Professional Ideology Research Articles

Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike

Students of the news will welcome Deepa Kumar’s analysis of coverage of the 1997 UPS strike. Media coverage of that strike was notable for its departure from standard narratives concerning labor-management disputes. Most often, strikes are framed as disruptive, inconvenient to the public, and harmful to the economy.While news reports about the UPS strike often reflected these pro-business sentiments, they also, at times, represented labor’s point of view. Kumar presents a comprehensive examination of why this coverage was anomalous. Kumar adopts a ‘‘domination/resistance’’ model of media power, following Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. Based on this model, she argues that the news media are contradictory institutions that most often uphold the status quo by an over-reliance on official sources, and by unreflectively reproducing a professional ideology congruent with values and beliefs of the country’s power structures. She takes liberal apologists of the news media to task for their easy acceptance of the marriage of capitalism and democracy, criticizes the Chomsky-Herman model of political economy of the media for its overemphasis on the engineering of consent, and skewers postmodernist versions of cultural studies for their valorization of textual reading as resistance. Kumar maintains that, for the last third of the twentieth century, neoliberal strategies of globalization have given rise to a whole series of working class issues that were not unique to UPS: part-time employment, stagnant wages, subcontracting, speedups, diminished safety and health protection, and the pension grab. The heart of her book resides in her textual/framing analyses of network television in chapter 3, and mainstream newspaper coverage by USA Today, the New York

The organizational context of professionalism in accounting

This study analyses the degree to which change in the organizational context, content and location ( both of the individual within the organization and the organization within the field) of professional work has contributed to variation in attitudes toward professional ideology and institutions. Through an online survey of Canadian chartered accountants we observe that, contrary to current accusations, a majority of accounting professionals remain committed to their profession, despite profound changes in the context, content and location of their work. We do find, however, that the strongest espoused deviation from core professional values and logics has occurred in traditional work contexts (i.e. public accounting firms), and for the distinctive value of commitment to independence enforcement, the deviation is most pronounced in the elite core of the profession – the Big Four professional service firms. Accountants in higher ranks also tend to identify more with commercialistic values. We speculate on the implications these findings hold for the professional project of accountancy.

An emerging picture: some recent UK digital visual arts initiatives

Is the development of UK digital visual arts initiatives driven by professional ideology more than user need? Is the vast treasure trove of images and metadata being produced still difficult to identify and locate? A brief overview of a selected range of recent key initiatives finds a mixed picture. Content is still mainly accessible to users with an informed expectation of its existence, and the full potential of the internet has not been fully absorbed by the providers. However, there are optimistic signs of improving visibility and access.

‘All sorts and conditions of men’: The social origins of the founders of the ICAEW

The early organisation of accountants in Scotland during the 1850s and 1860s has excited the intellectual curiosity and research endeavour of a number of students of professionalisation. By contrast, until recently there was a dearth of academic interest in institutional developments in England and Wales during the 1870s and 1880s. Yet, organisations such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) which emanate from this period soon became the most significant players on the British professional scene and were to exert considerable influence on the development of accountancy institutions and professional ideologies in several locations. Exploiting a variety of genealogical sources this paper seeks to fill a void in the literature by analysing the social origins of the founding members of the principal professional association in England and Wales. It provides evidence of early chartered accountancy as a destination for long distance, upwardly mobile males, both intergenerationally and intragenerationally. The rate of self-recruitment among the founders of the ICAEW is shown to be low. The proportion of founders deriving from the upper and upper-middle classes is revealed to have been markedly less than that of their Scottish counterparts. The paper contributes to understandings of the complex professionalisation of British accountants, the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, the pathways to social advance in a class-based society, and illuminates the social complexion of one of the ‘new’ professions which emerged during the nineteenth century.

REVIEWS

REVIEWS

Problem attribution and intervention. The interpretation of problem causations and solutions in regard of Brickman et al.

Typologies of problem perception are of great importance for the reconstruction of social workers’ professional ideologies. The best-known typology has been provided by Brickman et al. who differentiated between a medical, moral, enlightenment, and compensatory model. The article discusses this typology on a conceptual level and indicates its central flaws. An empirical study is presented in which an alternative attempt to develop a typology is tested. The evaluation refers to a wider spectrum of perceptions of problem causes and solutions than the typology of Brickman et al. The resulting typology comprises a ‘social’, a ‘workfare’, a ‘pathology’, and an ‘education’ type.

Social Workers in Community Care Practice: Ideologies and Interactions with Older People

Since the inception of the NHS and Community Care in 1990, there has been a prolifer ation of studies examining its implementation at the front line. Considerable attention has been aimed at understanding how it is that social work practitioners, charged with the responsibility to implement community care recommendations for older people, are doing so in a challenging care environment. How a practitioner's ideological frame of reference may impact on his/her practice interactions remains relatively unanswered. However, the course by which professional ideology matures and then directs practice would appear to both complex and multifaceted. The outcome is one that may render the professional both powerful and political, and one that may leave the older care recipient both vulnerable and stigmatized. This paper explores community care practice with older people, emphasizing the ideological underpinnings in practice and their influence on practice interactions. Social work practitioners working on older people's teams in two contrasting communities in England were interviewed to discuss their assessment and care management interactions with older people. Using grounded theory and Goffman's theoretical constructs within frame analysis, a concep tual model for practice emerged, reinforcing that practitioners' understandings of social events, anchored in government and professional discourse and individual perceptions about older people, enabled them to organize and influence the interaction to lead to a professionally determined outcome. The routine work of assessment and care manage ment became very powerful in absence of strategic intention by the practitioner. A move to more strategic behaviour occurred when practice dilemmas required practitioners to intervene, informed by their professionally based values juxtaposed against those supported within official discourse. The findings provide an insight into how social

Diagnosis or Detour? The Uses of Medical Realism in the Victorian Novel

This essay attempts to open up our perspective on novels’ use of medical narrative realism. Previous analyses of “medicine and the novel” have focused on a common realist ideal and on novels with medical content. But even a realist methodology shared by the novel and by medicine did not find common expression in both genres. Accordingly, this paper draws on some examples that are representative of nineteenth-century novels and range from literal discussions of disease to scenes much farther removed from literal depictions of medicine or disease, but which still, I am arguing, draw on narrative techniques associated with medical clinical realism for their effect. In fact, novels revised and redirected such techniques, often using them against the grain of the professional ideology from which they arise. Accordingly, this essay will sketch out not only how medical case histories can use supposedly literary techniques, but also how nineteenth-century novels apply the narrative methods of clinical medicine even where medicine is not strictly at issue, and how they adapt those methods to their own literary aims.

우리나라 의사집단의 직업만족도에 영향을 미치는 전문직 자율성과 이념 요인

The aim of this study was to analyze the correlation between professional autonomy and ideology among Korean physicians and to investigate how these factors affect job satisfaction like social status satisfaction and economic reward satisfaction. This study utilized a self-administered questionnaire survey and collected data nationwide between July and August, 2003. 211 responses were used for final analysis. SPSS 12.0 was used for a chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, independent t-test and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results of this study were as follows. First, many variables of ideological factor were related to job satisfaction. Second, physicians expecting the change of political influence has patient-centered attitude. Third, there were many relationships between professional autonomy and ideology variables. Fourth, physicians expecting the change of political influence and customer-centered healthcare system showed more job satisfaction. In conclusion, professional autonomy is related to ideology, and in order to enhance job satisfaction, ideological factor needs more development. In addition, market-oriented healthcare system would contribute to enhance the job satisfaction of physicians expecting the change of political influence and customer-centered healthcare system.

What Are Child-Care Social Workers Doing in Relation to Infant Mental Health? An Exploration of Professional Ideologies and Practice Preferences within an Inter-Agency Context

Infancy is a crucial time for interventions to reduce later developmental difficulties. In England, recent policy has required children's service delivery to be redesigned to attend to infant mental health across all four tiers of NHS provision through inter-agency networks of child-care professionals....

Dancing bodies, decaying bodies

This article examines the meaning Israeli female dancers assign to extra-thin bodies. It claims that dancers interpret extra-thinness as an essential tool for the making of an ideal body-machine which allows entrance to a professional world of dancers. Working in a demanding professional world, anorexic bodies are seen by dancers as indicators of success and commitment. It is a means to win recognition from significant others and make the most out of a short-term and risk-embedded career. An haute-ecole of dance was chosen as a location for this study because it is a social setting that sets its own rules of transforming the body into an instrument of training. This study allows us to understand why certain professional and age groups tend to develop anorexia and helps understanding how anorexia, once embedded in a professional ideology, is hard to overcome.

In Whose Interests? An Examination of the Professional Ideology Revealed in the AICPA's State Cascade Project

ABSTRACT: After passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), several U.S. states considered mirror legislation to restrict the activities of accounting firms at the state level. In response, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) undertook a counteroffensive program to this threatened coercive government intervention. The strategic response by the AICPA is a theoretically significant event that is relevant to our understanding of professions, professional associations, and professional ideology. Further, the event was an opportunity for the AICPA to reveal a changed perspective in response to the systemic disturbance of SOX. Accordingly, in this paper we examine rhetorical expressions AICPA used to legitimate their counterarguments and analyze the nature of the revealed professional ideology. We found no evidence that the AICPA reverted to a protective, guardian ideology as a strategic response. In contrast, the AICPA appealed generally to neo-liberal political ideology and commercial values, and in particular linked the concept of the public interest with commercial interests of CPA firms and their members. We interpret our findings in the context of institutional pressures for ingratiation, propaganda value of rhetoric, and a widely observed evolution in the discourse of professions and professionalism.

The Person-in-Environment Approach: Professional Ideology and Practice of Social Workers in Israel

The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which the person-in-environment approach is part of the professional ideology of social workers in Israel and the degree to which they actualize it in their professional practice. The study examines the perceived importance of various goals of the social work profession and the perceived fittingness of diverse social work activities, actual professional activities, practice levels, and perceived attainment of social work goals. Based on the responses of 400 social workers from a wide variety of social services agencies in Israel, the results indicate that ideologically, the workers place a dual focus on the individual and society, with focus on the individual somewhat stronger. However, in practice the social dimension is marginal and the person-in-environment approach is hardly evident.

State-Propagated Narratives about a National Defender in Central Asian States

This article examines the relationship between narratives propagated by the state about a historical national hero and a contemporary soldier's professional ideology in the post-Soviet Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). It argues that while elite-maintained mass publishing of cohesive narratives about a vividly drawn historical persona, male and warrior, trigger at raising a loyal soldier unified with his compatriots on the basis of cultural values and objects of loyalty, state elites seek to link a contemporary army recruit with his historical predecessors who fought for unity, integrity, and dominance of the nation. But the link inevitably merges with ethno-centric ideas of protecting the cultural community identified with the narrative, as opposed to a physical entity within the state borders. State elites reinforce the significance of military experience of the titular ethnic entity in accordance with their own political interests. Narratives about a national defender articulate what the political elites expect from the military service but are restrained from depicting in official policy documents. In order to reach effective results, the Central Asian states retained the same Soviet tools of cultivating patriotism as the basis for the army's internal discipline, but primordial characters have also been incorporated into the indoctrination.

Against the Antagonist View of Professional – Manager Relationships: The Case of the Culture Industry

In the emerging knowledge society, a major challenge for human resource management theory and practice is how to lead professionals and experts in day-to-day work. The literature on professionals suggests that the relationship between professionals and managers is complicated, as professional ideologies, practices and interests tend to clash with organizational and managerial objectives. This paper questions such an antagonist view and suggests that the relationship between the two groups is a rather intricate one and that there is no such clear disjunction between the two groups. In addition, there is a strong reliance on cases from the health care sector, especially in an Anglo-American context. The paper reports a study of the relationship between professionals, officers and politicians in the Swedish culture sector in the largest Swedish region. The findings suggest that professionals and managers are capable of taking the role of the other and see a broader perspective than merely individual interests.

Who Is a Development Journalist? Perspectives on Media Ethics and Professionalism in Post-Colonial Societies

Journalistic practice and professionalism across the globe are characterized by certain universals as well as unique particularities. In most post-colonial societies, the ethical philosophies and professional ethos of journalists reflect the tension between the commitment to integrity and social responsibility, shared by journalists worldwide, and the contextual interpretation and application of these principles. This article examines the ethics and ethos of development journalism as a philosophically, culturally, and historically evolving professional ideology. It surveys the ethical landscape of development journalists and shows how development journalists balance the dialectic of a universalist ethical philosophy and a relativistic professional ethos.

Ethnography and News Production: New(s) Developments in the Field*

AbstractEthnographic studies of news production provide invaluable insights into the nature and determinants of news production and a necessary corrective, therefore, to grand speculative claims and theories about the news media. These more grounded studies have variously examined the daily routines, bureaucratic nature, competitive ethos, professional ideologies, source dependencies and cultural practices of the news media. Today, however, the globalising field of news production and journalist practices is fast changing and ethnographies of news production remain as essential as ever for explaining and understanding the complexities involved. This article overviews the field of news production studies and makes the case for why ethnographic studies need to be conducted in the future. It describes past studies and their findings, reflects on the principal strengths and possible blind spots of ethnography as a research method, and finally considers new developments in the field and the challenges that these pose to academic researchers.

Let?s be professional about this: ideology and the psychological contracts of registered nurses

This study explores whether there is evidence of an ideological component in the psychological contracts of professional employees, as well as evidence of credible supporting commitments by their employer. Fundamental changes in the employment context have prompted many individuals to seek a closer alignment between themselves and their work, as well as with the organizational and broader societal contexts. For many professional employees identification with their professional ideology is a significant factor in producing such an alignment. The study uses an exploratory qualitative approach to analyse interview data collected from a sample of registered nurses employed in an Australian public hospital. The analysis identifies psychological contract terms best understood by reference to an ideological currency. It also suggests that the organization is perceived as obligated to provide credible support for that professional contribution, and the perceived lack of such support has significant impacts. The findings raise doubts about the utility of the concept of a psychological contract that recognizes only economic and socio-emotional exchanges for understanding the psychological contracts of professional employees.

Professional ideologies and TMD

Objective To gain a deeper understanding of the range of influences on the full range of dental professionals who provide treatment for temporomandibular disorders (TMD). Design Qualitative semi-structured interviews. Setting Primary and secondary care in the North and South of the United Kingdom. Sample and method A criterion-based purposive sample was taken of dental practitioners, comprising primary and secondary care practitioners. In-depth interviews were conducted and data collection and analysis occurred concurrently until data saturation was achieved. Data and discussion There was a reported lack of adequate remuneration for provision of treatment for TMD within primary care. This alongside the primary care practitioners' reported uncertainty in diagnosis of TMD appeared to lead to a propensity for referral to secondary care. Practitioners recognised a poor and scanty evidence base on which to base their care, and this allowed for idiosyncratic practice. Often the outcome measure for treatment was a subjective questioning of the patient focussing mainly on relief of pain. Conclusion There is a need for better quality evidence on which to base TMD treatment, more continuing professional development and improvement in contracting arrangements to enable primary practitioners to feel confident in managing TMD.

Institutional Utopias, Eugenics, and Intellectual Disability in Brazil1

This study focuses upon cultural representations of intellectual disability in Brazil with attention to the historical and cross‐cultural transmission of professional theory and ideology in Brazil, the USA, and Europe. The establishment of special education in Brazil is compared to the treatment of intellectual disability in the USA during the same period. In both cases the local eugenics movements greatly influenced the development of educational, vocational, and residential services. However, differing eugenics theories lead to radically different practices by professionals and consequences for disabled people.