Abstract
Professionals are influential social actors who leverage their skills and social status to provide specialised services to the public. While sociologists have worked in recent years to highlight the roles of professionals as agents of institutional change, gaps still remain between this approach and studies of professionals who organise to address broader social problems. As a result, the involvement of professionals in social justice activism remains undertheorised in sociology. In this chapter, the authors build upon a range of studies from sociology and other related disciplines to offer a novel analytic framework that highlights two modes of professional activism: organising that leverages a professional skill set as a tool to address social problems beyond the profession and organising that aims to reform the profession. The chapter illustrates the framework with evidence from the authors’ ongoing research into the architectural profession in the United States. Finally, the authors suggest several implications of this framework for sociological research in professions, social movements, and social inequalities.
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Gjata, J., Rowe, M.S., Roudbari, S. (2023). Expand or Translate?: Theorising Work in Professionals’ Activism. In: Maestripieri, L., Bellini, A. (eds) Professionalism and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31278-6_12
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