ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that populist thinking tends to criticise the gap, rather than consider it a potentially productive relationship. The theory–practice gap manifests itself in many different ways in nursing. It has been described as a mismatch between nursing as taught and nursing as practised. The recognition of different forms of theory and knowledge in nursing has been possible because of a rejection of the technical-rational approach to knowledge and the assumption that theory informs practice rather than there being a symbiotic relationship. A feature of the British learning environment or clinical placement for nursing students is that it is also a workplace. The hidden curriculum can also be an area where conflict arises between different approaches to learning. The theory–practice relationships depend in part upon the ways in which knowledge has been “codified” in accordance with the rules and procedures of the disciplines and schools of thought that inform the field of practice.
