ABSTRACT
The relationship between theory and practice and research is one that has been touched upon elsewhere in this book, without the word theory being defined. Theory is usually taken to be the body of knowledge that a professional occupation regards as essential to practise. However, we have already raised problems about this in at least two ways: the role of the educator has become much more complex, so that the knowledge necessary to practise may only relate to a specialized part of the whole professional role and, second, our understanding of knowledge itself has become so much more complex that we now question the extent to which theory can actually be applied to practice (Jarvis, 1999a). Indeed, I have argued that in many situations a personal theory is generated from practising rather than the other way around. This chapter, therefore, has two main parts: the relationship between practice and theory, and research into adult education and lifelong learning.
