Abstract
The sociology of professions has long suffered from theoretical ambiguity. Indeed, at this time, there is no generally accepted definition of “profession.” The accepted wisdom is that “profession” is a social construction and therefore variable across time and place. David Sciulli rejects this relativism, and in his book, seeks to advance the field theoretically by identifying invariant characteristics, foundations, and consequences of professions, while highlighting their significance in civil society. Through his endeavours he takes the field in a markedly different direction.
Sciulli’s book begins with a review of the literature on professions since the 1930s, with a focus on the United States and Europe. He pays special attention to Talcott Parsons’ contributions on the subject, and soundly criticizes all contributors to the field since Parsons’ time—whom he labels “revisionists”—for making false assumptions and taking the course of study off-track. For instance, research has linked profession creation with industrialization, urbanization, the rise of the middle class, and the modern state. Sciulli asserts all of these assumptions are false, and have prevented sociologists from viewing professional development accurately. Parsons’ focus on the role of professions in contributing to social order provides a more useful path forward; however, his work is also flawed, for his explanations were “substantive normative” and cultural, rather than structural and “procedural normative.” Sciulli argues that by taking a structural approach, one can identify the invariant characteristics and consequences of professions.
Before detailing his theory, Sciulli presents two case studies. These cases—one historical and prior to industrialization, and one modern—shed new light on professional characteristics, he claims. Neither of these cases is recognizable as a profession in the traditional sense. The first is the case of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in the seventeenth century, a school that provided systematic and advanced training to produce painters and sculptors. The second is the case of corporate governance through the courts in the state of Delaware. Although most scholars see professions as a particular kind of occupation, Sciulli does not. For him, “professions” are institutions and activities in society that serve an intermediary, governance role and thereby contribute to social order.
In the lengthy final section of his book, Sciulli presents his theoretical argument in detail by building on these two examples and others. In brief, (his full argument is elaborated across almost 300 pages of text), professionals, “their associations, and their instructional facilities … provide expert occupational services within structured situations on the basis of an independent socio-cultural authority” (p. 181). In these structured situations, professionals are in positions of power where they exercise “discretionary judgement and impersonal trust” over those in positions of dependence and vulnerability (p. 407). Their position accords them responsibilities “for client and patron well-being,” as well as responsibilities to the “institutional design of the larger social order” (p. 407). Professions also “establish an independent socio-cultural authority” in a particular field (p. 181). In addition to these invariant qualities, professions also demonstrate the following characteristics according to Sciulli: they have both an epistemological and didactic or moral orientation that appears to reflect “truth” as understood in a given social context; they have a collegial form of organization which institutionalizes “procedural normative integrity” (p. 408); they privilege merit; and they “support structurally …democratic, commercially competitive societies” (p. 182).
As noted, Sciulli holds that a variety of institutions can possess these characteristics and operate within structured situations to maintain social order—such as the Delaware courts do when they regulate corporations. Moreover, it is made clear, workers who do not operate in “structured situations” cannot be professional; thus the line demarcating professions from non-professions can even cut through occupations. For instance, physicians who do not operate in structured situations—those who conduct periodic check-ups for instance—do not exercise power, and hence are not professional, according to Sciulli (p. 430, n. 20).
In his attempt to break the profession-occupation link that has predominated in social research, Sciulli’s work is inherently controversial. His insistence on providing a general theory that cuts across place and time, and his dismissal of contextual factors shaping professional development as “extraneous details,” are anathemas to many scholars in the field. Further, there is much that remains unexplained. Sciulli has created a model for identifying what professions are, and what their social role is, but it is not clear how social groups come to occupy that position, or why some such positions are occupied by practitioners of a specific occupation, while others are held by other social institutions; neither is it clear how these positions can change over time. Understanding how professions emerge and change necessitates a concern with social-historical events. Problematically, Sciulli has elaborated a theory, but he uses empirical examples sparsely. The usefulness of this theory for research on professions remains to be demonstrated empirically elsewhere.
Through his book, Sciulli aims to disentangle the study of professions from the study of occupations and social inequality, and draw it into political sociology. His work has implications, then, for both fields, and hence both political sociologists and scholars of professions may find this book of interest. However, the book is not particularly accessible or engaging. It is long, repetitive, abstract, and difficult to read. Sciulli’s virulent attacks on current scholars in the profession’s field will likely alienate many, as could the fact that what Sciulli means by profession (experts operating in structured situations) and what others mean by professions (expert workers practising occupations that have a different social and often regulatory status and hence more power than others) appear quite different. This could lead many to dismiss Sciulli’s work out of hand. Yet, there is merit to his arguments. Research on professions has suffered from a theoretical malaise, and investigation of professions’ and professionals’ roles in social governance and regulation is a worthwhile direction in the study of professions (albeit one that other scholars have arrived at by adopting a more Foucauldian perspective—this work is largely ignored by Sciulli). The extent to which Sciulli’s theoretical arguments are empirically useful remains to be proven; nevertheless, the controversies generated by this book could help to reinvigorate this field of study.