Making Practice Publishable: What Practice Academics Need to Do to Get Their Work Published, and What that Tells Us about the Theory-practice Gap

ABSTRACT

For centuries, universities have supported the pursuit of knowledge through the academic disciplines while also preparing students for the professions. These two purposes are frequently in tension: hence widespread comment on the ‘theory-practice gap’. Academic work has struggled for relevance in the field. Practice academics have struggled to find a validated place for their expertise in academia – including publication in academic journals. In this paper, we follow a practice academic’s uncertain, but ultimately successful attempt to publish an article about television scheduling in the Journal of Popular Television. We find that the problem is not really about theory versus practice, or relevance versus rigour, but about profound epistemological differences. Practitioners’ knowledge needed to be translated into an epistemological form that an academic journal would find acceptable. This included translating, via the use of theory, the particular and specific knowledge of practitioners into universal, context-free discourse, and a focus on social processes rather than accounts of the agency of particular actors. Generosity and openness from both sides were important to make it work. We conclude that the practitioner gap will be a problem until universities recognise it as epistemological, and pay attention to the recruitment and use of skilled translators at the academic/practice boundary.

KEYWORDS:

• Theory-practice gap
• epistemology
• publication
• practitioner
• pracademic
• writing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We thank an anonymous referee for encouraging us to think more carefully about this important point, by anticipating an entirely understandable reaction but one we had not intended. More generally, the paper has been significantly improved by this journal’s stringent review processes and by the reviewers’ critical attention and helpful suggestions. As discuss in the paper, we worked extensively in audio when producing this research. A podcast episode about this paper is forthcoming. If you would like to hear the voices from this story please contact the authors or search via your preferred podcasting application.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a small grant from the Culture and Creativity Hub of the School of Media Culture and Society, University of the West of Scotland.

Notes on contributors

Helen Wolfenden

Helen Wolfenden is a Lecturer in Radio at Macquarie University. Helen has spent much of her professional life as a public radio broadcaster. Helen is interested in the formation of on-air identity, podcasting, radio as a research tool and the intersect of professional and academic knowledge.

Howard Sercombe

Howard Sercombe is a sociologist, youth work academic and practitioner. He has published widely on the sociology of youth and on professional ethics. He holds an honorary Professorship in Education with the University of Glasgow and lectures in Criminology at the University of New South Wales.

Paul Tucker

Paul Tucker is a Senior Lecturer in Broadcast Production: TV and Radio at the University of the West of Scotland. Paul has worked in broadcast television production in London, San Francisco and Glasgow, making over 100 hours of television over twenty years. Paul’s research interests include Production Studies and Production Cultures.