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In this article, the reactor disaster in Fukushima (March 2011) together with the changes in energy policy following in its wake are used to enquire about reactions in the fields of natural science and technical didactics. The empirical finding is that didactical discourse has been little affected by Fukushima. The reason for this, in the view of the author, is to be found in the theoretical problems associated with specialised didactics, in this case didactics involving technology, as well as …
Meaning and function of the concept "employability" in education-political documents of the European Union After a short reconstruction of the evolvement of the social-political dimension since the 1990s, the textual dimension and the function of the concept of employability in the labour market, employment policy as well as the educational political discourse of the European Union are analysed. Considered are with it the changes of the controlling instruments of European politics with regar…
In modern society, the production of knowledge is multiplied and taken from the universities who were traditionally dedicated to this task, into the general public. The role of institutions of secondary education changes from diffusing to producing knowledge; teachers representing, in this context, the once-universal authority of science. Against this background, the authors present their DFGfunded project „Wissensgesellschaft. Umgang mit Wissen im Kontext sozialer Welten vor dem Hintergrund de…
The article deals with cooperation under the perspective of governance from an organisational view. According to the variety forms of cooperation in the field of adult education, cooperation can be seen as a medium that adult educational organisations can use for their reproduction and coordination in different institutional environment. Based on empirical findings from a case study, it can be shown that organisations initiate cooperation for collecting resources and legitimation. So, organisat…
The institution-economic analysis of problematic principal-agent relationships at off-the-job courses offered by the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Services) shows: The introduction of education vouchers does not change anything about the weaknesses of the system because qualification still happens outside the market. What is rather needed is a redirection towards on-the-job qualification measures since only these can help unemployed persons to find a job. Thus, qualification vouc…
Demographic change renders basic skills important at an increasingly older age. Among them, skills in financial matters are becoming increasingly rele- vant. The skills measured in PIAAC and CiLL represent comprehensive cognitive abilities which can be seen as the basis for successful participation in social and economic life. Based on a secondary analysis, this paper shows that financial prac- tices remain for older people, although their numeracy skills proficiency lower than those of younger…
The development of modern societies depends on a wide variety of an individual’s social commitment beyond gainful employment that can be subsumed under the term “volunteering”. Analysing empirical interviews, this article outlines the range and the transition of subjective educational biographic meanings of volunteering from the perspective of the volunteers. Thereby the appropriateness of qualitative longitudinal studies for specific research-purposes of long-term educational biographic change…
Based on the currently observable »generation change« in organizations of adult and continuing education, the text deals with conflicts between different generations and age groups, which may arise from this special situation of transition. Different forms of conflicts and tensions are outlined with regard to selected findings from studies of business and adult educational research on organizations. Above all organizations of adult and continuing education are confronted with the dilemma of con…
As a priority of education policy Lifelong Learning implies flexible individual learning pathways in different settings. Within the demographic change and the demand of higher skills higher education qualifications become increasingly important to reach employment, why higher education institutions need to open up against new target groups. This article focuses on further education offered by higher education institutions and intends to give a picture of the current demand and supply. Empirical…
Educational institutes have always been seen as needing to cooperate: this idea first took shape in education acts and is now increasingly being applied to lifelong learning. In practice, however, there are many arguments against cooperation at institutes of continuing education, not least as it can create unwanted situations of rivalry among the cooperating institutes. To develop models which will help guide schools on issues of cooperation better, further research is required: What advantage…
