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After the federal elections, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has taken on a new organisational structure. For the first time, its activities in further education are now bundled together in a seperate department (»Lifelong Learning, Further Education«), thus enabling the ministry to »speak with one voice«. On top of this, the superior department is »University, Further Education«, which shows that the two are considered as equivalent from the organisationalpolitical viewpoint.
Scientific adult learning discussions refer to the concept of “region” mainly in policy contexts. Against this background, the author develops an approach to investigate regions from an organizational point of view. In a qualitative interview study using grounded theory within the framework of action-centered geography, he shows that adult education organizations and professionals construct regions in pedagogical practice. These practices need to be analyzed as a complex interplay between marke…
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…
In recent years, the discourse on competences as well as the increasing importance of informal learning particularly at workplaces have attributed a prominent position to the procedures of visualization and balancing of vocational competences within the educational practice as well as in education policy debates.However, most of these procedures focus on apprentices or participants of further education courses. This rather limited view has largely excluded teachers and/or dispositive employees …
In the last years the issue of adult literacy has gained international and national importance – not least due to the comparative surveys IALS, ALL, and PIAAC, conducted by the OECD. The result was a series of developments in education policy, in particular regarding the promotion and financing of adult literacy programmes. Based on country reports, the present article provides internationally comparative insight into the discussion regarding the promotion and financing of adult literacy progra…
Differentiating ageing and old age it is argued that a separate life stage “old age” is to be understood as a social construction. Ageing must not be conceptualized as a uniform and unidirectional process. Instead, physiological-biological, psychological, and social ageing are somehow independent processes following different developmental curves. Focussing on old age as a whole makes clear that gains as well as losses are characteristic for this life stage. Both aspects should be incorporated …
The reorientation of vocational further education through the Hartz laws, with their introduction of education vouchers, the drastic cutting of expenses for vocational education and complementing orders issued by the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (federal head institution of employment exchanges) add to an increase in unemployment: institutions in Further Education must reduce their numbers of courses, close down branch offices, and dismiss employees; holders of education vouchers remain without fur…
Im Zuge der Globalisierung gewinnen internationale Organisationen immer mehr an Bedeutung, zumal im Bildungsbereich. So finden die von der OECD durchgeführten indikatorengestützte Vergleichsstudien große öffentliche Beachtung. Die EU prägt mit ihren Programmen Leonardo und Sokrates die Bildungspraxis der Mitgliedstaaten nachhaltig. Der Autor analysiert die weiterbildungspolitischen Orientierungen und Aktivitäten von OECD, EU, UNESCO und Weltbank und deckt damit die Bedeutung inter- und supranat…
