The nature of planning professionalism through the eyes of students on work experience

Track 12: Planning Education: Educating For The Planning Profession, Room 114, July 9 2014, 15.30-17.00 Session Chair: Remon RooijWork experience is central to the pedagogical framework for many regional and urban planning courses. Traditionally work experience is seen to provide opportunities for students to test theory and concepts; apply development assessment and other practice based skills and to experience the day to day interpersonal and professional environments of planners in the context of multidisciplinary ways of working. Planners may well be getting their first real taste of the dynamics of .a shift from control to co-evolution in the planning world during their planning degree work experience. This paper reports findings from a textual analysis of the journals and class room presentations submitted by students who undertook the 2013 Planning Field Placement Course We discuss the extent to which the reflective narratives contained in journal assignments demonstrate student perceptions about and co-production of professional identities and practices which enable them to deal with complexity and uncertainty.Johannes Pieters, Jon Kellett, Ian Wigh