The Great Academic-Practitioner Divide: A Tale of Two Paradigms

For decades, many academicians have expressed concern about the gap between themselves and practitioners. In those decades, much has been written about the probable causes of and methods for narrowing this gap. Despite the dialog and the efforts to narrow it, the gap remains. This paper explores four assumptions related to the gap. We use paradigm theory to examine the "academic world" and the "practitioner world" and to explain how the separate worlds perpetuate the gap. We then propose that academicians either accept the gap or legitimize the pracademic viewpoint. a paradigm that reconciles the differences between the academic and practitioner paradigms. Specific suggestions are provided regarding the establishment and development of the pracademic paradigm.