Expertise

A framework is a methodology for understanding a problem or process. Thus the problem or process is framed by its methodology. Increasingly, there is an attempt to combine frameworks in order that the limits and boundaries of understanding may be stretched. Here we come up against two problems, one of analysis, and the second of communication.

When we create analytical categories, it is possible to differentiate between science and society, in order to understand each, but then we quickly discover that they are in fact so interlinked that they may be mistaken for each other, in certain situations. Happily, there is still a difference between a scientist, and a sociologist. The difference is in what each knows about science, and what each knows about sociology. This points to the key word, expertise. What combinations of expertise are neccessary, to understand the world around us better? If in effect the world is not to be broken up into science and society, or science and nature, it becomes important to define the boundaries of what constitutes expertise in each. Not that knowledge of one is mutually exclusive of the other, but to know what mix constitutes expertise in science, and what mix constitutes expertise in society.

With this comes another question, so how many kinds of expertise exist? This is based on how we classify knowledge; we have textual or propositional knowledge; contextual or applied knowledge, and the third subtext or tacit knowledge. These exist across all kinds of expertise, each expertise is a mix of these three ways of knowing. Each way of knowing has its history, pedagogy and vocabulary, and these help us locate different kinds of expertise needed to understand specific situations or problems. In addition, this way of understanding expertise can help us with pedagogy as well as vocabulary between different kinds of expertise.