Editing Profession (section)

=== System of professions ===
[[Andrew Abbott (sociologist)|Andrew Abbott]] constructed a sociological model of professions in his book ''The System of Professions''. Abbott views professions as having ''jurisdiction'' over the right to carry out tasks with different possession vying for control of jurisdiction over tasks.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Abbott|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWzRAgAAQBAJ|title=The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor|date=2014-02-07|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-18966-6|language=en|access-date=4 May 2021|archive-date=6 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230306085822/https://books.google.com/books?id=WWzRAgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

A profession often possesses an ''expert knowledge system'' which is distinct from the profession itself. This abstract system is often not of direct practical use but is rather optimized for logical consistency and rationality, and to some degree acts to increase the status of the entire profession. One profession may seek control of another profession's jurisdiction by challenging it at this academic level. Abbott argues that in the 1920s the [[Psychiatry|psychiatric]] profession tried to challenge the legal profession for control over society's response to criminal behavior. Abbott argues the formalization of a profession often serves to make a jurisdiction easier or harder to protect from other jurisdictions: general principles making it harder for other professions to gain jurisdiction over one area, clear boundaries preventing encroachment, fuzzy boundaries making it easier for one profession to take jurisdiction over other tasks.

Professions may expand their jurisdiction by other means. Lay education on the part of professions as in part an attempt to expand jurisdiction by imposing a particular understanding on the world (one in which the profession has expertise). He terms this sort of jurisdiction ''public jurisdiction''. ''Legal jurisdiction'' is a monopoly created by the state legislation, as applies to law in many nations.