57/07

Strata, Class, Milieu. Reference strategies in research on continuing education 1957-2007
The author provides a longitudinal look at 50 years of research on participation in continuing education. After presenting some important publications from 1957 (Schelsky, Dahrendorf), he presents sociological reference strategies which were used in the respective time periods to explain the social structure: first strata and class, and then later – due to the influence of Bourdieus – the social milieu: He presents pertinent studies from the field of research on education exploring participation and non-participation in adult education for both periods. The social selectivity of (continuing) education exhibits a regular pattern which is at the same time independent of the social model.

Traumatisation and national emergency semantics. Continuities in educational policy from Sputnik to the PISA shock
The successful launch of the Soviet satellite “Sputnik” in the autumn of 1957 had a lasting impact on u.S. educational policy: expenditures on education and science skyrocketed in order to keep up in the technol-ogy race with the Soviet union. this article explores the conditions in which the launch of a satellite led to a profound shock while at the same time analysing the semantics of war and vulnerability. After this, the author asks whether there are parallels to the shock experienced by Germany with respect to the PiSA results in 2000. in both cases education was a power resource, even if the competitive situa-tions were very different. Georg Picht’s “educational disaster” is forwarded as a “bridge” between the national emer-gency semantics of Sputnik and PiSA.

Competence profile of the “specialist in violence”
The changing requirements and roles of soldiers
50 years after the first military draft, this article explores the requirements and roles of German Army soldiers over the period 1957 to 2007. The changing competencies and skills required of soldiers must be understood in connection with the profound changes which the German Army has undergone in its transformation from a defence-oriented force to an army actively involved in military missions. Nowadays soldiers are required to have analytical as well as action-related skills, multi-lingual capabilities, empathy and inter-cultural competence. At the same time, the core competence of soldiers – the ability and willingness to engage in combat – is still requisite. The German Army confronts the requirements outlined in the article with a wide range of training and retraining programme, inter alia at the Hamburg “Leadership Academy of the German Army”, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

From the “Göttinger 18” in the “Wyhler Wald”. The learning movement of a social movement beginning in 1957.
18 German nuclear physicists signed a declaration in 1957 in which they refused to take part in the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. This “Göttinger Declaration” was the beginning of the anti-atomic energy movement, which subsequently developed into a self-organised educational scene. One symbol of this is the Wyhler Wald Adult Education Centre in Baden, which the article examines as an example of an institutionalised form of a social movement. Contents, forms of dialogue and methods used by initiatives such as the Easter March Movement, Anti-Atomic Energy or the Third World Initiative also became part of the courses offered at established adult education institutions.

“The Ideal World of the Bildungbürger and Rural “Borderline Experiences”
Programmes of German adult education centres in 1957
In this article course programmes of German adult education centres in 1957 are examined from the perspectives of four time-witnesses of German social history during the Cold War: (1) What memories are stimulated among time-witnesses as to what the courses were really like? (2) What approach is used in the cover text? (3) What differences can one find when comparing the design and topics of two course plans? (4) What topics were at the focus of interest in 1957? The analysis was performed within the framework of a seminar on the history of adult education. It was carried out with three students, among them an 81-year-old who had taken part in the courses.