Pracademia: an answer but not the answer to an enduring question

Eacott, Scott

doi:10.1108/jpcc-12-2020-0100

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…He explains:I am sceptical of the need for pracademia and/or the pracademic in educational leadership. While I recognise and acknowledge the groundswell of attention circling around the idea, and the profile building some can extract from being affiliated with the title, I see it as the uncritical acceptance of a (false) analytical dualism of theory and practice (Eacott, 2021). …”

Section: The Purpose Promise and Perils Of Pracademicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, most of the articles did not go in that direction. Eacott (2021) suggests that consideration of pracademia is part of a longer debate about theory and practice in educational leadership, but the shift to pracademic is different (and in his view, unhelpful):…”

Section: Challenges and Possibilities For Professional Capital And Ed...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In further developing understanding of pracademics and pracademia, research on the work of people engaging in practice and research to understand why or how they do or do not identify with this identity would be interesting. As Eacott (2021) argues, it is important also to focus on the actual work required and being done.…”

Section: A Quest For Clarity In a Messy Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He contends that:… the very idea of pracademia does three things: first, it perpetuates and promotes the false analytical dualism of theory and practice; second, it seeks to establish a class-based system of knowledge generators that places pracademics at the top; and third, it does not necessarily provide a test of equivalence to assess knowledge claims coming from different knowledge worlds (Eacott, 2021). …”

Section: The Purpose Promise and Perils Of Pracademicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And concludes "While its appeal is understandable, the idea of pracademia is arguably the right answer to the wrong question for educational leadership as a field" (Eacott, 2021). These are certainly points of disagreement and debate across the articles, with most of the articles arguing that pracademics overcome and reject a binary dualism between theory and practice and that there is potential and value in this concept.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Afterward? Moving onwards for developing pracademia and pracademics in education

Campbell

2022

JPCC

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IntroductionIt has been my pleasure to read and comment on the articles contained in this Special Issue of the Journal of Professional Capital and Community on the topic of Pracademia: Exploring the possibilities, power and politics of boundary-spanners straddling the worlds of practice and scholarship, guest edited by Trista Hollweck, Deborah Netolicky and Paul Campbell. When I was first asked to provide a rejoinder or afterwards for the Special Issue, I said yes as I have long been curious about the terms "pracademia" and "pracademic." I first heard the term pracademic in the early 2000s when I was working as a senior government official responsible for education research. At that time, pracademic was being used to refer to people with doctorates who were working in government (rather than academia), and the importance of valuing all roles involving connections between research, policy, and practice. Indeed, my own career has been centrally about connections and interactions between research, policy, and practice, including roles working in education systems to contribute to improvements in educational practice, as a government official and advisor informing education policies, and as a researcher and scholar seeking to contribute to the academic and education communities. Now, a couple of decades into the 21st century, Hollweck, Netolicky and Campbell argue there has been a surge-or resurgence-of interest in the concepts of "pracademia" and "pracademics" as understood and applied in the field of education. Hence, the impetus for this Special Issue contains six articles. I summarize these articles briefly below for readers who are reading this "Afterward" as a standalone article.The first article, Defining and exploring pracademia: identity, community, and engagement, is by the guest editors (Hollweck, Netolicky and Campbell). They provide a conceptual exploration of the term pracademic, including a review of relevant literatures in and beyond education, and then discussion of the definition and nature of pracademia specifically in education. They propose metaphors and key definitions and components to aid in understanding and investigating the concept of pracademics, plus draw on their own experiences as self-identified pracademics.The second article, Education focused pracademics on Twitter: building democratic fora, is also by two authors identifying as pracademics, Steven Kolber and Keith Heggart. The article is based on autoethnographic case studies of their own experiences, one as a practicing teacher and one as an early career researcher in a university, of engaging online to develop their professional learning, research engagement, and collaboration with a community of educators and researchers. Drawing on three examples of online activities-Twitter, TeachMeets and #edureading-they identify features of pracademic spaces in online fora to support networks of pracademics and contribute to the development of the education profession.The third article, Pracademic productive friction: boundary crossing and p...

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Section: The Purpose Promise and Perils Of Pracademicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges and Possibilities For Professional Capital And Ed...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Quest For Clarity In a Messy Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Purpose Promise and Perils Of Pracademicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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