Characteristics of a Profession

Beginning in the 1920s, as the new field of sociology began to study societies,
disciplines, and organizations, the characteristics of, and criteria for establishing
'what is a profession' were explored. The heyday of scholarly discourse on
identifying the criteria for a 'profession' occurred between the 1950s and 1980s
(Brante, 1988; Bucher & Strauss, 1961; Cogan, 1955; Donaldson & Crowley,
1978; MacIver, 1955; Merton, 1958; & Page, 1975). Beginning in the early 1950s
leaders in nursing worked to establish nursing as a profession as well as a
discipline and sought direction to support their efforts. Dr. Merton, Professor of
Sociology at Columbia University, was engaged as a consultant to ANA to assist
the organization to better understand the requirements of a profession (Merton,
1958). In 1958 Merton defined a professional association as "an organization of
practitioners who judge one another as professionally competent and who have
banded together to perform social functions which they cannot perform in their
separate capacity as individuals" (p. 50). Since that time the following
characteristics have come to characterize a profession (Bucher & Strauss, 1961;
Cogan, 1955; Hillman, 2005; Merton, 1958):
a basis in systematic theory - a distinct way of viewing phenomena surrounding the knowledge base of the profession
specialized competencies and practitioners who are effective in practicing the professional role
dedication to raise the standards of the profession's education and practice
availability of professional education as a life-long process and mechanisms to advance the education of professionals established by
the profession
the presence within the profession of individuals with varied identities and values forming groupings and coalitions that coalesce into
unified segments known as specialties with specific missions
authority recognized by society and the clientele of the profession
approval of the authority sanctioned by a broader community or society
a code of ethics to regulate the relationships between professionals and clients
self-regulation that protects practitioners and supports disciplinary criteria and actions to censure, suspend, or remove code violators
a professional culture sustained by formal professional associations, such that the membership may develop a biased perspective
through their profession's lenses.

Six Characteristics of a Profession
(Wickenden)
Renders a specialized service based upon advanced specialized knowledge and skill, and
dealing with its problems primarily on an intellectual plane rather then on a physical or a
manual labor plane.
Involves a confidential relationship between a practitioner and a client or an employer.
Is charged with a substantial degree of public obligation by virtue of its profession of
specialized knowledge.
Enjoys a common heritage of knowledge, skill, and status to the cumulative store of which
professional men are bound to contribute through their individual and collective efforts.
Performs its services to a substantial degree in the general public interest , receiving its
compensation through limited fees rather than through direct profit from the
improvement in goods, services, or knowledge, which it accomplishes.
Is bound by a distinctive ethical code in its relationships with clients, colleagues, and the
public.
What are the Important Characteristics of a Profession?
The term 'Profession' stands for an occupation which requires some specialised study and training, and the purpose of which is generally to
provide skilled services and guidance in lieu of a definite fee or remuneration. A profession is a calling and implies acquisition of a fond of
knowledge, range skills and their application in service of humanity. They services rendered by a professional may be direct as will the case of
teachers and doctors or indirect as is in the case of teacher educators i.e. teacher of a teacher.
This service might be rendered for limited segment of the population or for a limited period of time or phase of life. This service is not rendered to
the entire student population which gets graduation or post-graduation, but, it is rendered to those who have aptitude for the profession. Any
professional provides professional service for a limited period of time when his/her clientele are in an institution or within the institutional
framework. A profession can be practiced independently or within an institution or both.
The following are the common characteristics of a profession:
(i) It demands possession of a body of specialised knowledge and extended practical training.
(ii) It renders an essential social service.
(iii) It demands continuous in service training of its members.
(iv) It has a clearly defined membership of a particular group with a view to safe- guarding the interests of the profession.
(v) It involves a code of ethics.
(vi) It sets up its own professional organization.
(vii) It assures its members a professional career.
(viii) It has a truth and loyalty.
(ix) It has a transparency of work.
(x) It gives instantaneous results.

The Nature of Teaching
In its broadest sense, teaching is a process that facilitates learning. Teaching is the specialized application of knowledge, skills and attributes designed to
provide unique service to meet the educational needs of the individual and of society. The choice of learning activities whereby the goals of education are
realized in the school is the responsibility of the teaching profession.
In addition to providing students with learning opportunities to meet curriculum outcomes, teaching emphasizes the development of values and guides
students in their social relationships. Teachers employ practices that develop positive self-concept in students. Although the work of teachers typically takes
place in a classroom setting, the direct interaction between teacher and student is the single most important element in teaching.
Teaching as a Profession
The continued professionalization of teaching is a long-standing goal of the Alberta Teachers Association. The Association continues to work to advance
teaching as a profession. Professionalism is a complex and elusive concept; it is dynamic and fluid. Six generally accepted criteria are used to define a
profession. The teaching profession in Alberta fulfills those criteria in the following ways:
1. Its members have an organized body of knowledge that separates the group from all others. Teachers are equipped with such a body of knowledge,
having an extensive background in the world and its culture and a set of teaching methods experientially derived through continuous research in all parts of
the world.
2. It serves a great social purpose. Teachers carry responsibilities weighted with social purpose. Through a rigid and self-imposed adherence to the Code of
Professional Conduct, which sets out their duties and responsibilities, teachers pass on their accumulated culture and assist each student under their care in
achieving self-realization.
3. There is cooperation achieved through a professional organization. Cooperation plays an important role in the development of the teaching profession
because it represents a banding together to achieve commonly desired purposes. The teaching profession has won its well-deserved place in the social
order through continuous cooperation in research, professional preparation and strict adherence to the Code of Professional Conduct, which obligates every
teacher to treat each student within a sacred trust. Teachers have control or influence over their own governance, socialization into teaching and research
connected with their profession.
4. There is a formal period of preparation and a requirement for continuous growth and development. Teachers are required to complete a defined teacher
preparation program followed by a period of induction or internship prior to being granted permanent certification. This period includes support for the
formative growth of teachers and judgments about their competence. Teachers are devoted to continuous development of their ability to deliver their service.
5. There is a degree of autonomy accorded the professional. Teachers have opportunities to make decisions about important aspects of their work. Teachers
apply reasoned judgment and professional decision making daily in diagnosing educational needs, prescribing and implementing instructional programs, and
evaluating the progress of students. Teacher judgment unleashes learning and creates the basis for experience.
6. The profession has control or influence over education standards, admissions, licensing, professional development, ethical and performance standards,
and professional discipline. As professionals, teachers are governed in their professional relationships with other members, school boards, students and the
general public by rules of conduct set out in the Associations Code of Professional Conduct. The code stipulates minimum standards of professional conduct
for teachers, but it is not an exhaustive list of such standards. Unless exempted by legislation, any member of the Association who is alleged to have violated
the standards of the profession, including the provisions of the code, may be subject to a charge of unprofessional conduct under the Discipline Bylaws of the
Association.
The competence of teachers is governed by the Practice Review Bylaws of the Association. The expectations for the professional practice of teachers
related to interim and permanent certification are found in the Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta. The
Teaching Quality Standard defines the knowledge, skills and attributes all teachers are expected to demonstrate as they complete their professional
preparation, enter the profession and progress through their careers. Additionally, the Department of Educations Teacher Growth, Supervision and
Evaluation Policy (Policy 2.1.5) supports and reinforces the Teaching Quality Standard by setting out basic expectations for teacher growth, supervision and
evaluation.
Teachers as Professionals
The certificated teacher is the essential element in the delivery of instruction to students, regardless of the mode of instruction. A teacher has professional
knowledge and skills gained through formal preparation and experience. Teachers provide personal, caring service to students by diagnosing their needs
and by planning, selecting and using methods and evaluation procedures designed to promote learning. The processes of teaching include understanding
and adhering to legal and legislated frameworks and policies; identifying and responding to student learning needs; providing effective and responsive
instruction; assessing and communicating student learning; developing and maintaining a safe, respectful environment conducive to student learning;
establishing and maintaining professional relationships; and engaging in reflective professional practice. These processes must be free of discriminatory
practices and should contribute to the holistic development of students who are actively engaged, responsible and contributing members of a democratic
society. The educational interests of students are best served by teachers who practise under conditions that enable them to exercise professional judgment.
Teachers have a right to participate in all decisions that affect them or their work, and have a corresponding responsibility to provide informed leadership in
matters related to their professional practice.
The Associations Role in the Context of Teacher Professionalism
The Alberta Teachers Association is a self-governing body financed through membership fees established in accordance with the bylaws of the Association.
The legal framework through which the Association functions is the Teaching Profession Act. The Association, through the democratic interaction of its
members, is the collective voice of Alberta teachers. It is a unilateral organization that includes as active members certificated individuals employed in public
education as classroom teachers, as well as school- and district-based administrators. The profession believes that all professional educators should be
members of the Association and strives to accomplish this through an amendment to the Teaching Profession Act that would include superintendents and
deputy superintendents appointed by school boards.
As a professional teachers association, the Alberta Teachers Association performs a wide range of activities related to the enhancement of teaching as a
profession, the improvement of public education and the well-being of its members. The Association furthers the professional status of teaching by policing
the conduct and competence of its members through its Discipline Bylaws and Practice Review Bylaws, ensuring high levels of practice for students and
public assurance in the teaching profession. The Association also has a responsibility to appraise the expectations of society and to recommend changes to
Albertas education system to meet changing needs. Thus, it maintains an active interest and a position of leadership in all areas of public education. This
includes systematic long-range planning in such matters as the processes of teaching, working conditions for professional service, organization and
administration of schools, teacher education and certification, curriculum, educational research and development, early childhood education, and education
finance. Through its committees dealing with these topics, as well as through representation on many departmental committees and boards, the Association
stays at the forefront of the most recent developments and represents the interests of its members. To accomplish this, the Association should have
adequate representation on all Department of Education committees, boards and advisory bodies dealing with matters related to teaching and learning, and
all members representing the profession on government advisory bodies, boards and committees should be named by the Association.
Professional Self-Governance
A common criterion for measuring the degree of public acceptance achieved by a professional organization is its ability and willingness to exercise rigorous
control over membership standards. This means that the professional body has control over the educational, certification, practice and competence
standards to determine who enters into and remains in the profession. A long-standing goal of the profession is to have jurisdiction over teacher certification
in Alberta. The Associations having such authority would parallel the established practice of other professions.
As the authoritative voice of the teaching profession in the province, the Association must play a role in making decisions related to teacher preparation,
recruitment, selection, admission, institutional preparation, internship, placement and programs of support in the early years of practice. It should have direct
and formal representation in the process that accredits institutions that grant degrees in education.
Finally, the Association believes that teachers require one teaching certificate and that all teachers have the same certificate. As previously mentioned, the
profession, through the Association, should have full responsibility for the issuance of teaching certificates and the suspension or cancellation of certificates
on grounds of incompetence or unprofessional conduct.
Conclusion
Alberta is recognized for having one of the best public education systems in the world. Central to the system are caring, highly competent professional
teachers who are supported by a professional association that recognizes as its core responsibilities stewardship of the profession, services to its members
and commitment to public education. The continued efforts of teachers to strive to improve their professional practice, supported by the collective through the
Alberta Teachers Association, will ensure that Alberta students will continue to receive quality teaching resulting in enriched educational experiences

Myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated
with religious belief. It is distinguished from symbolic behaviour (cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (temples, icons). Myths are specific accounts of
gods or superhuman beings involved in extraordinary events or circumstances in a time that is unspecified but which is understood as existing apart from
ordinary human experience. The term mythology denotes both the study of myth and the body of myths belonging to a particular religious tradition. As with all
religious symbolism, there is no attempt to justify mythic narratives or even to render them plausible. Every myth presents itself as an authoritative, factual
account, no matter how much the narrated events are at variance with natural law or ordinary experience. By extension from this primary religious meaning,
the word myth may also be used more loosely to refer to an ideological belief when that belief is the object of a quasi-religious faith; an example would be the
Marxist eschatological myth of the withering away of the state.
History and myth As is the case with the oral tradition, written literature is a combination of the real and the fantastic. It combines, on the one
hand, the real (the contemporary world) and history (the realistic world of the past) and, on the other, myth and hero, with metaphor being the agent of
transformation. This is the alchemy of the literary experience. Literature is atomized, fragmented history. Transformation is the crucial activity of the story, its
dynamic movement. The writer is examining the relationship of the reader with the world and with history. In the process of this examination, the writer
invents characters and events that correspond to history but are not history. At the centre of the story is myth, the fantasy element, a character or event that
moves beyond reality, though it is always rooted in the real. In the oral tale this is clearly the fantasy character; so it is, in a complex, refracted way, in written
literature. Myth, which is deeply, intensely emotional, has to do with the gods and creation, with the essence of a belief system; it is the imaged embodiment
of a philosophical system, the giving of form to thought and emotion. It is the driving force of a people, that emotional force that defines a people; it is the
everlasting form of a culture, hence its link to the gods, to the heavens, to the forever. In mythic imagery is the embodiment of significant emotionsthe
hopes, fears, dreams, and nightmaresof a people. Historythe story of a people, their institutions, and their communityis the way one likes to think
things happened, in the real world. The hero is everyman, moving through a change, a transformation, and so moving into the myth, the essence, of his
history. He thereby becomes a part of it, representative of it, embodying the culture. The hero is everyman with myth inside him. He has been mythicized;
story does that. Metaphor is the transformational process, the movement from the real to the mythic and back again to the realchanged forever, because
one has become mythicized, because one has moved into history and returned with the elixir. In serious literary works, the mythic fantasy characters are
often derived from the oral tradition; such characters include the Fool in Sheikh Hamidou Kanes Ambiguous Adventure (1961), Kihika (and the mythicized
Mugo) in Ngugi wa Thiongos A Grain of Wheat (1967), Michael K in J.M. Coetzees Life and Times of Michael K (1983), Dan and Sello in Bessie Heads A
Question of Power (1973), Mustapha in al-ayyib lis Season of Migration to the North (1966), and Nedjma in Kateb Yacines Nedjma (1956). These are
the ambiguous, charismatic shapers, those with connections to the essence of history. In each case, a real-life character moves into a relationship with a
mythic character, and that movement is the movement of the heros becoming a part of history, of culture. The real-life character is the hero who is in the
process of being created: Samba Diallo, Mugo, the doctor, Elizabeth, the narrator, or the four pilgrims. Myth is the stuff of which the hero is being created.
History is the real, the past, the world against which this transformation is occurring and within which the hero will move. The real contemporary world is the
place from which the hero comes and to which the hero will return. Metaphor is the heros transformation.The image of Africa, then, is that rich combination
of myth and history, with the hero embodying the essence of the history, or battling it, or somehow having a relationship with it by means of the fantasy
mythic character. It is in this relationship between reality and fantasy, the shaped and the shaper, that the story has its power: Samba Diallo with the Fool,
Mugo with Kihika (and the mythicized Mugo), the doctor with Michael K, Elizabeth with Dan and Sello, the narrator with Mustapha, the four pilgrims with
Nedjma. This relationship, which is a harbinger of change, occurs against a historical backdrop of some kind, but that backdrop is not the image of Africa:
that image is the relationship between the mythical character and African/European history.The fantasy character provides access to history, to the essence
of history. It is the explanation of the historical background of the novels. The hero is the person who is being brought into a new relationship with that
history, be it the history of a certain areaKenya or South Africa or Algeria, for exampleor of a wider areaof Africa generally or, in the case of A
Question of Power, the history of the world. These are the keys, then: the hero who is being shaped, the fantasy character who is the ideological and spiritual
material being shaped and who is also the artist or shaper, and the larger issues, the historical panorama. The fantasy character is crucial: he is the artists
palette, the mythic element of the story. This character is the heart and the spiritual essence of history. This is the Fool, Kihika, Michael K, Dan and Sello,
Mustapha, Nedjma. Here is where reality and fantasy, history and fiction blend, the confluence that is at the heart of story. The real-life character, the hero,
comes into a relationship with that mythic figure, and so the transformation begins, as the hero moves through an intermediary period into history. It is the
heros identification with history that makes it possible for us to speak of the hero as a hero. This movement of a realistic character into myth is metaphor, the
blending of two seemingly unlike images. It is the power of the story, the centre of the story, as Samba Diallo moves into the Fool, as Mugo moves into
Kihika, as the doctor moves into Michael K, as Elizabeth moves into Dan and Sello, as the narrator moves into Mustapha, as the four pilgrims move into
Nedjma. In this movement the oral tradition is revealed as alive and well in literary works. The kinds of imagery used by literary storytellers and the patterned
way those reality and fantasy images are organized in their written works are not new. The materials of storytelling, whether in the oral or written tradition,
are essentially the same.