1. The Extraprofessional Life: Leisure, Retirement and Unemployment.
- Author
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Stebbins, Robert A.
- Subjects
- *
PROFESSIONAL ethics , *UNEMPLOYMENT , *EMPLOYMENT , *ORIENTATION (Religion) , *RECREATION , *SUBCULTURES - Abstract
Professionals have long been known for the special orientation they hold toward their work. This orientation, which may or may not be shared by the majority of the members of a given profession, reaches its broadest expression in a common outlook referred to here as the "spirit of professional work." This work is highly complicated, executed most effectively by practitioners with many years of training and experience. Additionally, the spirit of professional work pervades the work lives of a sufficient number of employed professionals to constitute an important part of their occupational subculture. But even the professional's work life is not uniformly rosy. The excitement of professional work stands out in relief against the boring, mundane tasks also required there from time to time. This article centers not on this dissatisfied segment, however, but on those professionals, whatever their proportion in their profession, for whom the spirit of their work seems to be so powerful that they search for its equivalent in their extraprofessional lives. For this remarkable, albeit relatively rare, orientation is found only in certain kinds of work and, as becomes evident, its equivalent is found only in certain kinds of leisure.
- Published
- 2000
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