Knowledge, Expertise and the Professions

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<P>It has long been recognised that specialised knowledge is at the core of what distinguishes professions from other occupations. The privileged status of professions in most countries, however, together with their claims to autonomy and access to specialised knowledge, is being increasingly challenged both by market pressures and by new instruments of accountability and regulation. Established and emerging professions are increasingly seen as either the solution, or as sources of conservatism and resistance to change in western economies, and recent developments in professional education draw on a competence model which emphasises what newly qualified members of a profession ''can do'' rather than what ''they know''. </P><P>This book applies the disciplines of the sociology of knowledge and epistemology to the question of professional knowledge. What is this knowledge? It goes beyond traditional debates between ''knowing how'' and ''knowing that'', and ''theory'' and ''practice''. Th