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 Professional and Practice-based Learning

Franziska Trede
Celina McEwen Editors

Educating the
Deliberate
Professional
Preparing for future practices
Professional and Practice-based Learning

Volume 17

Series editors
Stephen Billett, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Christian Harteis, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany
Hans Gruber, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
Professional and practice-based learning brings together international research on
the individual development of professionals and the organisation of professional life
and educational experiences. It complements the Springer journal Vocations and
Learning: Studies in vocational and professional education.
Professional learning, and the practice-based processes that often support it, are the
subject of increased interest and attention in the fields of educational, psy-
chological, sociological, and business management research, and also by govern-
ments, employer organisations and unions. This professional learning goes beyond,
what is often termed professional education, as it includes learning processes and
experiences outside of educational institutions in both the initial and ongoing
learning for the professional practice. Changes in these workplaces requirements
usually manifest themselves in the everyday work tasks, professional development
provisions in educational institution decrease in their salience, and learning and
development during professional activities increase in their salience.
There are a range of scientific challenges and important focuses within the field of
professional learning. These include:
– understanding and making explicit the complex and massive knowledge that
is required for professional practice and identifying ways in which this
knowledge can best be initially learnt and developed further throughout pro-
fessional life.
– analytical explications of those processes that support learning at an indi-
vidual and an organisational level.
– understanding how learning experiences and educational processes might
best be aligned or integrated to support professional learning.
The series integrates research from different disciplines: education, sociology,
psychology, amongst others. The series is comprehensive in scope as it not only
focusses on professional learning of teachers and those in schools, colleges and
universities, but all professional development within organisations.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8383

Franziska Trede • Celina McEwen
Editors

Educating the Deliberate

Professional
Preparing for future practices
Editors
Franziska Trede Celina McEwen
The Education For Practice Institute The Education For Practice Institute
Charles Sturt University Charles Sturt University
Sydney, NSW, Australia Sydney, NSW, Australia

ISSN 2210-5549 ISSN 2210-5557 (electronic)

Professional and Practice-based Learning
ISBN 978-3-319-32956-7 ISBN 978-3-319-32958-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32958-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940102

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
Series Editors’ Foreword

Key focuses for the Professional and Practice-Based Learning book series are on
understanding what comprises effective professional practice, how individuals can
come to learn the capacities required for that practice, and how experiences in the
settings and circumstances in which professional work is enacted can contribute to
that development across the span of working life. Central to all of these focuses are
how individuals come to intentionally engage in the processes of participating in
and learning through their work activities and interactions. That is, beyond the pro-
vision of experiences in educational or practice settings are the capacities and inter-
est of individuals in engaging in these activities. Consequently, a volume that
focuses on the intentional or deliberate engagement, as the editors and contributors
prefer, in professional practice and its learning sits well within the scope and sup-
ports the ambitions of this series.
The stated motivations for generating this edited monograph are found within
dilemmas arising from the changing purposes and practices of higher education as
they are directed to the development of professional practitioners, which increas-
ingly extends to their job readiness. As a reaction to highly commodified provisions
of higher education, here the editors propose that the quest is to position teachers,
students and practitioners as being more personally deliberate or intentional in their
thinking and acting. The coincidence between this particular set of concerns and the
hundredth anniversary of Dewey’s Education and Democracy should not go unmen-
tioned. Commencing in 1911 with his treatise on ‘How we think’ which argued for
the potential enhanced outcomes that could arise when our everyday thinking could
be made more purposive and directed and his introducing the term reflection into
the educational discourse. Then in his 1916 volume which is perhaps one of the
most influential educational texts ever written, he both conceptualised and argued
for positioning learners centrally in efforts to educate. Indeed, littered across Trede
and McEwen’s edited monograph and central to its overall case are ways in which
professional work, educational provisions and the practice of those who are nascent
or actual practitioners are considerations of promoting learners as intentional or
deliberate practitioners and learners.

v
vi Series Editors’ Foreword

In advancing this case, this book comprises three sections, and a concluding pair
of chapters. The first section contributes by positioning of the issues being addressed,
and outlining the conceptions that are the focus for text, and then considerations
about how educational provisions are positioned or should be to support the devel-
opment of deliberate practitioners. The contributions in the second section essen-
tially captures what deliberate practice means in contemporary times through the
provision of examples and instantiations of these practitioners and how such capaci-
ties can and have been realised through higher education provisions. The third sec-
tion seeks to offer directions in terms of how higher education provisions might be
reordered or transformed to more effectively generate these deliberate practitioners.
Finally, two chapters, firstly, speculate, and, secondly, respectively, capture what
deliberate practice might mean as expressed through the contents of this volume.
The contributions arise from a series of conferences hosted by the first editor’s
institution in which papers have been presented addressing themes that contribute to
the formation of the ideas that are at the heart of this book. Through these meetings
over several years, ideas have been proposed, advanced, debated and elaborated,
and are brought together in this volume. These contributions arise from conceptuali-
sations of professionals, professional practice and its learning, studies drawing upon
the experiences of those engaging in practice and learning about it, and then specu-
lative and descriptive accounts of what constitutes professional practice and how
educational provisions might be advanced. Noteworthy is that most of these contri-
butions come from a country in which the debates about, institutional roles of,
efforts of and delineations amongst higher education institutions often centre on the
adequacy of professional practice. Yet, with this country the institutional practices
and political and economic agendas are not always commensurate or aligned with
achieving the kinds of outcomes required for and by deliberate practitioners. Instead,
as a number of contributors suggest, and the editors rehearse, the approaches taken
and constraints applied are sometimes quite counter to achieving these kinds of
outcomes. Hence, advice is provided here about how educators, practitioners and
students might come to engage more effectively in their thinking and acting to
become more deliberative and deliberate in their practices.
It is through these contributions that this book will make its mark.

Brisbane, Australia Stephen Billett

Regensburg, Germany Hans Gruber
Paderborn, Germany Christian Harteis
March 2016
Acknowledgements

This book is the result of a unique working relationship and friendship that we,
Franziska and Celina, have developed from collaborating on research projects,
especially in the past four years. At the heart of this is a complementary approach
based on endless conversations where we supported, challenged and dared each
other to dream, think and act beyond our individual capacity.
But this book would not have become a reality without the support of many other
people. We would like to thank all the authors who engaged with our idea of the
deliberate professional and contributed a chapter to this book. We thank them for
participating in book meetings, providing invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of
our chapters and providing peer review feedback to other authors in this book. Some
of these authors—David Boud, Rick Flowers, Tony Harland, Joy Higgs, Monika
Nerland, David Nicholls, Jan Orrell, Andrew Vann, Melanie Walker and Rainer
Winter—were also keynote and plenary speakers at the International Practice Based
Education Summits held in Sydney between 2013 and 2015.
In addition to the authors, we wish to thank Bill Green and Michael Newman for
their encouragement and supportive advice at the early stages of the book develop-
ment. They gave us courage to proceed with this book.
We are indebted to Ros Allum who tirelessly and graciously managed the book
manuscript and provided thoughtful editorial advice. Her diligence, patience and
outstanding attention to detail were invaluable in helping us bring this book together
in such a professional and timely manner.
Finally, we would like to thank our families for their support. More specifically,
Celina would like to thank Louis for his unfailing interest in what she does and
Franziska would like to thank Rick, Natascha, Jesse and Antonia for being there for
her at all times.

vii
Contents

Part I Setting the Scene

1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional ...................................................... 3
Franziska Trede and Celina McEwen
2 Carving Out the Territory for Educating
the Deliberate Professional..................................................................... 15
Franziska Trede and Celina McEwen
3 Educating for Professional Responsibility:
From Critical Thinking to Deliberative Communication,
or Why Critical Thinking Is Not Enough ............................................. 29
Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke, Tomas Englund, Berit Karseth,
and Eevi E. Beck

Part II Reconceptualising the Professional

4 Critique and the Deliberate Professional: Framing
the New and Enhanced Role of Intermediaries in Digital
Culture ..................................................................................................... 47
Jonathan Roberge
5 Deliberate and Emergent Approaches to Practice
Development: Lessons Learned from the Australian
Environment Movement ......................................................................... 59
Rick Flowers
6 The Soul of the University: Deliberate Leadership
and the Hero’s Journey........................................................................... 75
Andrew Vann
7 Parrhēsia, Artisans and the Possibilities for Deliberate
Practice..................................................................................................... 91
David A. Nicholls

ix
x Contents

8 University and Community Engagement: Towards

a Partnership Based on Deliberate Reciprocity ................................... 107
Lesley Cooper and Janice Orrell

Part III Rethinking Practice Education

9 Learning to Master Profession-Specific Knowledge Practices:
A Prerequisite for the Deliberate Practitioner? ................................... 127
Monika Nerland
10 A Capabilities Approach to Educating the Deliberate
Professional: Theory and Practice......................................................... 141
Monica McLean and Melanie Walker
11 Taking Professional Practice Seriously: Implications
for Deliberate Course Design ................................................................. 157
David Boud
12 Deliberate Subversion of Time: Slow Scholarship
and Learning Through Research ........................................................... 175
Tony Harland
13 Deliberately Owning My Practice Model: Realising
My Professional Practice ........................................................................ 189
Joy Higgs

Part IV Panoptic Musings

14 The Deliberate Professional in the Digital Age: A Manifesto
in the Tradition of Critical Theory and Pedagogy ............................... 207
Rainer Winter
15 Educating Deliberate Professionals: Beyond Reflective
and Deliberative Practitioners ............................................................... 223
Celina McEwen and Franziska Trede

Index ................................................................................................................. 231

Contributors

Eevi E. Beck Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

David Boud Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning, Deakin
University, Geelong, VIC, Australia
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo,
NSW, Australia
Institute for Work-Based Learning, Middlesex University, London, UK
Lesley Cooper Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong,
NSW, Australia
The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
Tomas Englund Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences,
Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden
Rick Flowers Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology
Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
Tony Harland Higher Education Development Centre, University of Otago,
Dunedin, New Zealand
Joy Higgs The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Sydney,
NSW, Australia
Berit Karseth Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Celina McEwen The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University,
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Monica McLean Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Nottingham,
Nottingham, UK

xi
xii Contributors

Monika Nerland Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

David A. Nicholls Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation and
Occupation Studies, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland
University, Auckland, New Zealand
Janice Orrell School of Education, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
Jonathan Roberge Social Sciences and Humanities, Université du Québec, Institut
national de recherche scientifique, Ville de Québec, QC, Canada
Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo,
Norway
Franziska Trede The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University,
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Andrew Vann Office of the Vice-Chancellor, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst,
NSW, Australia
Melanie Walker Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development,
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Rainer Winter Institute of Media and Communications, Alpen Adria-Universitaet
Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria
The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
About the Editors

Franziska Trede is Professor of Higher Education, Co-Director of The Education

For Practice Institute and a member of the Research Institute for Professional
Practice, Learning and Education of Charles Sturt University. She is chair of the
International Practice-Based Education Summit which is held annually in Sydney.
She has received numerous research grants and has published widely on profes-
sional practice, workplace learning, professional identity development and profes-
sionalism. She has been invited to present her work in Austria, Canada, Germany,
Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Dr. Celina McEwen is an independent researcher and an Adjunct Research Fellow

at The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University. She has over 15
years’ experience as a researcher and lecturer in Australia and France. During that
time, Celina has carried out research in the field of education with a particular focus
on university professional education, e & m-leaning and learning through the arts.

xiii
 Part I
Setting the Scene
Chapter 1
Scoping the Deliberate Professional

Franziska Trede and Celina McEwen

Redressing the Balance of Possibilities

We were compelled to write this book to redress the balance of possibilities for
university education in times where cost efficiency, accreditation, mobility, interna-
tional competition, digitalisation, privatisation and commercialisation feature
high—above pedagogy and citizenship—on most university agendas. We under-
stand that these elements might include positive change, but we are also aware that
they are implemented in response to the current global trend towards redefining
universities’ socio-economic relevance according to a dominant neoliberal ideology
that tends to place market interests above common good interests, such as equality,
equity, social justice and moral responsibility.
Though not universal—Sweden, Norway and Germany are examples of coun-
tries where public universities do not show signs of such change—this worldwide
movement reflects the sector’s general turn to economic values, away from socio-
cultural values. The legitimacy of universities is increasingly judged in terms of
employability of university graduates and income generation. In this context, and
under the weight of widening participation, deregulated fees, flexible delivery and
producing the future workforce, a majority of universities have given leeway to
marketing experts and finance managers to influence the design and delivery of
educational programs. Though this trend constrains what constitutes—or is accred-
ited as—a university course, it still allows for a wide spectrum of possibilities to
learn and teach otherwise. There are still opportunities for academics, students and
practitioners to work towards strengthening the public good.
The deliberate professional emerged from these observations, but has also been
inspired by our own empirical research in professional practice and professional

F. Trede (*) • C. McEwen

The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University,
Sydney, NSW, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

F. Trede, C. McEwen (eds.), Educating the Deliberate Professional,
Professional and Practice-based Learning 17, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32958-1_1
4 F. Trede and C. McEwen

learning and the questions that have emerged from some of our findings. For exam-
ple, as part of one research project on cultural ways of knowing in clinical practice
(Trede & Flowers, 2008), a dietitian who was asked to describe how she conducted
patient education with cardiac patients (a mandatory activity prior to discharging
patients from hospital) confidently explained that it took her exactly 21 min to
deliver a well-structured content to patients. We found this to be problematic
because, although her dietary education talk was most probably accurate, compre-
hensive and well-structured, a question arises of its relevance to each individual
patient. Does her talk consider who cooks for the patient? Does it consider the social
and economical context of the patient? Does it consider cultural eating habits? Does
it consider what the patient already knows and still wants to know? This dietitian
was unable to answer these questions. She had not considered her professional prac-
tice beyond the technical and scientific knowledge.
As another case in point, while researching assessment experiences on place-
ment (Trede, Mischo-Kelling, Gasser, & Pulcini, 2015), a student reflecting on
placement experiences stated:
I know we are beginners and therefore we are uncertain and can’t know if we are doing
things right or wrong. We also don’t know if our clinical educator is satisfied with our
performances.

This student had fair self-insights and was humble as a novice student practitio-
ner, but the question arose when will he ever feel certain about what he knows and
does? Where do his assumptions about right and wrong practices come from?
Whose responsibility is it to encourage him to question these assumptions?
For one of our studies exploring the discourse of professionalism in professional
entry courses (Grace & Trede, 2013), an academic who coordinated clinical place-
ments commented:
In my experience clinical supervisors are very reluctant to complain about students’ profes-
sional behaviour. I think it is because those things are tacit, hard to pin down. And it will
often be when you’ve rung to ask how a student is going and they say, ‘Oh, they’re going
well’. And just when you’re about to hang up they’ll say, ‘Oh, there’s just one thing’, and
they’ll blurt out some hideous professional misconduct.

This academic understood that it is difficult for clinical supervisors to raise issues
of inappropriate student behaviour relating to professional and moral dimensions.
This raised the following questions: How do you make sure academics do not leave
it to the last moment to open up discussions about student professional behaviour?
How can discussions between academic and supervisor be steered to address moral
and professional practice issues?
In professional development workshops, we also found how easily and plainly
stakeholders in this field could tell us what is needed for these possibilities to mate-
rialise as well as to improve their practice and learning. They mentioned developing
discursive, relational and technical skills and knowledge, but they also emphasised
the need to be innovative, bring fresh ideas and question practices. When we asked
students after their placement experiences to tell us what advice they would give to
future cohorts, they would say, ‘Do not be afraid, get involved and ask questions’.
1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional 5

When we asked educators in workplaces what they wanted from students, one
recurring response was that they wanted students to be ‘interested and ask questions
when they do not understand something’. In addition to this, they often suggested
that students as novices might be in a better position than them to initiate change in
the workplace.
Yet, we also found that students and educators often struggled to put into practice
these ideas (Trede et al., 2015; Trede & Smith, 2012, 2014). Students did not ask
questions as much as they would have liked to. They told us that they could only be
as reflexive and critical as their supervisors allowed them to be; they were reluctant
to ask deeper questions about why things were done in a particular way for fear of
not fitting in or being poorly marked for it. What is the supervisor’s self-image as a
teacher and perceived role that may stifle questioning and collective reflection?
Supervisors felt they had to teach to assessment tasks and ensure everyone’s safety.
It was not surprising then to hear some students say that they felt they were only
allowed to observe practitioners, which they often saw of limited learning value.
How can both students and educators get the balance right so that learning is not
reduced to assessed competences, but expended to include a morally responsible
way to practise?
Other studies on the way practitioners, students and academics think and act in
the fluid boundaries between university and industry sectors (Trede & McEwen,
2012, 2015a, 2015b; Trede & Smith, 2012), made us realise that fluid transitional
spaces between student and practitioner, learner and teacher, offer possibilities to
dissolve the socially constructed binary of theory-practice, knowing-doing,
emotional-rational, intuitive-conscious, etc. However, we also found a lack of inten-
tion, purpose and action towards improving the status quo. Although research par-
ticipants discussed their well-intended efforts at their individual practice level they
often were unsure how to change dominant practices. At times reflections appeared
shallow and teacher and learner interactions were described as monologues rather
than robust dialogues. These findings confirmed, what Bourdieu (1979, 1989) had
argued before us, that students often unintentionally learn to reproduce dominant
practices and, thus, perpetuate professional cultures—even those that are not to their
advantage. Understandably, students tend to accept and take for granted the profes-
sional practice cultures and traditions they are exposed to in the classrooms and on
placements. We found that this was the case because they were eager to fit in, but
also because there was limited pedagogical space to collectively imagine what else
might be possible, beyond ‘What am I asked to do?’ and ‘What is most probably
going to happen?’. It seemed, at times, difficult for students to develop their own
thinking and enact their emerging professional identity, let alone think about the
social role of their future profession and its members (Grace & Trede, 2013). Thus,
the path of least resistance—but not necessarily least discomfort—is the pragmatic
path of instrumental thoughts. In the short term, these thoughts and behaviours
probably lead to better assessment marks, uncomplicated socialisation processes
and higher employment chances. However, in the longer term, this runs the risk of
resulting in mismatched expectations, stress and poor practice, eventually leading to
6 F. Trede and C. McEwen

low job satisfaction, and high staff absenteeism and turnaround (Sanderson & Lea,
2012).
This analysis gave rise to many more questions: Who decides how students are
positioned in workplace learning? How can students and educators be discouraged
to think one-dimensionally? How can they learn to take a stance and be responsible
for the consequences of their own actions? How can curricula provide opportunities
for learning from experiences and actions? How can professional learning be
designed to prepare students to work with complexity and diversity? How much of
reflection is an individual process as opposed to a collective one? What type of
reflection and dialogue reproduces dominant understanding and what type disrupts
and changes it? Where is the space in the current educational systems for students
to make choices, critique and consider other possibilities when being socialised in
professional practices? How can professional practice and professional learning
privilege thoughtful action and learning from their consequences? What pedagogies
will help deliver such university education? Exploring these questions led to the
idea of the deliberate professional as a way of conceptualising professional practice
and professional education as a ‘working’ and learning practice where technical,
moral, theoretical and practical dimensions coalesce.

Defining the Deliberate Professional

Our reflection on some of the ways in which students and educators might be able
to overcome those struggles and put into practice their ideas led us to conceptualise
the deliberate professional. The deliberate professional can be a practitioner, an
educator, but also a student. In this sense, the term ‘professional’ is not used to refer
to the narrowly defined role of the expert—objective, all-knowing, and superior. On
the contrary, we use the term to indicate a dialogical, collaborative, thoughtful, yet
assertive and decisive disposition in practice settings that considers social responsi-
bility, others, moral commitment to democratic values and duty of care.
The use of the term ‘deliberate’ in the context of education is not new. Some
authors have used it, for instance, Tough’s (1971) writings on deliberate efforts to
learn and Ericsson’s (2004) conceptualisation of deliberate practice, but with a very
different focus and goal. Tough defines deliberate learning as a purely individualis-
tic act that is linked to levels of conscious motivation to achieve a set goal. Again,
this focus on the individual places our concept of deliberate professional outside of
Tough’s discussion. Ericsson (2004) focuses on skill acquisition and expert indi-
vidual performance underpinned by cognitive psychology and behaviourism.
Practice is reduced to individual skill performance and deliberate practice is con-
cerned with the question of individuals reaching their peak performances. Further,
his notion of deliberateness relies on drill and repetitive actions to master reproduc-
ible superior performance making his deliberate practice a regimen of effortful,
repetitive activities (Ericsson, 2004, 2006). Finally, his approach to deliberate
practice based on theories of skill acquisition is anathema to our theorising of the
1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional 7

deliberate professional based on reflective, critical and communicative

deliberations.
With the term deliberate professional, we seek to define ways of developing
moral, thoughtful, purposeful and agentic stances that enable practitioners to coun-
terbalance one-dimensional and instrumental practices. Based on our research, we
have established that the key goal for the deliberate professional is to identify the
interests and intentions that underpin what people say and do and how they relate to
others and with this heightened awareness, consciously practise within competing
conditions. This means that the deliberate professional is thoughtful yet decisive
and assertive. The deliberate professional has to be a thinker and a doer, where the
thinking informs the doing and the doing informs the thinking. In that sense, the
doing is as much a source for learning as the knowing and thinking. We, therefore,
identified four key characteristics that define the deliberate professional: (1) delib-
erating on the complexity of practice and workplace cultures and environments; (2)
understanding what is probable, possible and impossible in relation to existing and
changing practices; (3) taking a deliberate stance in positioning oneself in practice
as well as in making technical decisions; and (4) being aware of and responsible for
the consequences of actions taken or actions not taken in relation to the ‘doing’,
‘saying’, ‘knowing’ and ‘relating’ in practice. This focus on understanding the
importance of what is probable, possible and impossible in any given professional
practice situation and on understanding and taking responsibility for decisions,
actions and their consequences clearly points to critical social and practice theories
and underpinning notions of critical pedagogy, praxis and deliberative practice.
Deliberate professionals distinguish—but do not necessarily oppose—rhetorical
and polemic practices from rational, creative and/or emancipatory practices. They
resist non-transparent, unilateral decisions and practices that are not informed by
deliberative thinking and deliberate action, because they understand that dialogues
are often steered by strategic goals and rational reasoning is knowingly or unknow-
ingly overshadowed by rhetoric (Dryzek, 2000). They make a deliberate choice
about what to say and what not to say, how to act and how to relate to others for each
particular practice situation. Deliberate professionals do not let diverse and complex
situations paralyse or overwhelm them, nor do they use force to achieve their per-
sonal goals. They thoughtfully use power towards collective goals as a result of
un-coerced deliberations (Arendt, 1970; Habermas, 1977) and they understand that
their actions are not isolated activities, but rather happen in context and have
consequences.
This aspect of the deliberate professional might remind readers of Schön’s (1996)
reflective practitioner. Schön’s invaluable contribution was to claim reflection as an
important aspect of practice and refute the notion of practice as exclusively rational
and objective. However, his focus was on the individual and learning for self, located
in a psycho-social perspective of professional practice. His theorising remains silent
about learning that happens through debate and dialogue (Forester, 2012). Also, he
located the social role of the reflective practitioner outside of what we are con-
cerned with: the moral and political conditions for learning and professional prac-
tice. Therefore, the deliberate professional can be seen as an expansion of Schön’s
8 F. Trede and C. McEwen

conceptualisation of learning by doing in professional practice to include the moral

and political dimensions of learning professional practice from a critical social the-
ory perspective.
Though deliberate professionals are continuous learners who question their own
assumptions and beliefs, they are also curious of others’ beliefs and work towards
finding common ground and shared understanding. From this point of view, our
concept of deliberate professional has affinities with and is informed by many char-
acteristics of deliberative democracy and the associated democratic processes. They
explore beliefs and behaviours below the surface with the purpose of critically
understanding the conditions that shape beliefs and what is taken for granted. They
are critical thinkers and attentive listeners who engage in dialogue about statements,
simple explanations and declarations. They question the interests and motives
behind what has been said and make sense of them within socio-historical and
economic-material contexts. They are realistic because they have learned to ascer-
tain what is probable or improbable in given situations, but they also have a sense of
optimism because they have been taught ways of determining what is possible.
However, unlike deliberative democracy that focuses on decision making through
deliberation and consensus, for the deliberate professional deliberation is not only
about making up one’s mind, it needs to lead to taking a stance and being deliberate
in their ensuing action. Being deliberative without acting is something deliberate
professionals would aim to avoid.

The Need for a Pedagogy of Deliberateness

We seek to reconceptualise the importance of awareness, purpose, public sphere,

participation, culture and identity in preparing future practitioners. Apart from
acquiring scientific knowledge and technical skills students need to also be equipped
with the ability to recognise and resist unreflected conformity, in order to articulate,
repair and change these conditions that hide the fact that there are a range of options
outside of the binary of right or wrong. The concept of pedagogy of deliberateness
seeks to foster thoughtful action.
We are mindful that it is not always wise to speak up, but similarly it is not
always wise to be silent. These choices are full of complexity that practitioners need
to engage with rather than avoid. As Rancière (2009, p. 17) noted:
Everywhere there are starting points, intersections and junctions that enable us to learn
something new if we refuse, firstly radical distance, secondly, the distribution of roles, and
thirdly the boundaries between territories.

Rancière argues that it is important for learners to think outside of their confined
professional jurisdiction, not to focus on boundaries set up by professional gate-
keepers, policies or assessment standards and instead to participate in taking respon-
sibility and contribute to creating a better future. At times, this might mean wilfully
1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional 9

defying valued practices and structures. To effect this kind of change, therefore,
requires agency and deliberateness.
It is easier to prepare students for current practices that are accepted rather than
to prepare students for future practices that are not yet formally established.
Accepted practices promise smooth professional socialisation and integration into a
community of practice. However, opportunities can be missed to nurture human
capability, not only in students, but also in educators. Educating to deliberately
resist practices that exclude others through ageist or racist attitudes, or foster unjust
and thoughtless rule-following behaviours, is not an easy task and requires pedago-
gies that go beyond experiential learning.
The pedagogies that prepare students well for purposeful deliberateness in pro-
fessional practices address student agency, collaboration, participation and collec-
tive reflection. At the forefront are ideas of collaborative practice, learning by doing
and reflecting on experiences. It also requires developing a professional identity and
positioning ‘self’ in a community of practice that is based on dialogue and respect.
Therefore, beyond learning to become a thoughtful, moral and inclusive thinker
there is a need to prepare learners to become doers, to be future practitioners who
have a voice and make a difference.
For the purpose of this book, we have contextualised our discussions in univer-
sity education and, more specifically, in workplace learning components of profes-
sional education courses, where students often feel tensions around choices of being
silent or making oneself heard, being apathetic or wilful, following or initiating,
looking away or resisting, acting accidentally or purposefully.

A Summary of Sections and Chapters

This book includes contributions from diverse perspectives that place the deliberate
professional at the centre of university education for future practices. This book
offers academics, managers, students, employers and their employees working with
students and universities ways of cultivating thoughtful, purposeful and courageous
learning that instils deliberateness in professional education and practice and a
vision of what else might be possible. As a whole, this book argues for the impor-
tance of preparing deliberate professionals in the current higher education climate.
The distinctive organising principle that weaves through this collection of chapters
is the moral imperative underpinned by a professional’s duty of care. Overall, chap-
ters emphasise the importance of purposeful, considered, thoughtful and intentional
approaches to professional practice. Authors in this book contend that most stu-
dents, academics, employers and workplace educators aspire to learning more than
mastering measurable knowledge and skills; they also aspire to acquiring the means
to support their need for perspective, value and meaning-making through a lifelong
journey of learning and change.
More specifically, this book expands on the discussions about critical pedagogy,
practice theory, global, digital and economic imperatives as key factors influencing
10 F. Trede and C. McEwen

university education. It pursues answers to the questions: What does it take to pre-
pare students for the challenges of the professional (and social) world of tomorrow?
What are the essential tasks required of academia given the rise of economic, digital
and global imperatives, combined with persistent tensions between legal and cul-
tural, ethical and scientific perspectives, that shape practice (Knorr Cetina, 2001)
and increasingly take hold of university education? What are emergent frameworks
and conditions of the future landscape for professional education? What pedagogies
are needed in the global and digital age?
Authors in this book address these questions theoretically and empirically to
foreground ways of realising the education of deliberate professionals. They discuss
their work and the ways in which it relates to educating deliberate professionals for
emergent practices. Chapters connect university education and the future role of
students in society, and provide a critique of current practices and the narrow views
of university education that predominantly emphasise graduate employability.
Authors discuss the tension professionals are faced with between managerialism
and professionalism. They also discuss the ways in which a pedagogy of deliberate-
ness can address the moral issues of professional practice. Some authors have pur-
posefully emphasised the action and change characteristic of professional practices,
others see reflection and moral thought as an action and an integral part of profes-
sional practice. Others focus more on the deliberate than on the professional.
Authors offer discussions of the deliberate professional and its context at a micro-
individual level (e.g. Higgs), a meso-organisational level (e.g. Vann and Boud), and/
or a macro-societal level (e.g. Roberge and Flowers). Together, they conceptualise
this term and its characteristics as an important way of strengthening democratic,
just and future-oriented practices, communities and nations.
The chapters are ordered into four parts: setting the scene, reconceptualising the
professional, rethinking practice education and panoptic musings. The first part
presents overviews and frames of the concept of the deliberate professional. In the
first chapter, Trede and McEwen scope the concept of the deliberate professional,
explain how it arose and distinguish it from related terms. In Chap. 2, Trede and
McEwen carve out the territory of educating deliberate professionals, characterised
by the need to increase awareness of the complexity and ever-changing relational
dimensions of practice that shape the way professionals think and act. Trede and
McEwen explore what might be required of university education to produce profes-
sionals for a society that is increasingly complex and diverse. Against the historical
backdrop of universities experiencing a shift from social to economic relevance and
its associated constraints within which universities are operating, they identify
opportunities that allow learners and educators to take ownership of and some sense
of control over their emerging practice, within ever more rapidly changing times. In
Chap. 3, Solbrekke, Englund, Karseth and Beck critique the role of critical thinking
and expand the implied notion of professional responsibility within it to a collective
deliberative communication model and relate this model to educating deliberate
professionals. Solbrekke and colleagues present an argument that professionals in
the 21st century need to be able to engage with the unforeseen and contend that this
requires educating for collective professional responsibility. For them, critical
thinking as an individual capacity is necessary, yet insufficient, for learning and
1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional 11

enacting professional responsibility. They develop a deliberative communication

model for building the necessary collective capability for making nuanced judg-
ments and decisions tailored to individual circumstances.
In Part II, five chapters present ideas for reconceptualising the professional. They
provide examples from as broad groups as cultural intermediaries, environmental
activism, organisational leaders, artisans and university-community partnerships.
These chapters critique the definition and roles of professionals. In the first chapter
of this part, Roberge argues that as universities develop their business model around
technical problem solving and market demands, they lose focus of the very defini-
tion of learning. He ponders the question of how to help others to think for them-
selves in this age of mounting complexity. He discusses this complex situation as an
increased blurring of boundaries between culture, technology, politics and the econ-
omy. Responding to this question he conceptualises what the deliberate professional
is and does, and what this means for educating students in social sciences, the arts
and humanities. In contrast, the following two chapters explore what can be learned
about deliberate professionalism from groups outside of university education and
professions. Flowers explores how the pedagogical approaches of educating the
deliberate professional can build capacity for environmental activists’ practices in
Australia. Although environmental activists are not strictly speaking members of a
profession—and as they do this work unpaid—Flowers asserts that they share those
elements of professionalism with members of professions that are concerned with
improving society and upholding standards of high quality. He critiques tribalistic
and ad hoc approaches in environmental activism and engages with Mintzberg and
Waters (1985) notions of deliberate and emergent strategies for organisational
change. He concludes by identifying broad structural strategies and trans-
disciplinary approaches to foster more deliberate practices in environmental activ-
ism. Vann reconceptualises organisational leadership by discussing soul and
spirituality from cultural, epistemological and spiritual perspectives. He questions
whether we have lost our moral compass in an unbridled pursuit of materialism.
Vann uses Joseph Campbell’s (Lefkowitz, 1990) mythic structure of the hero’s jour-
ney to develop his thinking about deliberate leadership. He outlines a relationship
between the practice of deliberate leadership, a sense of organisational soul and the
impacts on a modern university. He concludes that deliberate professionals are well
placed to lead the university of the future. Nicholls uses the historical figure of the
artisan to critique current university healthcare education programs. Drawing on
Arendt (1958) and Foucault’s lifelong work, he argues that the artisan represents an
example of a practitioner who is self-aware, critical, committed to action and com-
fortable with the complexity and ambiguity of healthcare today, the very model of
the deliberate professional. In the final chapter of this part, Cooper and Orrell
explore the challenges of partnerships between university and community in prepar-
ing students for practice. They contend that the quality of university-community
engagement is a significant factor in educating deliberate, rather than accidental,
professionals. They conclude that a focus on shared interests and purpose in engag-
ing with ethical, economic, political, cultural and technological issues faced by
professional practice in the community will foster and educate deliberate
professionals.
12 F. Trede and C. McEwen

Part III, entitled ‘Rethinking practice education’, comprises five chapters focus-
ing on course, curriculum and pedagogical designs in university education that
strengthen the capacity for educating deliberate professionals. This part provides
good practice examples of how approaches to educating the deliberate professional
fit into professional university education. They illustrate what a pedagogy of delib-
erateness might look like in different educational contexts drawn from Norway,
South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. In the first chapter of this part, Nerland,
drawing on a larger Norwegian project that examines the induction of students in the
professional cultures of law, engineering, and school teaching, argues that students
can learn to take deliberate stances within their chosen future profession when they
are also acquainted with shared knowledge and conventions for practice. Without
this deeper understanding, deliberateness in practice is not enabled. Drawing on
Knorr Cetina’s work, Nerland contends that knowledge accounts for dynamic and
multiple dimensions and is produced in distinct ways in different expert cultures.
Examining doubt and articulating arguments for decisions are important conditions
for deliberate practices. The following chapter by McLean and Walker presents a
discussion of what a capabilities approach can add to educating the deliberate pro-
fessional. With a focus on social justice education, they cast ‘deliberate profession-
alism’ as ‘public-good professionalism’, underpinned by Sen. Drawing on their
project that collaboratively generated a Public-Good Professional Capabilities Index
and involved five professional education departments in three South African univer-
sities, McLean and Walker reflect on broader complexities, problems and questions
related to social change and to university-based professional education. They con-
clude that the capabilities approach offers a contextualised, collaborative and feasi-
ble vehicle for designing and evaluating curriculum and pedagogy for educating the
deliberate professional. Boud’s chapter provides a critique of current course designs
of universities and calls for a more deliberate focus on practice. He argues that
designs with heavy focus on knowledge risk trapping students in current knowledge
without the capacity to move beyond it. Boud discusses the features of practice and
highlights the need for better alignment between learning, teaching and assessment
approaches and strategies in order to educate practitioners that are deliberate profes-
sionals. Harland explores the notion of slow time, which he contends is required to
educate the deliberate professional. In contrast to the relentlessly quickening life in
academia, he advocates for slow scholarship, because it provides opportunities for
deliberative modes of thinking, learning and deliberate action. Drawing on his case
study in a New Zealand university, Harland concludes that slow pedagogy and slow
scholarship educates deliberate professionals, because it empowers students as criti-
cal thinkers with deep insight into learning, knowledge and values. In the final chap-
ter of this part, Higgs compares the deliberate professional with practitioners who
have come to own their practice model. Drawing on her empirical work, she exam-
ines the development and ownership of professional practice models at all stages of
a career path, reflecting on the insights of practitioners. She argues that individuals
who have a capacity for reflexivity and coherence in their way of practising develop
their practice model throughout their career. She compares the concept of the delib-
erate professional with professional artistry arguing that both require reflexivity,
1 Scoping the Deliberate Professional 13

flexibility and awareness of practice contexts. She concludes that a deep knowing of
self in practice is an intricate blending of deliberate knowing and higher-order
understandings realised through authenticity, humanity, ethicality, professional art-
istry and practice wisdom.
The final part of this book, ‘Panoptic musings’, consists of two chapters: a mani-
festo and the conclusion. In the chapter on ‘The deliberate professional in the digital
age’, Winter provides a summary statement for the concept of the deliberate profes-
sional in the tradition of critical theory and pedagogy. He uses the digital age and
digital practices as the context for critique. Drawing on several theories (e.g.
Marcuse, Beck, Deuze and Giddens), he argues that entrepreneurial thinking and
behaviour is affecting the formation of our identity and practices and are increas-
ingly dependent on global information flows. He explores what successful prac-
tices, whether in professions or in activism, might look like under digital conditions.
He argues that participating in culture is more and more defined in relation to the
ways in which we are connected in every aspect of our life and through social media.
Winter concludes that it is paramount to critically deliberate on actual conditions in
every practice in order to better understand what is probable, possible and impos-
sible and to help us act accordingly. In the final chapter, McEwen and Trede bring
together what it takes to become a deliberate professional and emphasise the need
to move beyond being a reflective and deliberative practitioner towards a new form
of professionalism that embraces deliberateness in education and practice.

Conclusion

With this book, we wish to redress the balance of possibilities away from the voca-
tionalisation of university education, the erosion of pedagogy, a narrow application
of competency standards and measurable learning outcomes, as well as the reactive
and often unreflected use of digital technology, by building a case in defence of
pedagogical ideas of awareness raising, creative and critical thinking and deliberate
action. Drawing on theoretical and empirical research, authors in this book critique
the managerialism approach to university education, reconceptualise professional
responsibility and professionalism beyond a profession-specific view and suggest
possibilities for more action- and participatory-oriented future practices.

References

Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). La noblesse d’état: Grandes écoles et esprit de corps. Paris: Les Editions de
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