Got theory?: Reconceptualizing the nature of the theory-practice gap in K-12 educational leadership
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| Pages | 2-20 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2018-0002 |
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| Author | Rachel Roegman,Sarah Woulfin |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Got theory?: Reconceptualizing the
nature of the theory-practice gap
in K-12 educational leadership
Rachel Roegman
Department of Educational Studies, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, and
Sarah Woulfin
University of Connecticut, Mansfield, Connecticut, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize the theory-practice gap in educational leadership,
not as a deficit, but as a necessity for legitimacy within institutional contexts.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper draws on institutional theory to reframe the theory-practice
gap, which is often seen as a deficit of leaders or preparation programs.
Findings –Three vignettes illustrate how aspiring and current educational leaders engage with theory and
practice within specific contexts and in relation to specific aspects of leadership. Importantly, the vignettes
show that when school leaders decouple theory from practice, they may be doing so to function as legitimate
providers of K-12 educational leadership.
Research limitations/implications –The theory-practice gap, while often perceived as something
negative, can have certain benefits within particular contexts. Scholars interested in the interconnections of
theory and practice would benefit from considering why and how school leaders engage theory and practice.
Practical implications –Implications for leadership preparation programs highlight developing more
complex views of the challenges that leaders face in tightly coupling theory and practice. To support future
and current leaders, leadership preparation programs need to ensure that their students understand their
institutional contexts and the reasons that leaders may decouple theory from action in various ways.
Originality/value –Instead of viewing the theory/practice gap as a deficit, this paper argues for a new
way to consider why school leaders and leadership candidates may engage with theory and practice in
different ways.
Keywords Leadership development, Organizational theory, Educational administration, Theory,
Institutional analysis
Paper type Conceptual paper
John Dewey (1963) described experience as consisting of two aspects –the immediate
moment and its influence on future experience. When experience occurs in isolation of
reflection around the larger context of the experience, then “it is wholly in the air”(p. 28).
Similarly, when educators engage in the practice of schooling without placing it within a
greater understanding of school and how a moment of practice fits within a theory of
teaching, learning or leadership, these practices also remain “wholly in the air.”As a
consequence, educators would be more likely to reproduce school as it is.
Building off of Dewey, English (2003) argued “there can be no claim to support a knowledge
base for a profession”(p. 3) without a theory that defines and supports the profession’s
practice. That is, K-12 educational leadership, like any profession, requires a theoretical base to
support the work of school leaders. In this conceptual paper, we return to these questions
of the relationship between theory and practice in educational leadership to explore ways
to better support aspiring and current school leaders in integrating theory and practice.
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 57 No. 1, 2019
pp. 2-20
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-01-2018-0002
Received 3 January 2018
Revised 19 April 2018
12 July 2018
27 August 2018
Accepted 31 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
The authors acknowledge the feedback of JEA’s reviewers and editors. The authors also thank Britney
Jones-Lawal for assistance with the manuscript.
2
JEA
57,1
In so doing, we reconceptualize the so-called theory-practice gap not as a weakness
in practitioner knowledge, but as an intentional way for practitioners to navigate complex
institutional contexts.
The normative literature on educational leadership maintains that practitioners should
be reflexive educators who engage in praxis –“reflection and action upon the world in order
to transform it”(Freire, 1970, p. 36). At the same time, leadership candidates in preparation
programs are asked to apply theoretical frameworks, ranging from critical race theory and
sensemaking theory to organizational theory, to their observations and activities in schools.
Leadership faculty hope that these learning opportunities will enable candidates to develop
complex views of the relationship between theory and practice (Kincheloe, 2004; Woulfin,
2016). By attending to both theory and practice, leaders would be able to test theory against
practice (Mullen et al., 2005), use the relationship between the two to deconstruct dominant
ideologies ( Jenlink, 2002), and make assumptions explicit in multiple contexts (Horn, 2002).
Despite the interconnected nature of theory and practice, for many aspiring and current
K-12 educational leaders, a gap exists between these two concepts, and this gap is treated as
a problem (Bailey and Gautam, 2015; Mullen et al., 2005; Saugstad, 2002).
This paper examines this purported gap and aims to reframe leaders’understanding of
the relationship between theory and practice as nuanced, situated within the unique
institutional environment of K-12 schooling. We argue that the disconnect is not about
aspiring and current leaders’inability to apply theory to practice or understand practice
through theory; nor is it about universities being disconnected from the field. Rather, we
propose that aspiring and current K-12 educational leaders engage in theory and practice in
various ways so they can participate as effective and legitimate educators in their buildings
and districts.
We begin this paper by reviewing the literature on theory and practice in K-12 leadership
and then turn to institutional theory to explore alternatives to thinking about the
relationship between theory and practice as a gap. Next, we draw on our experiences as
faculty in K-12 leadership preparation and as researchers with K-12 building- and
district-level leaders in diverse contexts across the USA to provide illustrations of three
ways that candidates and practitioners engage with theory and practice. Finally, we reflect
on the barriers in pre-service leadership preparation and in-service professional
development to develop and support leaders with the capacity to lead K-12 systems
grounded in complex understandings of theory and practice.
The disconnect between theory and practice in K-12 leadership
Before we review the relationship between theory and practice, we present our working
understanding of these two concepts. We view theory and practice as interconnected
concepts whose definitions rely on each other; however, we first discuss them independently
to present our usage of the terms and their usage in both literature and enactment of
K-12 school leadership. We then describe and illustrate various understandings of the
relationship between theory and practice in educational leadership, specifically related to
the so-called gap between the two.
According to Heck and Hallinger (2005), theory in educational leadership refers to “the
application of scientific principles based on empiricism rather than ideological belief,
personal experience, and prescription”(p. 230). Thus, theory is a way to organize the
leadership knowledge base upon which school leaders can draw. Theory includes
“intellectual underpinnings”and the “methods of inquiry”(p. 230), continued Heck and
Hallinger (2005), that inform the work of educational leaders and researchers. Their review
of theory in the history of research on educational leadership highlights the dominance of
rational, structural research paradigms up until the 1990s. That decade introduced a range
of alternate theories to help understand and explain educational leadership, including
3
Nature of the
theory-practice
gap
To continue reading
Request your trial