Mendive. Journal on Education, july-september 2022; 20(3): 719-724

Translated from the original in Spanish

Editorial

The five cultures of the competent professional

Las cinco culturas del profesional competente

As cinco culturas do profissional competente

Juan Alberto Mena Lorenz¹http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3695-9451
Jorge Luis Mena Lorenzo¹https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1364-6524
Guillermo Breijo Madera²http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3665-8950

¹University of Pinar del Río "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca". Cuba. juanmenalorenzo1962@gmail.com, jorgemenalorenzo@gmail.com
²Hospital "Abel Santamaría Cuadrado". Pinar del Río. Cuba. breijo.madera@infomed.sld.cu

Culture, in a general sense, has played an essential role in the emergence, development and coexistence of humanity. Work and culture have been closely interrelated since the first human efforts to free themselves from nature. The need to produce their own means of subsistence meant that, through work and in the process of the activity, they will develop their thought and language, an aspect by which work is recognized as the fundamental historical reason for culture, marking it as a social phenomenon that represents the level reached by society in a certain specific historical moment.

The very social division of labor was marked by the differentiation between people, based on their aptitudes and attitudes for the development of certain activities with different levels of ability and skill. Thus, dissimilar manifestations of human socio-labor expression arose in order to satisfy their own material and spiritual needs and those of the rest of the inhabitants. Each of these artistic and labor manifestations generated their own standards, rules, customs and traditions, and established guidelines within the culture of each region.

In other words, culture was created by man himself, based on learning from the experiences of his predecessors, his contemporaries and his own observation of nature, as a method that ultimately became one of the essentials of research. scientific. So that human achievement is a permanent and continuous educational process of formation and appropriation of culture, in full socio-professional interaction in a given context, when understood as a means and an end in social transmission.

González and Rivera (2019) see culture as a set of languages and symbolic elements, behavior patterns and dispositions for practical actions that are at the base of communication and action; These serve as tools for social and labor organization and for understanding with our peers. This symbolic communication similar to language is expressed from different types of messages that respond to different areas of knowledge of science, each with its particularities.

Thus, the emergence and development of production, like demographic growth, made it necessary to specialize in certain trades that enclosed a whole cultural baggage, relating different socio-labor areas (trade culture); In this way, artisans organized in brotherhoods, brotherhoods or guilds arise.

In this way, the vertiginous development of the capitalist mode of production (17th and 18th centuries), was related to and conditioned by the evolution of science and technology (substitution of artisanal production by industrial production), which also favored the development in all sociocultural areas. The sociopolitical transformations, in turn, conditioned the appropriation of new knowledge and skills by the productive forces; trades were redefined, affected by a division of labor that fragmented them and made them lose unity of meaning from the perspective of the development of learning a trade as a whole.

At about this time, trades became professions and vocational training institutions (school education) emerged, replacing training by imitation or repetition (trade education). The school became one of the main transmitters of the professional culture accumulated by humanity in the different areas (the arts or other professions), all marked by cultural practices erected from experience, customs and traditions.

Likewise, education, as an eternal category, also begins from the very conception of the human being and is linked to its existence. According to Bruner (2000), there is a unidirectional relationship between education and culture, insofar as education is at the service of culture, serving as a vehicle to transmit the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that society requires; To the extent that socioeconomic development grows in complexity, the role of educational institutions becomes more important as a socializing agent of that culture, ethics and professional identity (Acosta, 2018).

Therefore, the relationship between society, culture and education is decisive in the evolution of the human being. Education places the human being in an ideal social context to humanize himself. The human being is nothing but what education makes him be. The content that education transmits is precisely culture, education being its means of transmission (Luengo, 2004).

The relationship between culture and education, and more specifically with professional training, is marked by the need, among other purposes, to achieve the sociocultural identification of students based on basic elements related to the training contexts of their respective careers. As a consequence, this sociocultural training implies the modeling of an adequate professional identity in the students (Espinosa, 2008). Being consistent with his criteria, Espinosa himself (op. cit.) defends the need for a professional culture, identifying it as "the objective-subjective process of meaning and meaning of professional human activity, which expresses universal ideas and achievements through interactions corresponding to a certain profession in the diversity of sociocultural contexts" (p. 51).

Similarly, Abreu and Soler (2015), when referring to the comprehensiveness and competencies of professionals in training, highlight the need to train the culture of the profession. They signify the transcendental importance that the context has in the formation of the culture of each career and, consequently, of work; They underline that each profession has its own cultural traits, which express the set of meanings, expectations and particular modes of action of the social group that the career represents.

The culture of the profession is the set of processes of material and spiritual activity, made up of knowledge, experiences (experiences), interactions, modes of action and styles of work, conceptions, traditions, norms, customs and practices characteristic of the field of work and the labor activity, which professionals of any career or specialty have historically formed in a region, as a result of the activity systems and positive relationships produced throughout its history.

This culture is universal, so it is not reduced to the experience of a territory; It is also enriched when the traditional knowledge of a context is completed, updated and perfected by combining these with the technological scientific advances that are emerging at the national and international level (Mena and Mena, 2020).

That is to say, the professional culture, or of the profession, expresses the integration of the ideas and professional developments of the student during his performance and influence on the professional context and its problems. This requires possessing and mobilizing knowledge, technologies, methods, procedures, resources that imply the transformation of the social and labor reality; therefore, the professional culture is the result of the socio-labour activities corresponding to the different professions, as a concrete expression of the professional qualities of the workers who carry them out.

To the extent that the cultural significance of the profession, socially determined, makes sense in the subject, professional qualities that mark and condition their professional cultural development are shaped in him, through the professional transformation in the context; because these meanings provide a directionality to professional human activity in correspondence with what is socially significant (Espinosa, op . cit., p. 54).

In this way, the culture of the profession must constitute a starting point when conceiving the training process for students, in order to model an integral professional who responds to the demands of their future performance. Each profession requires mastery of knowledge, know-how and know-how. Consequently, rules, methods, conditions, means, proper and essential, are used to achieve desired results; wrapped in a pedagogical theory with specific characteristics, which is consistent with the sociocultural ideal of preconceived professional or professional model.

In turn, work and labor activity are also based on universal precepts and values inherent to professional activity in general, such as love for work, for the profession and for the working class. These particular and general features are part of the culture of the profession.

Hence, today the need for education and educational contexts that affect the pedagogy of vocational training to be called upon to train an integral, competent worker, bearer of a general comprehensive professional culture is highlighted (Abreu and Soler, op. cit .) . This culture represents a way of life of the human being with whose use and animation it carries out its existence through forms of activity and production, practice, customs, life projects, plans, goals and hopes (Mena and Mena, 2020).

Achieving a general comprehensive professional culture in the future worker, contributes directly to the formation of a competent professional, not only in his specialty, since an adequate intellectual formation is needed in tune with his professional condition, and with the principles of the socialist country and national identity.

The formation of this culture implies the relationship of the student not only with the school group, but also with the worker group of the labor entity that influences him during the training process (Horruitiner, 2008). This guarantees the socialization of the experiences of the socio -productive context to which the graduate belongs and, with it, the appropriation of the professional culture, as a condition for the formation of a competent professional.

Among the qualities of a competent professional are being a multi-skilled, flexible, culturally comprehensive, ethically honest, responsible worker, with a solid scientific-technological background, humanistic, critical, committed to his environment, creative, sensitive to the problems of others. and committed to their homeland, which allows them to act and move within a wide range of occupations (Abreu and Soler, 2015).

Assuming these qualities means understanding the need that represents for the current and prospective Cuban socioeconomic development, the training of workers with a broad comprehensive general professional culture. A culture that is built on the integration of the five essential components listed below.

General culture. It means having mastery of the mother tongue and at least one foreign language. The professional can read, interpret, select, summarize, express himself, work in a team, know how to use scientific texts and write information; must also have a solid preparation in the basic sciences that promote reasoning and logical thinking, calculation, estimation, criteria on sustainable development and sustainability, among others, such as skills required of professionals. This culture includes knowing and knowing how to use ICT as an important tool to deepen the study of specific technologies.

Economic culture. It is understood as the ability to demonstrate, in their responsible professional performance, knowledge about the rational use of resources and raw materials; be able to promote the quality of the finished production or service, knowing its production costs, its profitability and economic efficiency. In addition, it understands the organizational forms of the labor entities of production and services of the national economy (state and non-state). You must have the ability to undertake; understand the situation of the world economy, economic crises and the influence of imperial policy on them. The professional in training must make the most of the production activities carried out by the educational institution, know the prices of the productions and services it performs, the cost of equipment and raw materials.

Political culture. It is knowing our origins, history, nationality and identity; understands its social system from the domain of the revolutionary principles and traditions of the working class, love the profession and work; to be a defender of the revolutionary ideology, to work for local sustainable development. In addition, it means being committed to the homeland, understanding world politics, today's hegemonic world and the advances in social processes.

Productive culture. It is understood by: having a producer's conscience over that of a consumer; have as a premise the quality of the work it performs because its role in society has been assimilated; subordinate the waste of resources to rationality; promote an ecological conscience taking advantage of those raw materials that cause less damage to the Environment; generate and intervene in the production of necessary and sufficient articles with a lasting useful life and in an efficient service offer.

Technological or professional culture. It means: mastering the technological knowledge and basic professional skills of your specialty or career, based on a broad profile; possess more general habits and skills in their branch, which allow them to assimilate the changes and transformations in the scientific-technological paradigms that arise; maintain a permanent professional update and improvement in the profession.

Possessing these cultures forms the integrality of the competent professional; prepared to be the protagonist of the Cuban socioeconomic transformation based on sustainable local development. For Che, this human specimen, apparently surrounded by virtues that are difficult to attain, is an essential and daily part of our people. Thus, the important thing is to take advantage of all the opportunities to instruct, educate and develop it, and, at the same time, turn it into the most useful value of society.

Paraphrasing Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), we could conclude that professionalism is mainly the peculiar quality of the culture of the profession; it is a condition of the soul, a complex system of feelings, ideas and attitudes, awareness of being professional; it is belonging to the culture of the profession. It is not only in the result, but in the substantial elements centered on the action, the medium in which it operates.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

Acosta, B. (2018). La relación educación-cultura para el fortalecimiento de la identidad nacional mediante un modelo pedagógico. Revista Electrónica en Educación y Pedagogía, 2(2): 38-50. Recuperado de http://repository.pedagogica.edu.co/bitstream/handle/20.500.12209/10561/TE-23375.pdf?sequence=1

Bruner, J. (2000). La educación como invento social (Cap. VI.). En: La Educación, Puerta de la Cultura. España: Morata.

Espinosa, J.A. (2008). Gestión de la cultura profesional en la educación superior. (Tesis doctoral). ISP José de la Luz y Caballero, Holguín. Recuperado de https://repositorio.uho.edu.cu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/uho/2673/tes.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Horruitiner, P. (2008). La universidad cubana. El modelo de formación. La Habana: Félix Várela.

Luengo, J. (2004). La educación como hecho. En Pozo, M.M., Álvarez, J.L., Luengo, J. & Otero, E. Teorías e instituciones contemporáneas de educación. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.

Ortiz, F. (1973). Los factores humanos en la cubanidad. La Habana: Colección Orbita, Ediciones UNEAC.

González León, Y., & Rivera Oliveros, A. M. (2019). La relación cultura y educación desde la perspectiva cubana. Revista Conrado, 15(71): 60-67. Recuperado de http://conrado.ucf.edu.cu/index.php/conrado

Conflict of interest:

Authors declare not to have any conflicts of interest.

Authors´ Contribution:

The authors have participated in the writing of the work and analysis of the documents.

This work is under a licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional
Copyright (c) Juan Alberto Mena Lorenzo, Jorge Luis Mena Lorenzo, Guillermo Breijo Madera