In Brazil, the professional master’s degree represents an official level of graduate study and confers privileges that are identical to those offered by the academic master’s degree. Both program types share the same assessment criteria, in accordance with the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (Capes), which also considers specific criteria as well. The peculiarities of the professional master program arise mainly from the value given to highlevel professional qualification and to research that is oriented toward development and innovation (R&D). This article presents elements from a bibliographic analysis of 37 texts written on the subject between 1997 and 2012. The conclusions highlight that there is little discussion about specific pedagogic aspects of professional master courses, especially regarding the relationship between work and education. There is an urgent need for greater clarity on the matter, something that requires dedicated research.