Professionals vs. Role professionals: Conceptualising Professionalism Among Teachers of Adults

Similarly to other occupational fields, professionalism in adult education is being affected by rapidsocio-political changes; dissimilarly, however, unfolding the concept of professionalism in adulteducation is more complex due to the vastness of the field itself and its pecualiar features.This contribution revisits traditional models of professionalism through the glasses of a ‘roleprofessionalism’perspective. In doing so, the authors’ main argument is that it is not appropriate toconceptualise adult education as one profession or as one professional field tout court. There existseveral occupations in the field of adult education that position themselves along a continuum.Consequently the authors suggest that professionalization among adult education practitionersshould be assessed in light of the knowledge about adult learning theories practitioners possess, theethical epistemology that guides their behaviour and the degree of trust by the adult learners, ratherthan a restrictive view on the specific occupation they hold.