Donald A. Schon

De problemer, som professionelle praktikere står overfor, er kun sjældent entydige og klare. De er som oftest komplekse uden et endegyldigt facit. Dygtig professionel ageren afhænger mindre af faktuel viden eller rigide beslutningsmodeller end af evnen til at reflektere, før der skrides til handling, når etablerede teorier ikke slår til. Alligevel underviser de fleste professionsuddannelser kun de studerende i standardiserede videnskabsteorier, og hvordan man løser regelrette problemer, og derved går fremtidige professionelle praktikere glip af evnen til at tackle de vanskelige problemer, som de vil blive konfronteret med i den virkelige verden.

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions - engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning - to show how professionals really go about solving problems. The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schön's provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how 'reflection-in-action' works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.

Why are controversies about such issues as abortion, welfare, persistent poverty, and environmental destruction so intractable? As anyone who has ever engaged in or tried to settle an argument on highly charged issues knows, facts rarely persuade in such situations. This innovative approach to intractable policy controversies shows how "reframing" the issues can succeed where simply appealing to facts often fails.In Frame Reflection , two of his country's leading organizational theorists and policy analysts show how disputes that in abstract debate or negotiation seem insoluble can sometimes be resolved pragmatically by those who actually have to design and implement the specific programs. The authors illustrate their theory through a detailed examination of three specific programs: the evolution of early retirement programs in Germany a statewide project for the homeless in Massachusetts and the development of Project Athena, a large-scale experiment in the use of computers in undergraduate education at MIT.Policy stalemates are inevitable. Yet we know that people sometimes do change their minds, even in situations that at first appeared hopeless. How that happens is the subject of this pathbreaking book.

"This book, written by a group of distinguished scholars and practitioners, critically reappraises ideas about learning and development advanced by Albert O. Hirschman in the 1950s and 1960s. The essays—prepared for an MIT faculty seminar—show how these innovative ideas bear on the theory, policy, and practice of development in the 1990s. Hirschman, one of the great pioneers in the field of economic development, is now professor emeritus at Princeton.Paul Krugman, Lance Taylor, and Donald Schon address the different approaches and assumptions of economic theorists in relation to modelling, learning, and development policy. Emma Rothschild, Lisa Peattie, and Bishwapryiya Sanyal examine some of the changing attitudes toward economic progress. Elliot Marseille, Judith Tendler, Sara Friedheim, Robert Picciotto, and Charles Sabel draw lessons from efforts to innovate or modify institutions, policies, programs, and projects. Lloyd Rodwin examines the underlying themes that emerge, particularly those that touch on the ideas of development as a process of social learning and on ways of strengthening theory, policy, and practice in economics when it is seen as both discipline and profession.In a postscript, Albert O. Hirschman reflects on the evolution of his ideas, his cognitive style, and his propensity for self-subversion. Two appendixes detail the candid seminar discussions and Hirschman's musings in response to particular chapters and questions raised by the participants."

"This book is a landmark in two fields. It is a practical guide to the reform of professional education. It is also a beacon to theoretical thinking about human organizations, about their interdepAndence with the social structure of the professions, and about theory in practice."-- Journal of Higher Education

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions - engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning - to show how professionals really go about solving problems. The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schön's provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how 'reflection-in-action' works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.

Building on the concepts of professional competence that he introduced in his classic The Reflective Practitioner, Schon offers an approach for educating professional in all areas that will prepare them to handle the complex and unpredictable problems of actual practice with confidence, skill, and care.

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions,engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning,to show how professionals really go about solving problems.The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schön's provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how "reflection-in-action" works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.