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.
The opening up of higher education and the development of higher education insti-tutions as institutionalized and organized settings for lifelong learning has been focused in educational policy and scientific discourse for more than ten years. Consequently, research at the interface between further education and higher education research at international, European and national levels has been intensified in order to disclose framework conditions, forms and challenges regarding current and expec…
It becomes apparent in the current critique on methods of competence diagnostics that the problem does not lie in empirical or methodical, but mainly in theoretical deficits. Psycho-dynamic explanations are missing. Moreover, competences are mainly constructed as individual traits while social dimensions are ignored. Both deficits are considerable blank spaces. This paper argues that competence cannot be the cause of performance, but only the conscious notion of how masterly ways of acting look…
New service for programme research. The DIE online archive of further education programmes The German Institute for Adult Education (Deutsche Institut für Erwachsenenbildung, DIE) has an archive of Volkshochschule programme plans from 1957 to 2004. Now, a new stage of development has commenced, in the form of its online archive of further education programmes: a smaller-scale digitalised continuation which also forms a picture of the structure of the Volkshochschule situation. This article p…
This article about European networks as support for lifelong learning starts with an attempt to define the differences between European projects and European networks. The European Association for the education of Adults (EAEA) is put forward as an example of a European network. It focuses on the association’s mission statement, its aims and activities and how it can support adult learning in Europe. In this way it also demonstrates how these networks can reinforce transnational cooperation and…
Similarly to Austria and Switzerland adult education competencies could be recognized cross-provider in Germany. Within a joint research and development project the DIE and different associations of adult and continuing education develop basics for a correspondent method for teachers. The authors focus on preceded feasibility studies and needs assessments of the DIE. These show an overwhelming approval of the target group to initiate such activities, but also see risks as well as opportunities …
The development of interest in adult education This article presents results of a project funded by the DFG on the development of interest in continuing and further education. We connect our work to most recent research on biographical genesis of interest and focus occuring during an individual’s participation in adult education. As theoretical approach we refer to the Munich theory of interest and the pragmatist approach. We empirically investigate the opportunities and limitations of a qua…
The article is the answer of the (female) author to three questions for the understanding, the development and the most important tasks of gender democracy now and in the future. The actual development of gender democracy as a political target is seen critically by Barbara Stiegler similar to the view of Peter Döge. But at the field of education gender democracy has to be understood as a target in general. Gender mainstreaming as an integrative educational task and issue presupposes gender …
While political education appears to be of secondary importance in the national grants policy, on the European plane it is coming to a new blossoming. The European ministers of education are working towards a joint educational planning programme and are looking for common aims in political education. The pertinent grants programmes are a rich source of for good practice. In cross-section tasks the intertwining of political education and political development manifests itself. Monika…
How can continuing education in actual practice really use empirical data on the area of continuing education? The author, a business manager at an adult college special-purpose association, demonstrates in his article the practical potential offered by empirical educational research. The data generated serve as a comparative parameter for local statistics and can help identify and corroborate fields of development. He elucidates this using the examples of milieu marketing and course leader qua…
