Professional development in the Swedish police organization: Police officers' learning pathways

Abstract

Professional development is important for the improvement of professional work. Particularly relevant to the concept of professional development is an occupation's character and the organizational arrangements for activities endorsing employees' professional development. In this article, police officers' professional development in the Swedish police organization is explored by analyzing officers' learning pathways and their experiences of crucial conditions that contribute to their professional development. Content analysis of interviews with six female and seven male police officers is conducted. The results show that diverging police responsibilities give rise to either self-directed or information-oriented learning pathways. Three aspects (i.e., the formal educational arrangement, the facilitation of learning by managers, and scheduled time for workplace learning) are seen as crucial conditions that endorse police officers' professional development in diverging ways due to the assigned responsibilities. These findings show that police officers' professional development is endorsed with differing strategic management patterns that affect the kinds of professional development activities that support different police positions.