Elsewhere in this Companion we have chapters on specific professions, including accountancy (Haslam, Chapter 16) and law (Ballakrishnen, Chapter 18), but these are discussed in connection with the specific themes of globalisation in Part IV. In this final part of the Companion, we take the opportunity to examine specific professions, or groups of cognate professions, in terms of how they are responding to current challenges.
We start with the professions of the academy, the professors and their colleagues. Muzzin and Martimianakis examine the academic profession historically and globally, providing us with a richly detailed account of their contemporary and variegated condition internationally. Next, we have Mausethagen and Smeby’s comparative analysis of the teaching profession and the impact of the rationalisation processes contained within current educational policy. From education we move to health, with Nancarrow and Borthwick’s consideration of inter-professional working within health care. They consider two case studies, the first looks at the boundary role issues surrounding foot surgery, as between surgeons and podiatrists, while the second tells of more flexible working and sharing of responsibilities for tasks across professions in the case of the rural allied health generalist in remote rural parts of Australia. In the next chapter, on social work, the emphasis of Webb’s account is less on the practice of social work and more on the role and importance of theory in the ongoing pursuit of professional identity. Finally, we consider a putative profession, namely journalism, that is currently having to consider its future in light of the possibilities provided by the internet and digitalisation. Here Schnell considers the different Anglo-American and continental European journalistic traditions and the impact of the new technologies and changing media consumption patterns for the profession. She makes a good case for the survival of the fourth estate of news media journalists in the face of the ubiquitous blogs, tweets and Facebook observations and commentaries provided by amateurs and others.
What we see with all of these professional groups, in their different guises, is that they are having to adapt and change in the face of new political, social and technological realities, globally and nationally. The resulting situation for these professionals is now far more fluid and challenging than ever before.