The Divided Profession: The interplay of research, policy, and practice

The integration of knowledge and action is often discussed in terms of dyadic relationships between knowledge and policy or knowledge and practice. Experience with these relationships is reviewed and a research-policy-practice triad is proposed as an alternative that better captures the dynamics that are evident in experience. The model of a divided profession is suggested as a way to capture and address that tensions that characterize relationships in the triad and undermine efforts to relate knowledge and action.