The research project aims to study an emerging phenomenon that we provisionary call the crisis of expertise of the Education, Health and Social Care Professions (EHSCP). Building on a recent groundbreaking line of inquiry, it investigates the overlooked consequences of the radical change in the cultural model governing EHSCP which gradually took ground since the 1960s. In the name of the patient/user-centered approach and the pedagogical “empowerment and participation” turn, the pressure for accountability has progressively eroded the domain of epistemic and deontic authority. The gap between professional vision and lay vision decreased, producing a) a capillary hybridization of the client’s and professional’s epistemic and deontic rights (i.e. who has the right to know/assess what, and who has the right to decide what to do), and b) the progressive foregrounding of the individual’s needs and choices as the benchmark for educational, health and social care policies and practices.
We contend that there are risks implied in underestimating these phenomena, such as the slow erosion of the EHCSP’s expertise, rights and responsibilities, in favor of the expansion of other epistemic territories such as commonsense, private cultures, socially dominant “professional visions” or the - more recent and underexplored - “voice of protocols”. Underscoring these risks does not mean defending untenable proposals such as ignoring the value of self-determination or pleading in favor of authority-based expertise and paternalistic approaches to EHSC. On the contrary, it amounts to critically examining the dogma of client-centered and consensus-based approaches and defining ways of managing “expert knowledge in interaction” and considering the addressee’s viewpoint without relinquishing the epistemic and deontic responsibility implied in embodying professional expertise.