Liminal practice and reflection in professional education: police education and medical education

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of how liminality relates to the facilitation of reflective practice in professional education. Liminality refers to sites and positions that exhibit 'in-betweenness', or bordering positions, that might draw together different institutional conditions. The present project aims to examine the role of liminality in professional educational practice with a specific focus upon how liminality may support student reflection. Using a qualitative and comparative research approach, we analysed interview and observational data from police education and a medical programme. Observations and interviews explore practices of collective interactional (and hence observable) reflection at sites that are characterised by 'betweenness' of work and education. Findings indicate that situations that afford reflection are characterised by a sense of undeterminedness in terms of either the subject, space or activity. Thus, we conclude that there is some evidence that liminality affords reflection, but also that liminality and underminedness are fragile states that are not easily organised in a professional education curriculum. ARTICLE HISTORY

Policewomen’s perceptions of occupational culture in the changing policing environment of England and Wales: A study in liminality

“…There was some evidence of the reassertion of masculinity among this group in that they were the most likely to witness sexualised joking and banter and 7 of 10 complained of gendered stereotypical tasking. This differed from findings by Rantatalo and Lindberg (2018) when examining Swedish police officer students. They found a state which could be characterised as transitory (i.e.…”

“…Finally, our respondents were established police officers who were reflecting on change by comparing their present experiences with those of the past. We were not looking at the new intake of student officers who might be in the transitory liminal state reported by Rantatalo and Lindberg (2018). Nonetheless, the authors believe the results generate plausible hypotheses to be confirmed by further analysis.…”

“…Moreover, some elements of policing as craft are still taught in accordance to male normative practice such as driving or self-defence. Rantatalo and Lindberg (2018) found women to be outsiders to these professional norms, whereas male officers 'naturally take their place' in such activities because they are male coded. In the present study, one grouping of our policewomen respondents characterised their current lived experience consistent with the preliminal state and, as such, are more likely to suffer discriminatory and harassing experiences.…”

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“…Posisi liminal yang dialami oleh performativitas dalam praktik pembelajaran musik berbasis teknologi digital terkait dengan bergesernya aspek pedagogis (Kladder, 2020;Rantatalo & Lindberg, 2018). Perkembangan teknologi digital yang cepat tidak diimbangi oleh kecepatan perkembangan aspek pedagogis.…”

A liminal approach to parents in leadership positions in schools with students of high socioeconomic background in Israel

“…According to Turner (1969), individuals experience liminality when they are situated within a blend of structures, i.e., hierarchical and differentiation along with non-structural attributes, i.e., a break with the roles, routines and constraints of normative reality. Thus, liminality draws together different institutional conditions that contain overlaps of formal and informal dimensions, or a creative combination of institutional and anti-institutional elements (Lindsay, 2010;Rantatalo and Lindberg, 2018). Recently, liminality is regarded as a permanent position and as an "ongoing state of affairs" of everyday life … that is "neither this nor that" (Söderlund and Borg, 2018, p. 887), which provides an understanding of the human experiences under the conditions of the modern society and late modernity (Beck, 2000;Turner, 1977).…”