In this chapter we elaborate a hermeneutical perspective on professionalism and professional development in the wide range of professions and vocational trainings, which fall under the concern of a University of Applied Sciences (UAS). In a joint research programme of the HU UAS and Utrecht University we aim to unveil and make visible that professionals are continuously making interpretations simply by doing their jobs. Unavoidably, with these interpretations, subjectivity and normativity comes along, setting a moral agenda in the respective professional fields. We show how the more conceptual and philosophical reflections in the humanities at the Academia, is brought in interaction with professional development, vocational education and practice-oriented research at UAS. After this we walk through a number of recently completed or still ongoing research projects in the wide range of professionals in religious education (RE) via general and vocational education to non-educational professions. We end up with six developments or ‘movements’ that are taking place and that can be useful for a better understanding of complexity in vocational education and professions as such, and the imperative for change that is given by this.
This study examines how the contemporary European policy debate addresses the further development of the quality of teacher educators. A classification framework based on the literature on professionalism was used to compare European and Member State policy actions and measures on the quality of teacher educators through an analysis of seven European policy documents and a questionnaire completed by key policy-makers in 16 European countries. The findings show that European Union policy documents pay limited attention to the quality of teacher educators. However, the professionalism of teacher educators receives more policy attention at the level of individual Member States. Most of these policies are part of general policies for higher education teachers, while the initiative lies with governments and teacher education institutes. The role of the professionals themselves in developing policies to strengthen their professionalism seems very limited.
Contemporary social work is subjected to ongoing questions in terms of its effectiveness and accountability. It appears to be problematic for social workers to defend themselves in a proper manner. When they do so, they often seem to rely primarily on a rhetoric of good intentions and are thus unable to constructively asses the underlying principles of their work. These considerations have prompted the research outline that is presented in this paper.
