Changing Professional Status in Evolving Professional Systems: Towards Using a Descriptive Lens to Analyse Multi-layered Transformation Processes

• Autores: Jean-Luc Bédard, Marta Massana, Christophe Groulx
• Localización: Professionalism and Social Change: Processes of Differentiation Within, Between and Beyond Professions. / coord. por Lara Maestripieri, Andrea Bellini, 2023, ISBN 978-3-031-31278-6, págs. 145-165
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This chapter explores the movement of foreign-trained professionals (FTPs) across jurisdictions, focusing on the case of engineers and doctors who have moved to Canada. The case of doctors is governed mostly by public institutions and is compared to that of professionals in private organisations, like engineers. Since 2011, both cases have benefited from Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) between France and Quebec. We examine how the objectives of the MRAs translate into results in local applications involving the collaboration of various local institutions.We use data from interviews and official documentation that was collected through research projects conducted between 2013 and 2018 to examine French FTPs’ entry into professional practices in Quebec. The analysis draws on Abbott’s approach towards professions (Abbott, 1988), Freidson’s study of the relationships between professions, the State, and the market (Freidson, 2001) and Douglas’ (Douglas, 1986) perspective on institutions. The authors underline the professional regulating bodies’ use of the notion of the protection of the public as a rationale to minimise risk and justify various measures. The analysis shows that these aspects are highly contextual and dependent upon each profession’s recent history. Overall, this chapter presents a situated analysis of how institutional actors within the professional system enact complex changes and, in the process, encounter challenges in the context of local implementation.