Theorizing the Professions. Outline to an explanatory model.

Abstract

In a previous article (published in Professional Identities in Transition, 1999) I invented two macro-sociological concepts for capturing the historical development of professions, called professional types and professional waves. Even though Sweden was used as the sole empirical base for the two concepts, it was claimed that they would be applicable to other professions, especially Continental ones. In this paper I seek to demonstrate this, not by applying the concepts to other empirical examples but by discussing them from a meta-theoretical point of view. In particular, I seek to explore a) their philosophical foundations, and b) their capability of being extended to explanatory models of the historical development and contemporary standing of modern professions, i.e., the professions are approached from diachronic as well as synchronic macro-sociological perspectives