This study examines the processes associated with the institutionalization of marital and familial expertise in professional groups. Taxonomic, monopoly and systemic models of professionalization are delineated and applied to the historical development of the mental health professions and their claims of expertise over marital and familial problems from the late 1800s through the 1970s. A central focus throughout the historical analysis is how the relative position of a professional group within the system of mental health professions affected their jurisdictional (or lack of) claims of marital and familial expertise. / Building upon, yet critically extending, Andrew Abbott's systemic approach, the dissertation concludes that studies of professionalization should be reformulated in four ways: (1) the unit of analysis should shift from the internal development of an independent professional group to the larger task area and competing claims of expertise over the task area, (2) that spatial relations of professional groups must be given theoretical priority over theorizations of temporal order, (3) that the historical development of professional claims of expertise must be understood as a matter of complex conjunctures of intra-, inter-, and transprofessional forces, and (4) the study of professionalization must take place in a context within which the sociology of professions is subsidiary to the sociology of expertise. A theoretical outline of the sociological study of the institutionalization of expertise is developed in the concluding chapter. / Evidence of claims of marital and familial expertise made by marriage counselors, family therapists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, counseling psychologists, social workers, pastoral counselors, lawyers, and physicians were gathered from a variety of sources: journals, books, newsletters, original association records, and correspondence. A major source of data includes all of the available original records of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the largest professional association for marriage and family therapists. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1337. / Major Professor: Jill Quadagno. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77671 |
| Contributors | Knapp, Stan J., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 294 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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