Knowledge from Experience of a Police Officer: A Grounded Study

Abstract

The article is grounded of research work, which develops the theme of the knowledge gathered by police officers from their experience. Assuming that social research must be pragmatically significant and rooted in the problematic nature of the present, we choose to frame the topic in the professional context of police officers, which we consider particularly relevant to the developments that the research in this field can offer. The introduction investigates the relationship between experience and reflection and concludes with an argumentation that supports the importance of a disposition towards reflectivity, as the main cognitive tool for the construction of experiential knowledge in the practice. The empirical part, implemented with a grounded method, introduces the results of the interviews carried out with the agents of a patrolling squad. Finally, we elaborate a project to submit the outcomes of the empirical investigation to institutional educational planning.