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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…
Modern society has widely been characterized as an information society, in that the possession of information (or rather knowledge) is seen as the predominant factor for success. But information is volatile: the need to replace or update obsolete information becomes ever more pressing, as technological and scientific development moves on. This, however, happens in the context of a compartmentalization of society into a sector of successful, flexible individuals on the one hand and a sector of t…
The report covers approaches for research and modeling an orientation to social spaces of educational facilities in synergy with real-world oriented search for education. According to the author, it is based on four central categories: living environments, educational spaces, thematic portals and learning cultures. The analyses of educational participation in social spaces from a meso and macro didactical perspective, based on educational theories, can support the identification of educational …
For the author the term of learning place is like a bus: In lifelong learning there is learning always and everywhere. Anyhow the term is important as a perspective for contemplation and as a heuristic key. The author goes into the matter of the different facets of the term and formulates tasks of learning places, especially in the borderless learning area of lifelong learning. He critically points out by all means several excesses of the learning place development, where the didactical figu…
The author prefers the term of »sustainable learning« compared with »education for sustainable development«, because she sees the numerous non-institutionalised learning processes being included. The UN decade is a challenge for a variety of learning places, protagonists and target groups. She confronts the chances for the decade with several social, above all individual barriers, which complicate the learning of sustainability. Besides the value attitudes and emotions above all here the factor…
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…
The staff in adult and continuing education is the most important factor for a high quality and demand-oriented development of training courses and their effective implementation. However, there existed only insufficient data and information on these persons. For the first time, the wb-personalmonitor now provides data on demographics, employment situation, living conditions, job profiles, qualifications as well as job related attitudes for the staff in adult and continuing education. Thus, the…
As a result of the current migration of several hundreds of thousands refugees in Germany alone, concepts for successful language training become increasingly important. The integration programme funded by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) plays a central role. This article refers to data collected by the author regarding success factors for language learning. In this qualitative study, 51 interviews were conducted with integration programme participants in a reception centre…
The development of modern societies depends on a wide variety of an individual’s social commitment beyond gainful employment that can be subsumed under the term “volunteering”. Analysing empirical interviews, this article outlines the range and the transition of subjective educational biographic meanings of volunteering from the perspective of the volunteers. Thereby the appropriateness of qualitative longitudinal studies for specific research-purposes of long-term educational biographic change…
The present findings are based on a programme analysis of one fifth of all programmes provided by public adult education institutions in Low Saxony in 2012. The study focused on field classification as well as on the analysis of participation portals. Over all, eight portals were developed and identified for the analysis. The findings provide information on methods for addressing social requirements and thus differentiating the educational field – how intercultural education undergoes a delta-s…