Civic Vs. Disciplinary Professionalism

The cornerstone of civic and disciplinary professionalism is responsibility.

Professionalism is both a theory and practice that takes many forms, but one way to make a distinction among kinds of professionalism is to distinguish between civic professionalism and disciplinary professionalism.

Differences

Civic professionalism implies a much broader context than does disciplinarian professionalism. While disciplinarian professionalism consists in defining and fulfilling a set of ethical standards imposed by a given profession such as law, medicine, or teaching, civic professionalism speaks to a broader set of social and political objectives and contexts.

Functions

The purpose of disciplinary professionalism is to create certain ethical standards by which any given profession's practitioners must be held accountable insofar as these standards are limited to circumstances directly relating to the profession. A doctor, for instance, is not free to disclose medical records to whomever she wishes with no justifiable reason. The purpose of civic professionalism, on the other hand, is to broaden the responsibility of a given professional through social, institutional, and political reform.

Speculation

It can reasonably be argued that civic professionalism is merely a component of disciplinary professionalism in that most professions such as medicine and law inherently fulfill any civic duties by nature of the profession, but it can also be said that educated professional must bear larger burdens of civic responsibility. Many members of Congress are either lawyers or doctors.

References

• Rethinking Teachers' Professional Responsibilities: Towards a Civic Professionalism