Educating deliberate professionals: Beyond reflective and deliberative practitioners

Abstract

With this chapter, we highlight contributing authors’ insights into what it means to educate the deliberate professional. We concisely discuss the authors’ common understanding that there is a need to reconcile critique (thinking), participation (doing) and moral responsibility (relating to others) in professional practice and professional education. We also review the book’s main threads: the critique of the current context within which professional education is delivered at university and professional practice is carried out in workplaces; and the alternative view of a professional practice and professional education that addresses and redresses the imbalance between technical know-how, moral stance and collective action. We conclude by considering the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead in further implementing this concept, especially at organisational and societal levels.