Professional education in today’s western world is part of a higher education landscape embedded in global scripts that differ substantially with previous imaginaries as well as materialized conditions. In addition to the immense expansion of student numbers  and programmes, the role of higher education has come under an increasing pressure in providing a sufficient number of professionals to sustain the economy and achieve competitive advantage.  Consequently, within contemporary social imaginaries, forces from both within and without professions and professional schools are frequently understood or construed as being complicit in the erosion of more traditional trust in professions and the integrity of professionals.

 Nevertheless,  and despite the imaginaries  that perceive higher education as well as the professions as driven by economic interest in a competitive climate, professionals are still concerned with how one’s work in a profession contributes to the social contract (or not) for the good of society.  Professionals have to learn and continuously update their knowledge and skills needed to practice in their field. Educators and the government agencies that hold educators accountable devote a great deal of effort to these goals.  However, there is more to the social contract of the professions. Throughout a career, professionals are expected to have integrity, a sense of purpose and meaning, and to engage in their work for the good of society. Furthermore they are supposed to collaborate with others in the best interests of those they serve and to uphold the telos of their profession. Consequently, these perceptions are rooted in an imagination of being professionals where the significance of what they do both for themselves and for the public lies not in making money and promoting the self, but in serving the good of others or a higher cause

The goal of this symposium is to contribute to extant knowledge on existing imaginaries of how to educate different professions to act for the good of the society. We approach the task through key concepts that are assumed to have importance in scholarly discussion of professional formation such as critical thinking, practical reasoning, collaboration and virtues.  These are explored in a set of interrelated papers. To set the scene and contextualise professional formation the first paper elucidates the political context of higher education in the contemporary knowledge society. The second paper identifies central concepts developed within the traditions of  Bildung and Liberal education.  

Papers 3 to 5 are based on reviews of key international journals in teacher education and nursing.  Analysing research articles through our set of concepts provides a baseline for different ways of defining these concepts and implications for professional formation. While the studies reported in the symposium are limited to the fields of nursing and teaching, we anticipate that the findings will constitute a substantial contribution to the scholarly discussion on professional formation in higher education.