Research
We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
Services
Digital tools, specialist portals and data – for teachers, researchers, students and interested parties.
Institute
We offer research, transfer and infrastructure for lifelong learning.
Labor economists argue that private investment in the training of workers may be too low. This view is based on the notion of worker skills being a common-pool resource available in principle to any employer. Such under-investment ought to be more pronounced the less difficult it is for outside firms to exploit the skills of workers qualified elsewhere. Thus, higher labor turnover may be expected to reduce firms’ commitment to developing worker qualifications; investment in general skills shoul…
Die Programmatik des Lebenslangen Lernens ist eng verbunden mit der Forderung nach vertikaler und horizontaler Durchlässigkeit und Transparenz im Bildungssystem. Nach wie vor ist ein durchlässiges Bildungssystem für alle Lebensphasen und Lebenslagen jedoch nicht realisiert, sondern allenfalls programmatisch aktualisiert worden. Gegenwärtig sind vor allem verschiedene Rahmensetzungen im Gespräch, die auf europäischer Ebene die Vergleichbarkeit und Anschlussfähigkeit von Bildungsgängen unterstütz…
Der Report widmet sich der Darstellung und Systematisierung des aktuellen erwachsenenpädagogischen Diskussions- und Forschungsstands zum Thema „interorganisationale Vernetzung“. Anhand einer sekundäranalytischen Literaturauswertung wird ein Überblick zu Anlässen, Formen, Zielen und Erfolgsbedingungen von Netzwerken in der Weiterbildung bzw. von Netzwerken, an denen sich Weiterbildungseinrichtungen beteiligen, dargestellt. Darüber hinaus wird themenbezogenes Informationsmaterial zu Projekten, Li…
Competence profile of the “specialist in violence” The changing requirements and roles of soldiers 50 years after the first military draft, this article explores the requirements and roles of German Army soldiers over the period 1957 to 2007. The changing competencies and skills required of soldiers must be understood in connection with the profound changes which the German Army has undergone in its transformation from a defence-oriented force to an army actively involved in military missions…
Beratung hat sich in der Weiterbildung als immer wichtiger werdendes Thema etabliert. Die Felder von Beratung haben sich dementsprechend ausdifferenziert: Gab es früher vorwiegend Weiterbildungsberatung und sozialpädagogische Beratung für benachteiligte Zielgruppen, sind seit einigen Jahren Organisations- bzw. Institutionsberatung, für unterschiedliche Kontexte nutzbar gemachte Lernberatung, sowie Systemberatung dazugekommen. Beratung erhält geradezu den Charakter einer neuen flexiblen Informat…
Numeracy practices are always dependent on the social context in which they emerge. These contexts, however, are unstable because of a range of technological and socio-political changes. How does this instability affect people’s agency in the world? After reviewing key approaches to numeracy practices research, we distil key findings from recent numeracy studies. We introduce the concept of the numerate environment to examine the context in which opportunities, supports and demands present them…
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…
The article analyses the linkage between the age of participants of continuing education and the function which learners appoint to their participation. Therefore, the influence of the subjective age for further education is studied. The study differentiates professional, social and personal functions of participation in continuing education. The result of a factor analysis designs subjective age into the two constructs cognitive and social-psychological subjective age. The data of two survey s…
The dissertation analyses the contribution of a social space research perspective to the understanding of (non-)participation of groups of less well-educated individuals in organized further education. Both, the theoretical as well as the methodological framing are defined by a social space perspective. In a substudy of the project “Learning in Social Quarters – Significance of Social Space for Further Education”, at the German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Center for Lifelong Learnin…
