Top-Down and Outside-In: Breaking Boundaries between Research, Theory and Practice in Education

This article challenges divisions which have been set up between practice, research and theory in relation to the discipline of Education. It questions the epistemic positions upon which positivist metanarratives underpinning these divisions are founded. These include the separation of practice from research and theory and the creation of the notion of a vocational and academic divide. We provide insights into how a University-supported, practitioner-research programme (PRP), which draws upon Dewey’s pragmatic epistemology, is impacting upon the improvement of educational practice, processes of educational inquiry and the development of theory in the Further Adult and Vocational Education (FAVE) sector in England.