### Designing Educational Opportunities for the 

### Emergency Management Professional of the 21^st^ Century: 

### Formulating an Approach for a Higher Education Curriculum

**Neil R Britton, PhD**

**Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Research Centre**

**National Research Institute for Earth Sciences and Disaster
Prevention**

**Kobe, Japan**

**John Lindsay**

**Department of Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies**

**Brandon University**

**Brandon, Manitoba**

**Canada**

**Introduction**

The range of activities that comprehensive emergency management entails
and the settings within which these are played out will require its
practitioners to have specialized knowledge and skills as well as the
autonomy and legitimacy to apply them. These factors influence the
educational and credentialing systems that help define a profession. It
is not a question of *should* emergency management be considered a
profession but a recognition that, done properly, emergency *will*
become a profession.

Learning how other occupational sectors progressed to professional
status may provide useful insights for the emergency management sector.
In 1969, for instance, Etzioni edited a collection of articles looking
at 'semi-professions' as

"a group of new professions whose claim to the status of doctors or
lawyers is neither fully established nor fully desired. ... \[Their\]
training is shorter, their status is less legitimate, their right to
privileged communication less established, there is less of a
specialized body of knowledge, and they have less autonomy from
supervision or societal control than "the" professions"(Etzioni 1969
p.v).

The book focused on teachers, nurses and social workers, three
occupations that are today more readily acknowledged as professions
because specific attributes, especially in regard to a university
taught, theory-based education, have solidified this claim. Education is
at the core of any discussion of the professionalism of an occupation.
"The ideal-typical position of professionalism is founded on the
official belief that the knowledge and skill of a particular
specialization requires a foundation in abstract concepts and formal
learning and necessitates the exercise of discretion." (Freidson 2001
p.34). Understanding the foundational concepts of emergency management
is therefore crucial to determining the curriculum of future emergency
managers.

Freidson (2001) characterizes professional training as having a high
proportion of training conducted in universities with only a small
proportion of the primary training being undertaken on the job. The
teachers of professions are, in Freidson's assessment, always members of
the profession, usually teaching full time while also conducting
research (p.93). "Above all else, the ideology supporting professional
training emphasizes theory and abstract concepts. This is justified by
claiming that whatever practitioners must do at work may require
extensive exercise of discretionary judgment rather than the choice of
and routine application of a limited number of mechanical
techniques"(p.95). From this it seems evident that the education of
emergency managers is the cornerstone for how relevant theories and
concepts are put into practice, and how that very practice is defined.

This paper briefly explores the implications of these aspects on the
professionalization process of emergency management and sets some
important contextual parameters that are beginning to have an influence
on contemporary emergency management education. This paper concludes by
suggesting some key areas that could be developed as a core higher
education course for emergency management within a university-level
system.

**'Professional' Emergency Management**

The term 'professional' has various meanings in different contexts.
While the sociological literature exploring professionalism and
professionalization has debated these definitions and associated
criteria for decades, for the purposes of this paper the focus is on the
concept of 'professional' as an occupational status established on "four
essential attributes" elaborated by Barber (1965):

"a high degree of generalized and systematic knowledge; primary
orientation to the community interest rather than to individual self
interest; a high degree of self-control of behavior through codes of
ethics internalized in the process of work socialization and through
voluntary associations organized by the work specialists themselves; and
a system of rewards (monetary and honorary) that is primarily a set of
symbols of work achievement and thus ends in themselves, not means to
some end of individual self-interest" (Barber, 1965 p.18)

Practitioners of emergency management tend to apply the term
'professional' in a different manner than the sociology literature. In
large part, the sector's definition focuses on the distinction between
full-time careerism (labeled 'professional') compared to
voluntarism-amateurism. The professional-amateur distinction (Freidson,
1986), in fact the definition of 'professional' itself, is not a simple
generic concept but is one tied to the specific setting of the
occupation. In emergency management this is likely influenced by the
backgrounds of the current generation of practitioners. Many emergency
managers have previously served in the armed forces or the emergency
services. These occupations recognize a distinction between those who
have willingly joined as a full-time source of employment (e.g. the
'professional' firefighter or the 'career' soldier) in contrast to those
who take on the role part-time or for a short-term (the 'volunteer'
firefighter or perhaps, until very recent times, the 'weekend warrior'
of the National Guard).

In some instances this distinction has little to do with the amount of
training or the ability of the member (Britton, 1991; Britton et al,
1994) and more with the level of commitment to the occupation, such as
might be the case between volunteer and conscripted recruits. However,
there can be significant differences within the emergency services where
full-time (i.e. 'professional') practitioners in urban areas may respond
to weekly call volumes that exceed the annual volumes of smaller rural
'volunteer' stations. This greater demand is reflected in the level of
skill expected and maintained by the members. In fact some emergency
services employ a core of full-time paid members and rely on part-time
members for weekend and evening coverage. This can add a second related
layer to the term 'professional' that must also be addressed: it may
have connotations of properly trained and well experienced and be used
to set one practitioner above another.

These distinctions travel with the emergency services practitioner when
entering a second career as an emergency manager, who sees taking on a
full-time paid role in a city as 'professional' in comparison to the
'other duties as required' approach that often involves a smaller
community's emergency manager in several roles. Ironically these
'amateur' or volunteer emergency managers may be considered as
professionals of a different kind because of their primary source of
employment, possibly a high school principal or a town planner, while
the second career 'professional' emergency managers may retain closer
affiliations with their prior peer group. In both cases these
practitioners are less likely to see emergency management as a career
and this hinders the development of the emergency management profession
from a sociological perspective. As a tangent to this, the phrase
'professional development' usually refers to the ongoing training an
individual practitioner receives rather than the growth and advancement
of the status of the occupational group as a whole.

If current emergency management practice was placed on the
occupation-profession continuum developed by Pavalko (1971), as has been
done for nursing (Bernhard and Walsh, 1981), it is like to fall short on
all eight criteria (theory, social values, training period, motivation,
autonomy, commitment, sense of community, code of ethics) and to not
come as near to the professional end as nursing did even a quarter
century ago. In this sense the professional development thrust of
emergency management needs to focus on increasing its standing in each
criterion: a university based education system is a fundamental step.

Another study of nursing (Elzinga, 1990) offers four stages of
development of that occupation that may offer an insight to emergency
management's current status. Elzinga sees nursing progressing from being
a "calling", through the intermediate stages of
"semi-professionalization", that comes with organization and formalized
qualifications, and then of " the 'scientification' and 'technification'
of nursing care" (p.155) to the final stage of "professionalization,
characterized by the establishment of an independent research
capability" (p.156). Emergency management, at its best, is in the third
stage, which Elzinga identifies with "wide ranging discussion and debate
... relating to the scientific character of the emerging discipline, its
proper contents, methodology and relationship to other disciplines
within the same general area" (p.156). Recent activities in emergency
management, such as FEMA's Higher Education Project or the work the
Canadian Emergency Preparedness Association is undertaking on
determining a Canadian 'body of knowledge" (Zeta Group 2005) are
landmarks showing the occupation has progressed to this third stage.

Some argue emergency management has been a 'profession' since the
creation of positions and organizations distinct from the established
emergency services (e.g. Crews, 2001). However this applies the concept
of 'profession' simply as a career rather than fully giving it the same
social implications that the medical or law professions have.
Professionalization, however, is not simply the separation of the job
from another discipline. For others professionalization is linked
strongly to improving the education of its members (e.g. Manock 2001).
Again this offers only one of the component attributes of a true
profession, although Svensson points out:

"What one usually associates most closely with the ability of
professionals are the knowledge and skills which they are assumed to
have acquired through their special education. This ability is expected
to let them know what is going on and what is to be done. Knowledge of
theories and theoretical perspectives, concepts, classifications,
models, figures of thought, connections, instances, and criteria of
relevance. These are resources which often lie unexpressed as a
background to what the professionals offer" (Svensson 1990 p.56).

The idea that education provides a 'background' is important to
differentiate from the teaching of specific skills that is achieved
through training. A university-based education creates a solid base from
which a professional can exercise judgment in the selection and
application of skills. It may be hard for emergency managers to
articulate just what knowledge they have that is special and deserving
of recognition. This is critical, however, as professional status is not
ascribed to every occupation that has related courses at a university or
has an organization of practitioners.

"While many disciplines may claim to have that special type of
professional knowledge and skill which is given official recognition,
the particular substance or content of each and the institutional
requirements for the performance of the tasks it claims as its own have
critical bearing on its success in gaining the full political, economic
and social recognition and support necessary for establishing and
consolidating professionalism" (Freidson 2001 p.152).

For emergency management to be recognized as a profession it is
necessary to highlight how the application of this special body of
knowledge must be restricted to those who have the judgment to apply it.
Professions "need to demonstrate that the knowledge in question would be
dangerous in the hands of the untrained and the unqualified; while this
may be demonstrated where risk to life, limb or property exists, if the
state considers the ordinary citizen, or the state itself, could provide
the service in question, then the profession has an uphill task"
(Macdonald 1995, p.184).

Emergency management may have a dilemma on this specific point. While
the focus of the profession is clearly one that involves "risk to life,
limb or property", established practice has it that the mitigation,
planning, response and recovery techniques applied at the community
level work equally well at the individual or household level. This is a
necessary tactic to overcome the transference of responsibility that
allows individuals to feel someone else will do something about their
hazards whereas many of the most effective strategies rely on grassroots
action. Perhaps this should direct us to look at the idea of a
'community emergency management professional' that places an emphasis on
the application of knowledge, skill and judgment to leadership and
program development at a societal scale.

Siegrist (1990) considers that differences in various approaches to the
professionalization process all relate to the generalized question "what
value is placed on competence, and upon what basis is mutual thrust
achieved between the practitioners if certain occupations, their
clients, and those who hold power and exercise influence in particular
societies at any given time?"(p.199). For emergency management this
draws the discussion back to what skills and knowledge are our
practitioners specially educated to apply and how are these professional
attributes perceived by our communities (clients) and our elected
officials. To help answer this, the context within which emergency
management is carried out needs to be understood. This is not an easy
task, since it is clear that the issues the contemporary emergency
manager faces are changing, and are different from those the previous
generation was required to deal with. Based on material developed by New
Zealand's national emergency management agency (refer bibliography), we
now turn to some important issues that are influencing the sector and
which will impact upon educational needs.

**Key Contextual Issues**

Emergency managers must be able to justify the steps taken when dealing
with the risks of extreme events. These steps, determined through the
discretionary application of specialized knowledge and skill, must bring
about a net benefit to society, as attempts to reduce risk will
invariably impose costs as well as benefits. It is therefore essential
that the field of emergency management not look solely to minimize
losses (of life, property and well being), but rather to maximizing the
gains from doing so. As such, emergency management should aim to enable
communities to maximize gains and minimize losses when dealing with
potential large-scale events that pose extreme risks. To achieve this,
emergency management needs to be undertaken within, and in support of,
the wider social and economic fabric of communities. In other words it
needs to validate how the benefits of emergency management activities
outweigh their costs. Included in the benefits are intangibles such as
the sense of security individuals have knowing that the potential
impacts of 'extraordinary' events are being planned for.

This does however pose two major challenges. First, interest in these
events is often centres upon the probabilities and magnitudes of their
consequences when not of an 'ordinary' scale. Furthermore, since it is
not always possible to avoid adverse impacts entirely, the task becomes
one of reducing them to acceptable levels. A logical conclusion is that
a risk management approach is appropriate for emergency management.
While aspects of risk management are not new (for instance risk
assessment has been widely used as a hazard analysis tool), the
application of risk management as an over-arching framework is still
being worked out. Developing risk communication processes that lead to a
greater understanding between hazard specialists and the public is
proving to be a particular challenge.

Second, the risk management process must include an analysis of options
for dealing with the threats that have been identified. However, options
will impose their own costs. Limiting the form and level of development
(for example through land-use restrictions or the diverting of resources
toward strengthening existing infrastructure) may improve the long-term
sustainability of a community but impose significant short-term costs.
Communities need to be aware of costs such as these, as well as the
anticipated benefits now and in the long term. The challenge therefore
lies in developing reliable means of assessing the likely social and
economic costs of both potential hazard events and the different means
of treating them. Information of this type will enable more informed
decisions to be made about what mix of emergency management activities
may best contribute to a community's social and economic goals. As such,
emergency management might benefit considerably if it focused on the
social and economic goals of communities and, through a risk management
approach, balance the costs and benefits of different strategies to
achieve those goals. In this way, communities can choose acceptable
levels of risk commensurate to their needs and circumstances. These
issues are highly salient in the current post September 2001 environment
wherein some nations are channeling vast financial and human resources
into counter-terrorism activities that may not necessarily reduce the
objective threat.

To achieve this emergency management needs to be an implicit part of
'everyday' decision-making within communities, and not regarded as an
'add-on', or a separate process. If this is accomplished, emergency
management will be able to provide a framework that all sectors within
society can build on to achieve wider goals. Broader changes in how
societies currently view the world provide a unique opportunity for
creating an appropriate level of awareness and integration of emergency
management. The key drivers currently available are:

*Sustainability**:*** Since the *Brundtland Report* of 1987, sustainable
development has become an entrenched concept within most countries. It
proposes taking a wider or longer-term view of both the spatial and
temporal implications of development, so that short-term goals of
communities are not achieved at the expense of their longer-term goals.
Sustainability has become a driving principle in most environmental
management systems, and provides a means to address resource use as a
primary agent in either increasing or lessening a community's
vulnerability to hazards. A sustainable hazard mitigation approach could
ensure that decisions about economic and social development do not
inadvertently increase the risks to current or future generations from
'extraordinary' events. This does not mean that risk exposure in some
instances will not increase. However, where it does, it will be through
explicit consideration.

*Resilience**: ***Coupled to sustainability is the concept of
resilience, which concerns the ability of systems to absorb change and
to either bounce back, or to shift to new points of stability. For
emergency management this means focusing more effort on reducing the
vulnerability of a community to 'extraordinary' events (for instance,
through planning the built environment in accordance with known hazards
so that such events do not arise, or at least, that the impacts are less
severe). It requires more emphasis on planning for, and undertaking,
post-event recovery in order to make communities less vulnerable to
future events. Resolving these issues may lie within broader economic
and social policy frameworks.

*Holistic Management**: ***Both the above concepts underpin the need for
holistic decision-making. This means embedding emergency management
thinking within all decision-making affecting the wider social and
economic goals of communities, so that emergency management becomes an
integral part of achieving the goals (rather than an obstacle or as is
often the case, an unknown). Equally important is that reducing a
community's vulnerability to one hazard should not inadvertently
influence vulnerability to another one.

*Governance**: ***Many everyday decisions add to or lessen the
vulnerability of communities. These decisions are often made within the
public domain or, at least, are influenced by decisions made within the
public domain. To be successful, emergency management needs to be
accepted as a core part of governance within both public and private
institutional settings. Consistent with a risk management approach,
representatives at all levels of the community should make decisions
following wide consultation and the establishing of a clear mandate.
This 'ownership' of decisions should lead to better outcomes through
being both pragmatic and by being understood by those affected, thereby
strengthening a community's resolve about them.

*Partnerships**: ***Emergency management cuts across all sorts of
activities both nationally and locally. As such, effective partnerships
must be created and maintained horizontally, between government, private
sector interests and community groups; and vertically, between different
levels of government, private and voluntary sector organisations. The
linkages and relationships required throughout the wider community to
achieve effective emergency management are significant. However, many
emergency management agencies have had difficulty gaining acceptance
among other agencies that will be influential in the adoption of a
risk-based approach to emergency management. This is primarily due to
the continuing misconception, by both the public and other agencies that
emergency management is solely about preparing for and responding to
events. It is therefore important that wider interests are signaled, and
that those working in the field of emergency management strengthen and
unify existing partnerships, and forge new ones.

*Economic Efficiency**:*** It almost goes without saying that any public
policy developed nowadays must be economically efficient. For emergency
management this requires consideration of many issues including intra-
and inter-generational equity, transaction costs, and incentives for
appropriate behavior, moral hazard issues, and least-cost policy tools.
Paying for effective risk-based emergency management programmes will
require governments to tighten up on some disaster practices that are
inconsistent with other policy decisions. In many ways, the issues
centre upon the 'responsive *Vs* responsible government' theme. For
instance, the 'SBAW effect' ('Sit-Back-And-Wait') by which victims have
'trained' governments to reimburse impact losses in return for good
public relations irrespective of precipitating circumstance, needs
addressing to remove moral hazard issues.

*Heightened Risk Awareness and Shifting Priorities*: While the 1990s
have been identified as one of the most costly decades in history for
natural disasters, the contributing events were essentially local. Even
significant losses to life and property, such as the 1995 Kobe
earthquake, were focused within a relatively confined setting in a
single nation. More recent events, such as the terrorist attacks and
responses of September 11, 2001; the SARS outbreak in 2003; and the
tsunami disasters of 2004 have presented unprecedented global
involvement and have had a significant influence on the direction and
practices of emergency management. These repercussions will continue to
reverberate for some time, and future events like the potential pandemic
influenza outbreak will exert additional pressure. For emergency
management, a lesson is how to develop sustainable all-hazard practices
upon a conceptual foundation that will enable its application to
accommodate shifting perceptions and priorities of risk.

These drivers present a framework within which emergency management can
operate. They provide a context within which trade-offs can be made that
(as far as possible) balance the different needs and expectations within
society as a whole. Hence, part of the answer on how emergency
management might achieve the aim of maximizing gains and minimizing
losses is to build into routine decision making these key drivers that
are already influencing our societies.

**Educating Emergency Managers**

This now leaves the question of what the core areas for a
university-level education program for emergency managers might
comprise. As outlined earlier, a major strategy to achieve professional
development for emergency management is through the development of an
appropriate training and education program for relevant practitioners.
The practice of sustainable hazard management is, however, still
evolving and growing (e.g. Mileti 1999). It is therefore not entirely
clear what the job profile of the archetypical emergency manager might
be in ten year's time, although evidence suggests that the professional
development requirements will differ from that which currently prevails,
expanding beyond the traditional response related skills (Britton 2002,
2005).

Emergency management education must be designed and delivered in a way
that supports an all hazards perspective and provides students with a
theoretical base for a lifetime of practice. In this regard it is
important to recognize the context in which current university programs
in emergency management are being developed. The change in leadership
and direction in FEMA following the 2000 election of George Bush shifted
priorities within that organization. This, combined with the
repercussions of events such as Y2K, the September 11 2001 terrorist
attacks, the threat of SARS and pandemic influenza, the 2004 blackout in
the eastern US and Canada, brought the threat of terrorism and the
vulnerability of critical infrastructure to the forefront. Now the more
recent impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the Gulf Coast,
especially the events in New Orleans, have refocused many on the
importance of social and economic vulnerability. Emergency management
educators must acknowledge the relevance of these influences while
preparing students to become professionals with a broader perspective.

The elements of sustainable hazard management point to a wider range of
skills and knowledge that are needed for emergency management. There are
five inter-linking areas of future activity that emergency managers will
need to have a good grounding in. They are:

-   Assisting in the creation and management of community resilience,
    development and growth by being able to recognise resources and
    risks, and help communities choose a level of risk appropriate to
    their circumstances.

-   Helping to manage communities as sustainable entities, with the
    understanding that reducing losses from disasters alone is too
    narrow a goal.

-   Assisting with linking emergency management concepts and practices
    with sustainability through long-term hazard and loss reduction and
    through employing risk management processes.

-   Helping to reduce community losses and enhance the long-term
    equilibrium between human and natural environmental interactions.

-   Helping to ensure appropriate emergency management mechanisms are in
    place, are operable, and are capable of responding to the overall
    risk environment.

    As such the practice of emergency management will be a blend of
    several disciplinary perspectives and applied approaches. There
    currently exist a number of closely related global initiatives that
    show the way ahead, and also indicate that emergency management is
    responding to the challenge of developing new professional
    development programmes. Some key initiatives outlined by
    Britton (1999) are:

    *A more realistic context for emergency management:* An important
    development is the effort to locate emergency management within a
    wider frame of reference. Rather than emergency management being
    regarded as an exclusive preparedness and response-oriented
    activity, recent efforts have been made to integrate emergency
    management into a wider policy framework. There is also a growing
    acceptance that emergency management is an integral part of
    community decision-making

    *Effective links between research and practice:* Introducing
    university-level knowledge-based programmes is encouraging a more
    systematic introduction and treatment of risk, hazard, emergency and
    organisational management theory. It has enabled research findings
    to directly aid practice. This development has enabled emergency
    management to be taken as a university/college-level subject in its
    own right. Many emergency management agencies are realizing that
    there are distinct advantages from linking operational effectiveness
    with empirical research. Moreover, many decision-makers are seeing
    the benefit of recruiting people who are academically trained and
    familiar with the research literature that underpins risk, hazard
    and emergency management.

    *Heightened interest in uncertainty:* A third positive development
    is the increased interest in risk management in many areas of the
    public and private sectors. This interest has helped legitimise
    emergency management and hazard management considerations. It has
    also enabled emergency practitioners to access a greater range of
    relevant information, to seek advice from wider quarters, and to
    expand their own perspectives.

    *Systematization:* There is a noticeable increase in the number and
    types of areas now being systematically investigated and which are
    considered essential to the wider safety of the community. Recent
    studies on business disaster preparedness and response and on
    inter-dependencies in lifeline management are examples.
    Environmental pollution and ecological damage are other areas that
    have direct links to emergency management. These linkages between
    areas are enabling the emergency manager to gain a better
    understanding of community vulnerability, risk assessment practices,
    and hazardscape management.

    *Multi-disciplinary orientation:* Disaster research and its close
    companions (hazard research and risk research), and their
    application in the emergency management context is becoming more
    multi-disciplinary and multi-national. There is now a greater
    likelihood that research and practice can better capture the reality
    of relevant issues, and their particular social contexts. The field
    is gaining confidence that it can identify relevant universals
    pertaining to disaster as a phenomenon, and with it, developing more
    appropriate methods for managing them.

    Since emergency management is an activity that has community-wide
    influence, and requires input from a wide range of specialist areas,
    the emergency manager needs a range of understandings. Candidate
    areas for a knowledge-based curriculum under-pinned by skills
    training could include:

-   Management and organisation studies

-   Public policy and administration

-   Hazard profiling, assessment and analysis

-   Community vulnerability profiling

-   Social marketing and risk communication methods

-   Land-use planning and management

-   Risk assessment and risk management

-   Emergency response and EOC management

-   Disaster psychology and stress management

-   Long term community recovery management

-   Project management

-   Disaster impact field investigation techniques and research methods.

Such a curriculum has the potential to generate another important
benefit: it may attract participation by students who have no intention
of becoming emergency management professionals. While this approach may
seem to contradict a core principle of professionalization, that of
controlling a specialized body of knowledge, emergency management can
only be successful when community-wide influence is brought to bear on
the issues. It is more likely that this influence will be available to
emergency managers, as a tool to promote their agenda, if practitioners
in related professional fields have picked up an appreciation of
emergency management's core concepts and theories as part of their own
education.

**Moving Beyond National Borders**

To be effective, emergency management systems should reflect the
socio-economic parameters they operate within. If it is to take into
account the sustainable mitigation aspects outlined earlier, this is
paramount. So, too, should the content of educational programs for
emergency managers. The knowledge-based curriculum identified above is
generic, and could easily form the basis of a curriculum program in any
country provided the program is built around a national context. If the
context is missing, however, program goodness-of-fit is unlikely: A key
success factor for any emergency management educational program is
encapsulating technical knowledge into the specific context of a
country.

For some countries, incorporating relevant social factors that puts
emergency management into a wider social as well as
historical/developmental context will not be a problem. Reliable and
routine data gathering pertaining to current situations and future
trends on a range of relevant issues that are important to sustainable
hazard management at local, regional and national levels are readily
available. For others, however, especially many developing countries,
this is not so straight forward. Even with respect to our understanding
of emergency management systems there are huge gaps, as Tierney and her
colleagues pointed out with their comment that even in the conventional
areas, 'what is known about disaster preparedness and response in other
societies is rudimentary to say the least' (Tierney et al. 2001 p.245).

This knowledge gap about how nations organize their disaster management
system is a fundamental issue for curriculum development. In developing
nations in particular, there is often little analytical information
about relevant structures, practices and processes; information often
stops at the descriptive level. Other important contextual material
pertaining to intergovernmental and policy issues, cultural influences
on hazard and disaster related behavior, settlement patterns,
relationship patterns, economic factors, and so forth are often not
systematically canvassed or incorporated into emergency management
thinking. Moreover, for many countries disaster problems are still
unsolved development issues, which place another challenge into the
context mix, even though it reinforces the argument for pursuing
emergency management from both risk management and a sustainable hazard
management perspective.

Having stated all this, however, it also needs to be said that even in
countries where relevant contextual material has been amassed, codified
and analyzed does not mean it automatically finds it way into emergency
management curricula in an explicit manner. At least two important
implications arise from this. First, the absence of putting emergency
management into social perspective means that students may not make the
necessary linkages between different factors that influence important
social, cultural, economic and political considerations. Research, for
instance, into vulnerability factors in developing nations (e.g. Wisner
et al 2004) may not be directly applicable to a developed nation without
significant reevaluation (e.g. Lindsay 2004). At the same time,
significant historical or incremental connections remain unstated, and
leave students with an incomplete picture about how social outcomes
evolved.

The second consequence is that if the curriculum is made available as
instruction material in another country, the lack of explicit
contextualization means that outcomes derived in one national setting,
as a result of a specific set of social factors are unwittingly
transferred into another setting. The importation of the United
Kingdom's civil defence system into Commonwealth countries during the
1940s and 1950s and which became the basis of many national emergency
management structures for the next several decades, even though the
appropriateness of doing so was not readily apparent is a classic case
in point.

This second point has important corollary implications today because
some countries still opt for the 'convenience' of importing other-nation
emergency management systems without seriously considering the
goodness-of-fit. Often this is done on very pragmatic grounds, such as
when material, which is often readily available on websites, is
downloaded and used 'as is' for educational purposes. In other cases
pressure, subtle or otherwise, may be exerted by donor/sponsor
governments as part of overseas aid/development assistance packages for
the recipient country to model their system on the donor's. There are,
of course, many other reasons and ways by which educational materials
are transferred, and while this is not a bad thing by itself (Britton,
2004), it can lead to unintended consequences if important context
material is not made obvious and understood. It may also entail the
propagation of one nation's risk perceptions and priorities on to others
where the hazardscape is significantly different. To avoid such
pitfalls, it is recommended that curriculum developers and teachers
state upfront what the important context parameters are that have shaped
emergency management. An additional spin-off is that if students have
knowledge of the factors that shaped their own emergency management
system, they are in a better position to identify and appreciate the
differences in other national systems.

**A Critical Success Factor**

In conclusion, we wish to return to the point that emergency management
education, whether in the form of university-level knowledge-based
courses or practitioner-oriented skills-based programs, is primarily
about capacity building within individuals and within systems. The
search for increased public safety and community resilience will place
ever-increasing demands on emergency management agencies to provide
expertise in areas that the traditional response-oriented approach has
not heavily invested in. Technology transfer from specialists to
emergency managers, and from them to the community-at-large, will
require new base-lines and new programs. These prerequisites will
provide fertile ground for innovation in the educational development of
the emergency manager. Such growth in the education of emergency
managers will accelerate the occupation's transformation into a
profession -- a step that will be to the benefit of both individual
practitioners and to communities as a whole as the theories and
practices of emergency management gain recognition and societal
commitment.

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