Research
We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
Services
Digital tools, specialist portals and data – for teachers, researchers, students and interested parties.
Institute
We offer research, transfer and infrastructure for lifelong learning.
This issue of REPORT focuses on current trends in adult and continuing education in various European countries, with a particular emphasis on the situation in Spain, Romania, Finland, Great Britain and Germany. Documenting the results of an international lecture series held at the University of Essen-Duisburg, the essays, for the first time, are presented in English. The articles gathered in this REPORT may serve as a point of departure for further studies in this area of research and contribut…
Der REPORT vermittelt einen Überblick zur wissenschaftlichen Forschung und Theoriebildung in der Erwachsenenbildung. Jedes Heft behandelt ein Schwerpunktthema und enthält einen umfangreichen Rezensionsteil.
The Author presents a shortened version of the report »The Social and Personal Benefits of Learning: A Summary of Key Research Findings« by the »Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning (WBL)«. The wider benefits of early childhood education as well as school, university and adult education are examined. The wide range of positive educational benefits contains crime prevention as well as a reduced nicotine consumption or increased tolerance.
During the last two decades, widening adult participation in higher education has become a central issue in international and especially European lifelong learning policy debates. At European level this is reflected in the Europe 2020 strategy set out by the European Commission. One headline target is to boost the share of the population aged 30–34 that has completed tertiary or equivalent education to 40 per cent by 2020. In the face of general trends such as the intensive use of ICT, the evol…
For some time, recollection, identity and historical awareness have been frequently applied concepts of history. Ever since adult education came into being, it has also dealt with the topic. The research spectrum, conducted with various methods, reaches from the presentation of historical objectives, structures and figures to a critical reflection of individual interests and motivation. In making these efforts, a historical and continually re-forming self-awareness of the discipline can be cons…
Es ist nahezu ein Allgemeinplatz, von der Pluralität der Lernorte zu sprechen und mittlerweile Konsens, die Vielfalt der Orte des Lehrens und Lernens sowie deren Eingebundensein in gesellschaftliche Strukturen und Funktionen zu akzeptieren und wissenschaftlich zu verorten. Es gibt eine diszplinübergreifende Übereinstimmung darin, dass es neben den traditionellen Orten institutionalisierten und organisierten Lernens eine Vielzahl von „offenen“ und „freien“ Lernorten gibt. In jüngster Zeit gewinn…
Scientific Education This issue combines empirical and conceptual access points to research of an area of education which has been for the most part neglected by continuing education: What role does natural science knowledge play in the context of informal and non-formal learning processes of adults? And what impetus can be derived for the structure and design of teaching-learning arrangements in other areas? This issue provides insight into specific issues, providing a contribution to inter…
The report includes a slightly revised version of a lecture held during the opening ceremony of the German Continuing Education Day in Berlin in 2012. The author focuses on the day’s central idea: surplus value of continuing education and pleads for the use of the benefit concept, which includes the individual’s perspective, as well as the concept of profit with regard to the social and organizational perspective.
Firstly, the author explores the terminological field covering the outcome of educational counselling and develops beneficial dimensions, which are visualised as a network. The author stimulates the German discussion with methodological topics and research results originating in British evaluations. Scientific studies used to confirm the positive effects of educational counselling. Finally the report suggests an agenda for researching the benefits in the field of counselling in continuing edu…
In February 2009, a national association of guidance practitioners and scientific experts, known as the German National Guidance Forum for Education, Career and Employment (nfb), presented a widely recognized key issues paper. The following report comments on the paper from the perspective of continuing education research with a special focus on the following issue: Will the structural improvement of continuing educational counselling lead to an increase of participation in adult education? Due…
