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Hollweck, Trista; Netolicky, Deborah M.; Campbell, Paul
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-05-2021-0026
The aim of this paper is to define pracademia and conceptualise it in relation to educational contexts. This paper contributes to and stimulates a continuing and evolving conversation around pracademia and its relevance, role and possibilities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is a conceptual exploration. It draws upon existing and emerging pieces of literature, the use of metaphor as a meaning-making tool, and the positionalities of the authors, to develop the concept of pracademia.FindingsThe authors posit that pracademics who simultaneously straddle the worlds of practice, policy, and academia embody new possibilities as boundary spanners in the field of education for knowledge mobilization, networks, community membership, and responding to systemic challenges. However, being a pracademic requires the constant reconciling of the demands of multi-membership and ultimately, pracademics must establish sufficient legitimacy to be respected in two or more currently distinct worlds.Practical implicationsThis paper has implications for knowledge mobilization, networks, boundary spanners, leadership, professional learning, and connecting practice, policy, and research. While the authors are in the field of education, this exploration of pracademia is relevant not only to the field of education but also to other fields in which there is a clear need to connect practice/policy with scholarship.Originality/valueThis paper provides a new definition of pracademia and argues that pracademia identifies an important yet relatively unknown space with many possibilities in the field of education.
Kolber, Steven; Heggart, Keith
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-11-2020-0090
This paper explores the features of pracademic practice within online spaces where pracademics, academics and teachers interact.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses autoethnographic case studies to showcase the boundary-spanning thinking of two pracademics, one a practicing teacher, the other an early career researcher, to provide an overview of how pracademics are engaging with research and the profession online in Australia, in 2021.FindingsThe paper describes five key features that are central to the development of pracademic practice. They are rigour and depth, discussion beyond immediate cultural context, accessibility, knowledge creation and collaboration.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is focused on the teacher and early career researcher perspectives on pracademia, due to the extant literature focusing on the well-established academic perspective primarily. It focuses on fora within the Twitter social media platform and the #edureading group specifically. The authors propose that the use of Twitter fora, as those outlined, provides a legitimate form of professional development, and does contribute to the development of pracademics.Originality/valueThis piece itself is an output of pracademia; through the writing of this paper, the authors show that pracademia is possible through teacher and researcher collaboration. The focus on online spaces, pracademic teachers and a coverage of what's occurring provide a new agenda for further research and consideration.
Mynott, John Paul; Zimmatore, Michaela
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-11-2020-0093
Productive friction (Ward et al., 2011) can exist as pracademics cross between boundaries of their different identities. Through an exploration of the self-perception of two collaborating pracademics, this paper will consider that organisational and occupational (Evetts, 2009) elements exist that generate professional friction for pracademics.Design/methodology/approachUsing two consecutive Lesson Study cycles as a boundary object, the authors will consider their pracademic identity through a spatial approach. Their perceptions are expressed through semi-structured qualitative interviews and subsequent thematic analysis. This analysis is then explored through Engeström's (2001) learning stages to consider how pracademics interact within the contradictions of their identities and within their context and their work.FindingsTime, purpose, integration and collaboration are all elements that impact on pracademic identities. For each one of these themes, pracademics both experience friction and find resolutions. As these themes vary, there are also moments of unresolved friction, where the pracademics maintain their work based on their enthusiasm alone. Constraints on time and the visibility of pracademic emerge. Exploring these pressure points and their resolutions is key to understanding how pracademics can be further supported by other professionals.Originality/valueWhile it is not possible to draw large conclusions from the experiences and perceptions of two primary-school-based pracademics, their experiences and understanding of contextual pressure points may facilitate the support of other pracademics and resonant with their experiences, particularly if they are using Lesson Study.
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-12-2020-0100
The pracademia movement is gaining increasing traction in education, particularly in educational leadership. Offered as a means to bridge practice and academia, questions remain as to whether it resolves or perpetuates the theory–practice divide. This paper systematically approaches this problem.Design/methodology/approachTheoretically informed by the relational approach, this conceptual paper articulates the preliminaries and underlying assumptions of pracademia before exploring the implications for the field of educational leadership.FindingsHaving established the underlying assumptions, this paper offers three standards – description, explanation and alternative – for assessing knowledge claims in the field that does not default to distinct knowledge worlds (e.g. academic, practice) or categories of knowledge generators (e.g. academics, practitioners, pracademics).Originality/valueThrough a relational approach, this work breaks down the boundaries of theory and practice to offer a new way of thinking about knowledge claims. The new approach is consistent with the intent of bridging theory and practice without the need to assume them to be separate in the first place.
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-11-2020-0095
This paper is a thinking piece that examines, from the viewpoint of a Canadian pracademic, working through two definitions of pracademic, a collaborative relationship between academics and practitioners and a person engaged as a practitioner and researcher. Two aspects of a pracademics scholarship is discussed, wide awakeness and praxis. The purpose of the paper is to make the case that it is pracademics who are well suited and attuned to questioning, challenging, and disrupting the ordinariness of the everyday, to envision new possibilities, and who take responsibility for mobilizing the educational community to undertake meaningful social change within an education system. A case is provided to illustrate wide-awakeness and praxis in practice. A case is provide to illustrate how wide-awakeness and praxis present themselves in practice.Design/methodology/approachThis paper considers the work of pracademics from Galileo Educational Network, located within a research-intensive university, who research and lead design-based professional learning. Drawing upon a design-based approach to guide design-based professional learning and design-based research, I highlight the ways in which wide-awakeness and praxis work themselves out in practice.FindingsDrawing upon the two aspects of wide-awakeness and praxis, creates a liminal space for pracademics to engage with practitioners to undertake stubborn and persistent problems of practice to create important educational improvements. A key to engaging in transformational change through collaborative professionalism is to engage in sustained design-based professional learning led by pracademics.Originality/valueThis thinking piece offers the perspective of one Canadian pracademic who shows how pracademics are uniquely positioned to take on the work of transformation, agency, and social change.
Chaaban, Youmen; Sellami, Abdellatif; Sawalhi, Rania; Elkhouly, Marwa
2022 Journal of Professional Capital and Community
doi: 10.1108/jpcc-11-2020-0091
This study explored the perceptions of Arab professionals toward pracademia and the ways they position themselves as professionals in this field.Design/methodology/approachNarrative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews with a total of eighteen pracademics identified for their work in teacher education. Participants included ten professional development (PD) specialists, three university supervisors and five specialists working at the Ministry of Education in Qatar.FindingsNarrative analysis of the interviews revealed variations in their identity renegotiations, with one group experiencing an emerging pracademic identity and the other group “holding on” to their previous practitioner identities. The narratives further provided insight into Arab pracademics relating to three themes: (1) definitions and roles, (2) knowledge and skills and (3) relationships with others, all of which pertain to pracademic identity construction.Originality/valueThe study contributes to understanding the identity renegotiation of pracademics working in multiple contexts in an Arab setting. Several recommendations are offered to support pracademics' identity renegotiation as a social activity.
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