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.
Die Broschüre „Kompetenzorientiertes Prüfen in der kaufmännischen Berufsbildung“ richtet sich an Akteure aus dem Bereich der beruflichen (kaufmännischen) Bildung, insbesondere aus der Prüfungspraxis. Sie bietet in komprimierter Form einen aktuellen Überblick zur Thematik zentraler Abschlussprüfungen, leitet konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für die Gestaltung, Bewertung und Einbindung von Prüfungen, sowohl auf Mikro- als auch auf Makroebene, ab und gibt darüber hinaus Anstöße für Entwicklungspersp…
In a representative survey in 2012 the German edition of the Adult Education Survey (AES) collected data relating to the professional development behaviour and the structure of the professional development market in Germany. This final report analyses and comments on the collated data under the consideration of key questions: Who participates why, how often and how long in professional development and who does not? Which professional development provisions are popular? How is the target group o…
Contemporary discourses in the context of educational governance mostly ignore the field of adult education. Discussions focus on global or national level, the significance of municipalities in managing education systems is widely overseen. This paper picks up the concept of governance to identify the structure and processes of managing adult education on municipality level. On the basis of two model examples the practical implementation of adult education governance will be illustrated, which …
The development of typologies is used as a method in social and educational research that helps to systematically reduce complex information. Thus, developing typologies facilitates theoretical as well as empirical clarification and contributes in this way to the attainment of scientific insights. Typologies are based on the results of comparisons derived from analysing empirical material. These results are then clustered and outlined as dimensions for allocating individual cases, identifying i…
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…
From the principle of the regulated occupation to the supremacy of certification: fields of conflict en route to the German qualifications framework (DQR) This article addresses the central difficulties observed in the search for consensus during the current development of a national German qualifications framework (Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen, DQR). As well as the difficulty in blending in the German national “dual system” of vocational training with the EQF, the main difficulties identi…
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: H…
Searching for the third way. A statistical look at the practice of winning third-party funds over for further education institutions. The article provides empirical backgrounds for winning third-party funds over for further education institutions through the database of the German Institute of Adult Education. According to the database 17 % of the total financial backing for the Community Adult Education Centres came from third-party funds in 2005, after a maximum of 20 % in 2002. As a comparis…
The term learning place was introduced into the peadagogical professional jargon and into education political linguistic usage by the German education council in 1974. The learning places named by the German education council (school, company, apprenticeship workshop and studio) gain their specifity through their different paedagogical functions in the learning process. Initially home in the area of vocational education, the term was later also adapted by adult education. That is where there is…
Competence or authorization? PISA – a challenge also for adult education and research PISA also provokes adult education and adult pedagogy to a new evaluation of the prerequisites of participation in adult education and the meaning of “making up for” by means of adult education, of a heterogenous programme which has received less attention since the reform of education. Therefore this contribution scetches the state of the art of the compensatory education for adults (basic education, scho…