationships were challenged and extensively modified, ... relationships (in the USA at least) between whites and blacks, men and women, parents and children, teachers and pupils, consumers and producers’ (Gartner and Riessman, 1974, p. 11). Everett Hughes has also suggested a link between general social unrest and criticism of the professions. ‘Social unrest’, he wrote, ‘shows itself precisely in questioning of the prerogatives of the leading professions. In time of crisis, there may arise a general demand for more complete conformity of professionals to lay modes of thought, discourse and action’ (1958, p. 83).
