Telmo H. Caria

To learn and to construct knowledge in the context of work with adult education: a Portuguese case study

Work contexts are frequently referred to as spaces of learning and production of individual and/or collective knowledge. In such contexts specific dynamics are developed which cause the processes of learning and of knowledge production to have particularities. This paper aims at accounting for some dynamics that are associated with those processes, based on the main results of an ethnographic study on the adult educator team of a Portuguese local development association. The research identified ways of working/action rules based on the learning and knowledge production processes in the association. Mutual help, the reformulation and collectivization of practice, reflection in and about the action, and the negotiation of meaning about the practice are some of the mechanisms identified. The study also highlights how those dynamics of knowledge and learning and ways of doing may contribute to a practice which is closer to the needs of the adults to whom this team offers its education and training services.

Social work as a bureaucratic professional labour: an empirical analysis in non-profit organizations in northern Portugal

In the last decade and a half, a new perspective on sociological analysis of professional groups has gradually emerged: professionalism and professionalization are no longer analysed as opposed to bureaucracies. In a previous article, we developed an analytical model in which we theorized a hybrid concept of Bureaucratic Professional Work (BPW), based on a theoretical hypothesis of association between various organizational forms (divisional bureaucracies, professional bureaucracies, neo-bureaucracies and post-bureaucracies) and different types of professional work in social work. Structured interviews were conducted with 63 social work professionals who work in 35 non-profit organizations of social services in northern Portugal. We questioned how these professionals perceive their own work in relation to the level of control and centralization of decisions, the routine of procedures and the predictability of results. We also study how social constraints, the tasks performed and work in multidisciplinary teams vary according to the type of BPW. This allows us to detail the modalities of the BPW and set out exploratory hypotheses for other more extensive quantitative studies as well as complementary studies of a qualitative nature.

Jerarquías de conocimiento y saber professional

The aim of this article is to substantiate, in the sociological point of view, the distinction between the social and cognitive processes that produce knowledge in knowledge abstract systems – KAS – to generate cultural inequality and the micro processes of knowledge usage, which build local and cultural knowledge from common sense. It is circumscribed to this aim a problematization of knowledge usage developed by middle class salaried professional groups, rich in cultural capital but without equivalent symbolical capital, in a capitalist society at risk. In order to achieve this goal, the classical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon and Basil Bernstein (among others) are taken as a basis regarding the limitation of critical and reflexive thinking and the virtues of professional knowledge to support an epistemology of professional practice.El objetivo de este articulo es fundamentar, desde el punto de vista sociologico, la distincion entre los procesos sociales y cognitivos que producen conocimiento en sistemas abstractos de conocimiento -SAC- para generar desigualdad cultural y los microprocesos de uso del conocimiento, que construyen saber local y cultural con base en el sentido comun. Este objetivo se circunscribe a una problematizacion del uso del conocimiento desarrollado por los grupos profesionales asalariados de clase media, ricos en capital cultural, pero sin capital simbolico equivalente, en el ambito de una sociedad capitalista de riesgo. Para este objetivo se cuenta con las contribuciones clasicas de Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon y Basil Bernstein (entre otros) en lo que concierne a las limitaciones del pensamiento critico y reflexivo y a las virtudes del saber profesional para soportar una epistemologia de la practica profesional.

Knowledge hierarchy and professional knowledge

The aim of this article is to substantiate, in the sociological point of view, the distinction between the social and cognitive processes that produce knowledge in knowledge abstract systems – KAS – to generate cultural inequality and the micro processes of knowledge usage, which build local and cultural knowledge from common sense. It is circumscribed to this aim a problematization of knowledge usage developed by middle class salaried professional groups, rich in cultural capital but without equivalent symbolical capital, in a capitalist society at risk. In order to achieve this goal, the classical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon and Basil Bernstein (among others) are taken as a basis regarding the limitation of critical and reflexive thinking and the virtues of professional knowledge to support an epistemology of professional practice.El objetivo de este articulo es fundamentar, desde el punto de vista sociologico, la distincion entre los procesos sociales y cognitivos que producen conocimiento en sistemas abstractos de conocimiento -SAC- para generar desigualdad cultural y los microprocesos de uso del conocimiento, que construyen saber local y cultural con base en el sentido comun. Este objetivo se circunscribe a una problematizacion del uso del conocimiento desarrollado por los grupos profesionales asalariados de clase media, ricos en capital cultural, pero sin capital simbolico equivalente, en el ambito de una sociedad capitalista de riesgo. Para este objetivo se cuenta con las contribuciones clasicas de Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon y Basil Bernstein (entre otros) en lo que concierne a las limitaciones del pensamiento critico y reflexivo y a las virtudes del saber profesional para soportar una epistemologia de la practica profesional.

HIERARQUIAS DE CONHECIMENTO E SABER PROFISSIONAL

The aim of this article is to substantiate, in the sociological point of view, the distinction between the social and cognitive processes that produce knowledge in knowledge abstract systems – KAS – to generate cultural inequality and the micro processes of knowledge usage, which build local and cultural knowledge from common sense. It is circumscribed to this aim a problematization of knowledge usage developed by middle class salaried professional groups, rich in cultural capital but without equivalent symbolical capital, in a capitalist society at risk. In order to achieve this goal, the classical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon and Basil Bernstein (among others) are taken as a basis regarding the limitation of critical and reflexive thinking and the virtues of professional knowledge to support an epistemology of professional practice.El objetivo de este articulo es fundamentar, desde el punto de vista sociologico, la distincion entre los procesos sociales y cognitivos que producen conocimiento en sistemas abstractos de conocimiento -SAC- para generar desigualdad cultural y los microprocesos de uso del conocimiento, que construyen saber local y cultural con base en el sentido comun. Este objetivo se circunscribe a una problematizacion del uso del conocimiento desarrollado por los grupos profesionales asalariados de clase media, ricos en capital cultural, pero sin capital simbolico equivalente, en el ambito de una sociedad capitalista de riesgo. Para este objetivo se cuenta con las contribuciones clasicas de Pierre Bourdieu, Boaventura Sousa Santos, Donald Schon y Basil Bernstein (entre otros) en lo que concierne a las limitaciones del pensamiento critico y reflexivo y a las virtudes del saber profesional para soportar una epistemologia de la practica profesional.

O efeito de um terreno com professores na teoria e na formação do etnógrafo

This article discusses the use and meaning that teachers in the context of their work, or could attach allocate the abstract knowledge they had gained access to their processes of formal education.

Poder e reflexividade em ciência: revisão crítica do Science de la science de Pierre Bourdieu

This text aims at being both a recension and a critical comment to Pierre Bourdieu’s last work, Science de la science et reflexivite . We begin by making a synthesis of this author’s main critical contributions on the 1980’s and 1990’s studies in Sociology of Science. Next, we approach Bourdieu’s main rationalist and historical thesis on the understanding of the scientific field in general. In the final part of the text we introduce some critical arguments to Bourdieu’s formulations, emphasizing the field theory’s limitation to explain the scientific practice in non-central countries, the globalization processes of science, and the scientific reflexivity’s self-reforming ability.