I. Characteristics of a (the) profession

A. Service

1. Service is the reason for the profession's existence
2. What professionals are trying to accomplish, and on whose behalf -- the ends or goals toward which the profession's work is directed

B. Relationship to Clients

3. Principles of service override personal reaction
4. Understanding client needs
5. Inspire confidence in clients

C. Specialized body of knowledge

6. Theory
7. Knowledge
8. Skills, practical applications
9. Standardized procedures, routines, systems

D. Autonomy

10. The profession as the definer of its service and the developer and/or specifier of appropriate knowledge required of those who provide it
11. Profession defines what constitutes good and bad service; outsiders snot considered appropriate judges
12. Schools control inflow of labor into profession (through both admission practices and through graduation [who is allowed to graduate])
13. Profession as regulator and judge of professional conduct
14. Profession resists encroachments on its activities
15. Standards for staffing (for instance, number of nurses per shift) set by the profession
16. Practitioner has authority to make and execute decisions consistent with the occupation's knowledge base. Assumes responsibility for accuracy of own work. There is a risk of mistakes and inadequate knowledge. Professionals assume responsibility for mistakes and deal with them in a way that protects the authority of the profession.
17. Professional judgment -- [professionals make decisions which affect the welfare of clients
18. Objectivity. Not too personally involved. The universal (generalizable) or theoretical element of the knowledge base provides the basis for professional detachment (applying principles rather than getting emotionally involved in particular cases)
19. Vertical differentiation in the semiprofessions causes difference in authority and prestige -- as opposed to the full professions (doctors, for instance) where all have more or less the same authority

E. Ethics

20. Ethical principles of the profession
21. Personal integrity

II. The work of the profession

F. The nature of the work

22. Tasks performed, duties, responsibilities, decision-making
23. The performance of tasks that apply the specialized skills learned in professional education
24. Contemporary social issues related to the profession [added from conference content; not derived from literature]

G. The profession as a social entity

25. A profession has its own social processes
26. Norms about how to approach and carry out work
27. Profession rewards conforming to norms and values of the profession
28. Specialized language; jargon
29. Beliefs [other than values]
30. Behaviors [other than for approaching and carrying out work]
31. Lifestyle
32. Professional community has a symbolic life. Insider jokes.
33. Varied/alternative/competing groups and interests within the profession

H. The professional's work environment

34. Awareness of complex power relationships within the employing organization
35. Relationships with superiors, subordinates, and co-professionals
36. Understanding of society, profession's place in society

I. Professional colleagues -- the reference group

37. Acquire an appreciation of the occupation as a collectivity
38. Understanding of one's place in the hierarchy of the profession
39. Professional literature
40. Association memberships
41. Association conferences

III. Professional education

J. Systematized body of knowledge

42. Formal educational requirements
43. Theory
44. Broad knowledge base
45. Technical skills
46. Knowledge of standardized procedures and systems
47. Students see educational activities as important if they see them to be relevant to a significant part of the work of the profession
48. Successful learning requires the integration of classroom with clinical experience

K. Knowledge of areas outside the professional domain

49. Basic academic disciplines: social sciences, natural sciences, medical science, etc.
50. Value of new frames of reference, fresh conceptualizations
51. Imagination
52. Artistic activities
53. Applications
54. Fantasy

L. Scientific component -- research expanding the knowledge base of the profession

55. Originality of thought
56. Research ability
57. Scientific curiosity
58. Scholarly concern for expanding knowledge base of the profession

IV. Immediate educational setting

M. Process of learning

59. Student may try to "learn it all" to overcome feelings of vulnerability, uncertainty of own knowledge and abilities
60. May temporarily shift from the goals of service with which entered professional training to more short-term student goals of clearing hurdles. May develop cynicism as a reaction to the conflict between lay (student) and professional goals.
61. Colleague group is emphasized in professional education through readings of their articles and books, association memberships, emphasis on reading professional journals
62. Students evaluate their own performance and competence; dismiss criticism of professors.
63. Cognitive learning

N. School environment

64. Program requirements (specific to that school)
65. University/school resources and facilities
66. Complaints: the fellowship of suffering
67. Attention and recognition from faculty
68. Exchange of ideas with faculty
69. Exchange of ideas with peers
70. Sense of community
71. The more a unit provides a setting and resources for activities meeting a variety of its members' needs, the more likely it is to be an inclusive locus of their interactions and to insulate them from outside contacts. (Contributes to the socialization process.)
72. School rewards conforming to norms/values of the profession

O. Role models

73. May be positive
74. May be negative (how not to do it)
75. Students may select traits to emulate, not the entire personality
76. Faculty
77. Supervisors in clinical experience
78. Practitioners

P. Peer group

79. May provide support
80. Students further along in program provide "stage" models -- "what happens next?"
81. Peer group as comparative reference group -- peers used as a standard by which to determine how well one is doing

V. Professional identity

Q. Motivation

82. Desire for membership in the profession
83. Develop deep and life-long commitment to practices and life modes of the profession
84. Structural aspects of professional education make it costly for students to abandon the occupational role (loss of time and money invested, parents' expectations, etc.)

R. Student characteristics

85. The values students bright to their education limit and direct the development of professional orientations (i.e., they are not blank slates)
86. Need to link faculty values to existing student values if students are to come to accept faculty (professional) value system
87. Aspirations
88. Attraction to the occupation
89. Awareness of own reactions so can control them and behave as prescribed by the profession
90. Administrative ability
91. Physical characteristics: accuracy, quickness, agility

S. Change from nonprofessional to professional identity and status

92. Simultaneously student and fledgling member of the field
93. Transition from insider to outsider; from the lay view to the occupational view of the service provided
94. Awareness that there exists a lay person's view of the profession
95. Understanding of self as an adult in a period of transition
96. Development of orientation to own place in the occupation (as opposed to generalized conception of the role. Understanding of oneself as a practicing professional
97. Need to reconcile one's image of the profession with one's image of oneself
98. As perform in a role and identify with it, other roles (other professions) become less possible
99. Come to use the professional title for oneself and to think of oneself as a professional -- usually happens before graduation
100. Perceive that others expect one to perform the professional role
101. Do in fact perform the professional role
102. Profession becomes an object of sentiment; this is bred through interactions and common experiences while in school
103. Internalizing the norms of the profession
104. Relationship of work to nonwork roles
105. Awareness of labor market
106. Sense of future income, hours

T. Awareness of process of change

107. Sense of mastery crucial to development of commitment and a specific professional identity
108. Group of students is a socializing agent
109. Students educated as cohorts; breeds collective ways of doing things
110. Responses to other students' behavior is part of the socializing process
111. Receive ideas, clues, or direct pressure to adopt attitudes and behaviors
112. Supervisors in practicum experiences need to let student know that their work is facilitated by what the student does in her training role (helps generate "sentiment" for the occupation)
113. Sense of knowing something outsiders don't know
114. Being treated as an expert by others
115. Coaching (by faculty, clinical supervisors)

Extra-professional topics (derived from conference context)

Favorite quotations
Sports
Word play
Anecdotes
Folklore
Food
Moving
Holidays
Contemporary social issues