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SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF PROFESSIONS 147

attractive and successful research field, but recently published on subjects as diverse as
some questions persist which could be auctioneers (Quemin, 1997), nursing auxil-
important for the future of this field. iaries (Arborio, 2002) and chartered account-
It is important to emphasize that the con- ants in a globalized context (Ramirez, 2005). At
tinuing dominance of the interactionist para- the same time, the specific professional cate-
digm is uncertain. In the sociology of gory of the ‘cadres’ has been studied by
professional groups additional and stronger researchers who link it with new themes such
links need to be established with other theo- as unemployment (Pochic, 1999), or with the
retical perspectives. If these links are not increasing influence of managerial rationality
made, then, at the next ‘scientific revolution’, in such fields as social work (Chéronnet, 2005).
the sociology of the professions could In sum, conflict was the dominant per-
decline again along with the outdated para- spective in the scientific field. It was, how-
digm. It is surprising to see how this almost ever, implicit, in a latent state, between the
monopolistic position of interactionism paradigms of the class-focused sociology
masks or hides other possible approaches. of work and the interactionist paradigms of
For instance, the neo-Weberian authors, who the sociology of the professions. The weak-
have been the most popular in the sociology ening of the first seems to have left more
of professions internationally, are hardly ever space for the development of the second. The
cited in France. Moreover, this current inter- sociology of the professions is sometimes
actionist orthodoxy seems to want to deny seen as challenging the well-established soci-
some important French schools such as ology of work, but it is more important to see
Bourdieu’s work or Foucault’s theories of these two fields as complementary and as
knowledge and power which are prominent creating and facilitating additional links with
in international theorizing. It would be other domains, such as the sociologies of
regrettable if the rediscovery of the stimulat- organizations, education, health, law, culture,
ing American interactionist school of the arts and sport, at national and international
1950s tended to isolate French sociology levels.
both from more recent Anglo-American and
international approaches as well as from
other French sources. In addition, a sociolog-
ical field also needs to be present in sociolog- SOCIOLOGY OF THE PROFESSIONS
ical curricula and this teaching has to be IN SPAIN
helped by textbooks and manuals. There is
little available about sociology of the profes- Similar theoretical shifts, changes in key
sions in teaching materials, and only one concepts and chronological developments
textbook has been published in France have been apparent also in Spanish sociolog-
(Dubar and Tripier, 1998). ical research on professional groups. An
The recent development of this field needs early focus on theoretical functionalism
to be reinforced and we can find in the diver- resulted in the production of mainly descrip-
sity and creativity of young researchers many tive studies of the occupational work of par-
reasons to think that this development will ticular occupational groups. Here the
continue. As proof of this vitality, the net- emphasis tended to be on the contribution of
work on the sociology of the professions, particular groups of workers and the impor-
recently created in the national Association tance of their work. A key text, Martin-
Française de Sociologie (AFS), has grown Moreno and de Miguel which constituted a
rapidly, so that now it is one of the very milestone in the development of the field in
biggest networks, and many of its partici- Spain, was published in 1982. This book
pants are young researchers and doctoral stu- made a number of interesting observations
dents. There are examples of excellent theses and significant contributions although a clear