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New Perspectives for Planning and Realization of Programmes. Steps towards Inclusive Adult Education. Part II The report focuses on the challenges of the inclusive paradigm in programme planning and implementation. Four strategic approaches are presented which facilitate the access to inclusive adult education. (1) Access to existing programmes needs to be generally facilitated for people with disabilities. (2) Cultural education is especially predestined to be in the focus. (3) People with …
This article starts from the premise that an academic discipline directed at practice has to question, within which terms its research results become useful beyond science. For empirical research, the authors put forward the idea of use-inspired basic research. This approach might be a helpful orientation due to (further) educational science’s double challenge to simultaneously prove academic productivity and practical as well as societal usefulness. By reference to points of decision regularly…
The study examines how research-based learning, based on grounded theory, might enhance students learning abilities. In the context of a qualitative experiment, two groups of students were introduced to research-based learning. The students involved were asked about their learning experiences afterwards. The results of the study implicate that research-based learning is a promising approach for the development of self-determined learning. Students were critical, however, regarding the incompati…
This article is concerned with the discourse and policy of lifelong learning in Europe after 1973. It deals with the question whether the 1980s have to be seen as a period of diminishing interest in lifelong learning or as a formative phase of so called neoliberalism. Applying a corpus lingustic approach, it analyses the official documents of the European Communities as archived in the database EUR-Lex. The results are interpreted as the expression of a new European governance regime called “te…
This study explores the definition of „adult basic education“ from the perspective of public education administration of the German Laender. On the one hand, adult basic education is claimed as a public good that has to be made accessible by public funding. One the other hand, there is still no agreement on the definition of adult basic education. Based on a subject-scientific approach, qualitative interviews are conducted with administrative employees in order to explore dimensions and justifi…
This contribution focuses on the significance of analyzing learning processes in case-based learning in continuing education. These analyses play a crucial role in finding explanations for the lack of effective instructional interventions. Furthermore, they allow for the immediate review of assumptions on learning mechanisms. After a brief overview of data collection techniques and of the typical data structure underlying such analyses, the procedure for conducting the analysis is described. Af…
The International PIAAC study has collected data on competencies of adults in three domains in 25 countries, in many of them for the first time ever. The article provides an overview of central terms, main aims and the methodological approach of this OECD study. It also discusses its potentials and limitations. One limitation is the focus on the labour force, excluding adults older than 65 years, a fast growing part of many populations in times of demographic change. To remedy this limitation,…
Based on considerations of the signaling theory and the reputation approach this study examines whether a relationship between employer-provided continuing vocational training and the success of establishments to recruit external qualified staff, can be demonstrated. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of establishments in Germany carried out in 2011. The results of a multivariate analysis show that establishments with continuing vocational training are more successful in recruiting qua…
Particularly, disabled people belong to those being excluded from social participation. From these peoples’ point of view, the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities formulates specific challenges for the system of adult and continuing education. What results from these challenges with regard to the various social and individual functions given to adult education and lifelong learning? Answers from the field of adult education, from the pedagogy for the disabled and from socio…
In the future it should be possible for educationally qualified applicants to be able to attend a university without university-entrance certificates acquired in a secondary school. This is meant to help ease the looming shortage of skilled labour in Germany. Facilities in the area of adult education are also to help facilitate the transition to a school of higher learning. The authors of this article report on a promising approach along these lines – the Lower Saxony model project »Open Univer…
