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This article presents the programme “Football for development”, which like the other ASA programmes of InWEnt allows young adults to take part in development policy educational work in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Southeast Europe for three months. The projects establish a regional educational and cultural programme using people’s love of football. At the same time, the participants from Germany develop an appreciation for experience from the “South”, helping dispel the traditional image of …
Adult educators often have to work with a small budget; at the same time, they are committed to educational ideals. By examining the mission statements of German adult education centres (Volkshochschulen), the article shows how this tension between the ‘guiding institutions’ of education and cost-efficiency is reflected in the values of these education providers. The analysis shows that while adult education centres do refer to ‘education’ in their mission statements, they also mention, each in…
Quality in further education is not supposed first and foremost to serve the educational organisation itself (the „within“), but the learners (the organisation’s „without”). The “without” should therefore have a substantial say when quality measures are developed and evaluated. Dr. Ch. Ehses and Prof. Dr. R. Zech of the “ArtSet Institut für kritische Sozialforschung und Bildungsarbeit e.V.” explain why the external view-point – the learners’ perspective – is essential, how it can work and what …
Why have we lately seen a renaissance of the concept of „region“ in the social sciences? The author explores changing perspectives on this concept against a background of technical and social development. While the electronic media allow networking as a form of cooperation that is motivated by functional aspects and exceeds regional boundaries, cooperation within the physical boundaries of a region is facilitated by ease of personal contacts, shared facilities and common institutions. Both tend…
Citizens’ involvement increasingly gains appreciation in the public perception. Also in the adult pedagogical discourse the attention is raised in the context of lifelong learning. In this contribution the author discusses how learning processes in adult education, that take place in a societal action context, can be supported, guided or even initiated. On the basis of own empirical inquiries the author examines citizens’ involvement as an action- and learning field and asks for learning experi…
The contribution contrasts interview statements of further education managers of the car industry from the years 1994 and 2004. The expert interviews draw a sober picture of the reality of operational education in the branch: the methods of determination of requirements and of the educational controlling are barely more elaborated than ten years ago; innovations of the industrial relations law do not grip; group work and e-learning are no longer favoured forms. Therefore the further education o…
“Precarious forms of work”, “wages near the poverty level” and “demand for minimum wages” – these are key words reflecting the status of continuing education personnel and the concurrent debate. The report focuses on the equality of wages in continuing education, taking up the business economical concept of “proportional equality of wages” as a result of the various references to the current debate in the field of adult and continuing education. The principles of market conformity, equal qualif…
The economy of education identifies various kinds of usefulness of education: individual benefits and also so-called external benefits, by which society profits (internal as well as external benefits can be monetary or non-monetary). These dimensions of usefulness differ in the degree to which they can be quantified. The benefits of education have not been researched as thoroughly as its cost. The more far-reaching welfare effects of further education are especially hard to measure. The evalu…
Biographical Orientations for Older People in Adult Education In times of demographic changes and an increasing flexibility of biographies, adult education is in need of adjusting its repertoire. General and highly standardized programmes alone do no longer fit the heterogeneity of its target groups. The article is based on two empirical studies – one focuses on individual management of work path, the other shows the importance of structuring time and activities to elder people. With these, …
The German Society for Promotion of Research at Old Age (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Forschung im Alter – DGFFA) wants to give an impulse for the intensification of the discussion on those aspects of the demographic change, to which the universities/colleges would need to devote themselves to in due time, if they strive to consolidate their future viability in a society of lifelong learning. The presented suggestions in this contribution are components of a position paper that a wor…
