The carrier bag theory of nursing practice

The carrier bag theory of nursing practice is a reinterpretation of how nursing is known and practiced that explicitly acknowledges and values nursing's oral and experiential traditions. An assumption of this work is that the region of experience that is nursing has been effectively divided into two worlds--academia and the world of practice. This has resulted in a theory-practice gap and an elite class-working class gap, as well as a gap between epistemes, or "knowing that" versus "knowing how." This article describes the development of reflective practice and resulting narratives from a critical perspective as a way of creating a pathway between the two worlds of nursing and honoring scholarship in all the ways nursing is known and practiced.