Professional Identity as Learning Processes in Life Histories. Roskilde University Life History Project Paper.

The question of how to theorize the subjective side of work within a life history perspective was explored. The findings of a study on engineers' subjective recognition of their lives, their education and jobs, and their life perspectives and the findings of a study of continuing education within a number of white-collar and semiprofessional work domains were cited as supporting the existence of a close interrelationship between professional learning and personal development. It was argued that, within the theory of modernization, professionalization appears as a moment in rationalization of society. The ongoing professionalization within public human services in the Nordic countries and elsewhere was used to illustrate how professional learning leads to personal development. The evolution of various human service occupations from "craft-like" occupations to professions was shown to parallel the process of development of a new identity during which individuals who had viewed themselves as individuals performing labor for a wage began viewing themselves as individuals in a career or "position." The concept of identity was discussed in relation to Ute Volmerg's conception of basic socialization as a production of identity, Erikson's cultural psychology theory, and Lorenzer's theory of socialization, as well as in relation to the concepts of contradiction and ambivalence. (Contains 27 references.) (MN)