Beyond ‘blue-collar professionalism’: Continuity and change in the professionalization of uniformed emergency services work

Abstract

The sociology of professions has so far had limited connections to emergency services occupations. Research on emergency occupations tends to focus on workplace culture and identity, often emphasizing continuity rather than change. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics have their historical roots in manual, technical, or ‘semi-professional’ occupations and their working lives still bear many of the hallmarks of blue-collar, uniformed ‘street-level’ work. But uniformed emergency services—like many other occupations—are increasingly undergoing processes of ‘professionalization’. The organizations in which they are employed and the fields in which they work have undergone significant change and disruption, calling into question the core features, cultures, and duties of these occupations. This article argues that sociology of work on emergency services could be helpfully brought into closer contact with the sociology of professions in order to better understand these changes. It suggests four broad empirical and conceptual domains where meaningful connections can be made between these literatures, namely, leadership and authority; organizational goals and objectives; professional identities; and ‘extreme’ work. Emergency services are evolving in complex directions while retaining certain long-standing and entrenched features. Studying emergency occupations as professions also sheds new light on the changing nature of ‘professionalism’ itself.

Professionalization of crisis management: A case study of local‐level crisis communicators in Sweden

“…In line with Kanter's ideas on collaboration as a way to enhance power resources, we found that the closer a communication officer works to the rescue services, the higher the status of the communication officer. Working closely with blue collar professionals (McCann & Granter, 2019) with high credibility among the public, tends to benefit crisis communicators as they can draw from the emergency services' power resources in crisis preparedness, collaboration and legitimacy. Interestingly enough, relations seem to go both ways as emergency service personnel can also be empowered by becoming more skilful communicators.…”

“…Traditional emergency and rescue service professions such as firefighters, police and prehospital medical care are at the forefront of this development. These operators are “educated and trained to handle crises” (Oscarsson & Danielsson, 2018:225) and have for some time been discussed in terms of professions or collectives of professionalizing individuals (Drabek, 1994; McCann & Granter, 2019). Formal education and training drive this development (Wilson, 1999).…”

Full issue

“…Currently, there is a "participatory turn" (Strandh, 2019, p. 311) in disaster research and policy, which stresses the importance of collaboration between emergency organizations and civil society (McCann & Granter, 2019;McLennan et al, 2016). In disasters, emergency services may be organized into an official disaster response operation (OR), which is "part of the national system of civil protection and preparedness" and which "has a clear organizational structure, is governed by laws and regulations, and takes the form of a workplace, where a number of different actors collaborate in order to respond to the challenges caused by the disaster" (Johansson et al, 2018, p. 3; see Kvarnlöf & Johansson, 2014).…”

Paramedic emotional labour during COVID-19

“…The delineation between this and the concept of emotional labour during the COVID-19 pandemic has been placed in the limelight. Essentially, they belong to the same psychological parameters but, while emotional intelligence is about processing complex information about an emotive response, emotional labour refers to the fact that, in paid employment, personnel are expected by virtue of their professional contracts to behave in a particular manner (McCann and Granter, 2019).…”