‘Pracs’ and ‘Demics’: Identifying Pracademic Subtypes in Family Mediation and Other Disciplines

Abstract

The concept of the pracademic — where practitioner meets academic — describes someone who not only has status within a university context, but is also active in the relevant field of practice.

In this paper I argue that most pracademics belong to one of two pracademic subtypes, distinguished here as ‘pracs’ and demics’ in order to denote their roles – either as those who are primarily practitioners (pracs) or who are engaged mainly within the academy (demics). I focus particularly on scholarship rather than teaching as I contend that, while scholarship informs teaching, scholarship also benefits from the expert input of those whom I term pracs.

While the differences and similarities discussed here mostly concern family mediators working in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), the issues raised may be relevant to other professional disciplines.

Keywords: pracademics, ‘pracs’, ‘demics’, family mediation, family mediators, ADR