Resumen de Gendered professional projects and precarious work: Dental therapists in the UK National Health Service
BACKGROUND: This paper is concerned with dental therapists, a largely female profession working in the UK. Their extended scope of practice means that potentially they threaten the profession of dentistry.
RESEARCH QUESTION: Much has been written by sociologists on the subject of professional boundaries and (gendered) professional projects. How can sociologists understand the impact of changes to the scope of work ina largely female profession and how does this add to what we already know? METHODS: Interviews with professionals (dentists and dental therapists) and patients (n=51) Theoretical framework: gendered professional projects (Witz), precarious work (Vosko, Standing) FINDING: We found struggles for territory between two professional groups studied, as would be predicted by the sociology of the professions literature. However, we also found that the increase in labour supply of dentists (from home and overseas sources) has influenced power relationships and professional status in dental health care, to the detriment of dental therapy as a profession. Linked to this we find that dental therapists are engaged in precarious work, defined as work that is uncertain, with limited entitlements and benefits. We need, therefore, to consider professional projects in the context of the changing nature of work and employment relations in the twenty first century.
In particular, we show how developments in the international labourmarket and legislative programmes which regulate work across national boundaries can have major implications for professional projects. Traditional sociology of professions approaches (Larson 1977; Witz 1992) need to be supplemented with perspectives which acknowledge trends in the international labour market and legislative projects which regulate work across national boundaries (Vosko 2011). Whilst migrant status may disadvantage workers (Vosko 2011), we findthat gender is more important than this in influencing professional status.
