Professional Movements: Understanding Professionals as Agents of Social Change

• In Event: 2263 - Jobs, Occupations, and Professions II

Abstract

Professionals are influential social actors who apply extensive skill and elevated status to advance any project in which they engage, yet sociologists know little about how they contribute to social change. This paper applies concepts drawn from organization studies and the sociology of culture to conceptualize a phenomenon that has received little attention from any group of scholars: political activism and social justice advocacy undertaken by professionals. The authors use the concept of civic action to conceptualize interactive participation that transforms social problems into professional problems, encompassing organizing practices at any level of formality. At the same time, the proposed model embeds organizing activities within the resource streams and institutional logics characteristic of professional fields, as professional institutions play an important role in both enabling and constraining social action. The result is a model that considers two forms of action that have been considered separately in previous research: professionals’ efforts to reform governance structures and protocols within their fields of practice, and the application of their work to ameliorate problems in society at large. The paper emerges from current research into the engineering and architecture fields and draws upon examples from that research to illustrate concepts.

Authors

• Matthew Rowe, University of Colorado

• Joris Gjata, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Shawhin Roudbari, University of Colorado Boulder