Research
We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
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We offer research, transfer and infrastructure for lifelong learning.
The aspect of relations in the relationship between teacher and learner as resource and determinant for lifelong learning In addition to the work with the subject being studied there also exists a personal relationship between the learners and their trainers. The communication science has shown the relevance of relationships in every type of interaction. Therefore, it has to be assumed that the quality of relationships has impacts on learning success. This means for the idea of lifelong lear…
Positive learning experiences in childhood, adolescence, as well as during employment have a favourable effect on learning in old age. From a gerontological perspective, the significance of school education and of professional qualifications attained later in life for educational behaviour in the post-employment phase can be explained with the continuity theory. To evaluate the relevance of one’s educational biography, a representative survey was conducted. 500 individuals at the age from 50 to…
Foreign languages à la mode. Trends in adult language acquisition based on the example of the VHS programme Learning foreign languages is a high-status activity in organised adult learning. Based on VHS (adult education centre) statistics, the author shows that foreign languages are an indispensable element of the VHS programme range; hardly any other area is in such constantly high demand, a demand which can also be seen in relation to income status. Now making up 30 percent of all courses,…
The article focuses on the development of the global educational discourse from a human rights perspective, particularly with regard to adult education and lifelong learning. The author discusses the historic milestones set by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the consequent understanding of learning as well as the various national implementation strategies of the right for lifelong learning.
Recognition of informal professional competencies Learning in informal and non-formal contexts has not yet gained wide-spread political and social acceptance, documentation and certification. Due to its individual and contextual situation, informal learning can be recognized via learning results only. Professional competence, including both formal and informal learning strategies, will constitute the foundation for a comparative evaluation and certification of such competencies and abilities.
The article focuses the question whether workforce literacy strategies in research and policies may tend to exclude relevant fields of literacy, which have emancipatory chances for participants, but which regularly fail in including low qualified or literate adults, namely the area of basic civic education. The relevance of basic civic education will be discussed using contemporary theories, which point at a crisis of democracy and explain this by the spread of income and capital and its legiti…
In addition to (in-)formal organisational structures, the perspectives and actions of the management and its influence are central to the coordination of organizational members. How management shapes this task, however, is so far hardly attributed to institutional influences of the organisational environment. Against this background, this book explores in a contrastive case study from a neo-institutionalist point of view how the action-guiding sense of leadership of managers in adult education …
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…
The author certifies the integration courses for immigrants, which were launched at the beginning of this year, a false start. The responsible Federal Agency allegedly operates with delusive numbers of started courses; the approval procedures are supposed to be too lengthy and the implementation for the sponsor of language courses is allegedly unprofitable. This is supposed to apply intensified to the 30 hour long orientation course, where hardly any direct payers can be expected. Especially t…
As means of state regulation of adult education, cooperation and networking have increasingly gained importance in recent years. Yet, deficits of such regulation have come to light. A possible response to such deficits may be found in structures which support network in their coordinating actions. This article focuses on such supportive structures, systemizes different forms of support and outlines a theoretical approach for the analysis of inter-organizational network consultation.
