• Replies 15 replies
  • Subscribers 3 subscribers
  • Views 6651 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related

Does professional citizenship resonate with you?

Lizzie O'Brien

So, you think you’re a professional? And most of us do. Think we’re professionals. We get to work on time, roll up our sleeves, coach colleagues, advise the business, fight fires; balancing the needs of workers and organisations at the same time. And we go home. To our friends and loved ones, to the gym, to the pub, to the cinema.

But if we’re professionals, do our responsibilities start and end with our day job? Do we have a duty to use our unique skills to help others? How can we go beyond our roles while balancing our work, family and other busy life commitments? These ideas sit at the heart of professional citizenship, which is described by the University of Minnesota as 'an identity: seeing oneself first as a citizen with special expertise working alongside other citizens with their own special expertise in order to solve community problems that require everyone’s effort.’

So, what do you think? How can we be better professional citizens? And should we be? Does the concept resonate with you? Please share your thoughts - the good, the bad and the ugly!

Parents
  • As Teresa said - an interesting concept. However, I believe nothing like this can ever be achieved without a degree of societal expectation which could be interpreted as pressure or curtailment of individual liberty.

    Friends on visiting Germany were favourably impressed with the lack of littering but at the same time found it odd that pedestrians waited at a red (for them) traffic light if the road was clear. But these are two sides of the same coin - both are frowned upon, jay walking is a criminal offence and strangers will take issue with you if you try and cross the road without waiting for the green man. In Norway, if you have children at primary school, the teachers will apparently at regular intervals put children in groups for play dates and their parents and siblings are also expected to turn up. So every child has play dates with all the other children. This is perceived to be good for the community, and I understand there is degree of societal pressure to ensure it happens and it is "expected" of the parents to turn up. In other countries, religion might still play a big part in shaping expectations, I imagine there might still be fewer people coming out as gay in Italy than the UK?

    My view is that something that is "good" for society or community almost always seems to involve some sort of pressure needing to be exerted, be it by church, family, bourgeois expectations... There is a price to pay, in the form of individual liberty. EG well-designed cycle infrastructure - massively beneficial to society but would involve car drivers relinquishing some of their individual control over road space for the good of society. They will never do this voluntarily. I regard this country at fairly libertarian so I cannot see anyone having the appetite to exert any pressure to ensure "society" functions better than it does. Personally, i would be happy to adapt to many concepts of good citizenship but they would need to apply to everyone without exception, we should "all be in this together".
Reply
  • As Teresa said - an interesting concept. However, I believe nothing like this can ever be achieved without a degree of societal expectation which could be interpreted as pressure or curtailment of individual liberty.

    Friends on visiting Germany were favourably impressed with the lack of littering but at the same time found it odd that pedestrians waited at a red (for them) traffic light if the road was clear. But these are two sides of the same coin - both are frowned upon, jay walking is a criminal offence and strangers will take issue with you if you try and cross the road without waiting for the green man. In Norway, if you have children at primary school, the teachers will apparently at regular intervals put children in groups for play dates and their parents and siblings are also expected to turn up. So every child has play dates with all the other children. This is perceived to be good for the community, and I understand there is degree of societal pressure to ensure it happens and it is "expected" of the parents to turn up. In other countries, religion might still play a big part in shaping expectations, I imagine there might still be fewer people coming out as gay in Italy than the UK?

    My view is that something that is "good" for society or community almost always seems to involve some sort of pressure needing to be exerted, be it by church, family, bourgeois expectations... There is a price to pay, in the form of individual liberty. EG well-designed cycle infrastructure - massively beneficial to society but would involve car drivers relinquishing some of their individual control over road space for the good of society. They will never do this voluntarily. I regard this country at fairly libertarian so I cannot see anyone having the appetite to exert any pressure to ensure "society" functions better than it does. Personally, i would be happy to adapt to many concepts of good citizenship but they would need to apply to everyone without exception, we should "all be in this together".
Children
No Data