Isn’t It Time to Start “Theorising Practice” Rather than Trying to “Apply Theory to Practice”?

Abstract

The idea of “applying theory to practice” is one of the core beliefs at the heart of social work education. It now informs an extensive literature and underpins teaching on theory and methods courses in university qualifying programs in the UK, much of Europe, Australasia and North America. It implies that we start with theory and then fit theoretical concepts and knowledge into practice situations. However, students and early career practitioners generally struggle with this and raise awkward questions – for example: how do we know what is the best theory to apply, what does “apply” mean, and what is the most effective way of doing this? It appears to be a case of trial and error. In this paper we argue that “applying theory to practice” is the wrong way round and instead we should promote “theorizing practice”. It works as follows: Rather than beginning with theory, we start with real-life practice situations. We then “theorize” that practice – by working out what elements of our professional knowledge base can help us understand and respond to the specific problems. We outline three practice examples to illustrate how this might work and, in so doing, promote critically reflective practice.