This paper describes how medical students in an innovative educational setting adopt a cloak of competence as a critical part of the professionalizi~tion process. Faced with inordinate and variable expectations to develop and display competence, students professionalize by distancing themselves from those they interact with and by adopting and manipulating the symbols of their new status. Students were observed to engage in impression management to convince others and themselves that they are competent and confident to facethe immense responsibilities of their privileged role. The data were collected by means of participant observation and interviews.'We wish to express our gratitude to Howard for their helpful suggestions. We are grateful to the Canada Council and McMaster University for their generous support of the research.

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Dans l'article, on parle du profilage racial que les policiers nient utiliser. D'après des entrevues menées auprès des membres du service de police de Hamilton, on suggère que le concept d'une sous-culture policière offre la toile de fond la plus crédible pour comprendre ce qu'on appelle communément le « profilage racial ». Vu de cette manière, le profilage racial est perçu par les agents de police comme un élément d'une série d'activités qui définissent leur travail. Dans ce contexte, le profilage se produit même sans les agents de police pouvant être favorables aux préjugés et à la discrimination contre les personnes de minorités visibles. De plus, cette sous-culture fournit aux services de police une technique de digression efficace et convaincante pour neutraliser les allégations selon lesquelles les institutions policières n'ont pas réussi à éliminer les pratiques racistes de leurs agents.Mots clés: profilage racial, service de police, sous-culture policière, racisme This paper examines the meaning of police denials of racial profiling. Based on interviews with members of Hamilton Police Service, we suggest that the concept of a police subculture offers the most credible backdrop for understanding what is commonly termed racial profiling. When contextualized in this manner, racial profiling is perceived by the police as one in a series of activities that define their work. We argue that, when seen in the context of police subcultures, such profiling occurs even in the absence of officers who may be inclined to prejudice or discrimination against members of visible minorities. As well, that subculture provides police with a powerful and convincing deflection rhetoric to neutralize claims that the policing institution has failed to root out the racist practices of its officers.

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This paper applies dramaturgical analysis to the study of professional socialization in an innovative medical school. Using concepts from the theater, professionalization is seen as critically involving performances before legitimating audiences. The data were collected by means of participant observation and interviews of a cohort of students as they proceeded through the professionalizing career. Good acting demands that you are convincing in your part. The audience must be willing to take part in a ritual, in which you represent, say, Hamlet. You must be able to sustain this representation convincingly: that is to say, you must consistently satisfy the audience's imagination and never outrage its acceptance of the fact that yours is a convincing, or consistently credible, Hamlet,…or whatever character you are impersonating (Guthrie, 1971:11).