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This article presents the results of a recent online survey of graduates of the Austrian Academy of Continuing Education. Methodically, the survey’s results on benefit items are interpreted and answers to open questions are analyzed by qualitative content analyses. Empirical findings are subject to an interpretation using concepts of professionalization and the political agenda of validation of informal and non-formal learning. An important finding is, that WBA enhances individual professionali…
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…
Foundation of a family as a predetermined breaking point? On the interaction of parenthood and participation in adult education and continuing education Within the context of an empirical longitudinal research project, the processes and turning points of the continuing education practise are documented and discussed in a gender-typical context of life. The survey proves the gender-typical change of the (continuing) education behaviour of men and women when they become fathers and mothers: The …
The relation between sustainability and widening access to adult learners in higher education is both well comprehensible and highly vague. Accordingly, and following the arguments of Seghezzo (2009) and Foster (2001), the paper aims to complement academic discourse on widening access of higher education by showing the benefit of using the concept of sustainability not merely as an operational measurement index or a learning topic content-wise. Rather, a different understanding of sustainabilit…
Vocational adult education research Data situation, research questions and selected results Likewise the meaning of adult education the number of reseach works with this theme increase. Prerequisite for interpretation and classification of the present results of adult education research is the knowledge of the underlying sources of data and information. The text at hand gives an overview of the data situation in the area of vocational adult education whereas it features also company ques…
The paper discusses learning as a way of obtaining recognition in adult life. Recognition is one of the basic categories of A. Honneth’s notion of justice. The opinions presented in this paper have been formulated on the basis of the research carried out among non-traditional students of OSW. Adult students who pursue education often express deep satisfaction they experience in the course of their studies, claiming that the process has helped them to boost their confidence and increase their ow…
What kind of continuing education is appropriate for me? More and more potential continuing education participants are turning to adult education institutions with this question. They often expect help in planning their educational and/or professional career. The ProfilPASS is the best known qualitative approach to educational and professional counselling in Germany; it is also used in some parts of Austria. The ProfilPASS is a portfolio used exclusively by qualified ProfilPASS counsellors to h…
During the last two decades widening adult participation in higher education has become a central issue in international and especially European lifelong learning policy debates. At European level this is reflected in the Europe 2020 strategy set out by the European Commission. One headline target is to boost the share of the population aged 30–34 that has completed tertiary or equivalent education to 40 per cent by 2020. In the face of general trends such as the intensive use of ICT, the evolu…
Does law governing continuing education distinguish between general and vocational education? This article examines the question as to whether and in what manner applicable law governing continuing education in Germany distinguishes between general and continuing vocational education. The analysis of the historical line of development shows that this was definitely the case especially during the phase of the so-called “qualification campaign” in the 1970s and 1980s. In the present, on the ot…
Management of transition in further education of Bochum Consultancy, qualification and education at the transition between school and vocational training The contribution describes, from the perspective of a scientific practical guidance, how a communal further education information centre (in the Ruhr area of Bochum) engages in the transition between school and vocational training in terms of offering help and orientation to school children concerning their choosing of a profession. In a qu…
