Deprofessionalization of a female occupation: Challenges for the sociology of professions

Abstract

This article argues that Norwegian public health nurses, after a long period of professionalization, have recently undergone a process of deprofessionalization. Public health nurses’ jurisdiction has become heavily circumscribed. They have lost duties linked with power and respect in the local community and they have lost monopoly on duties originally ascribed to the profession. Despite these changes, this study indicates a conspicuous lack of open disputes, conflicts or demands centred on jurisdiction and jurisdictional claims. In other words, the manner in which public health nurses cope with recent changes in their job structure does not seem to follow an easily explainable pattern in terms of prevailing sociological theories on professions. It is argued that the sociology of professions needs to develop theories that can explain why deprofessionalization sometimes occurs without resistance.