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Publically funded adult education has rarely contributed to the increase of educational equality. Often enough, it has been beneficial to those who had already enjoyed their share of education and employment. The author reflects on the German post-war history of continuing education and identifies several cycles of financial distribution. The initial focus of adult education was on educationally ambitious citizens. Based on a socio-political motivation, the learning of employees became increasi…
Education and equity are certainly central issues of educational research as well as topics of controversial public debate. On the one hand, Social Justice and Inequality Research focus on adult education, on the other hand adult education addresses the subject itself. Through the re-analysis of organizational structural data gathered from adult education providers in the state of Hesse, Germany, this article takes a closer look at the field of adult education. It aims to examine participation …
An idyll of inclusion and exclusion? The article brings into question the ongoing debate about inclusion/exclusion. For this purpose it draws attention to the circularity of the used arguments being composed of democracy – social inclusion – education. Hence, the paper is aimed at discussing the interdependence of these components, focussing in particular on the ambivalent position of adult/further education in this dynamic. The reference to the work of Jacques Rancière, an influential Frenc…
„Click and Type“ – new ways into the empirical practice On theory and practice of online researches It is still relatively unsettled what online research resp. online questionaires are and what effects these instruments have on the entire research process. On the basis of different sources and experiences from own projects this contribution goes into the matter of the single einzelnen effects online research from different perspectives, such as e. g. the options of figuration, the warranty…
Adult pedagogical responsibility in the interpretation and explanation of empirical results for knowledge-based education needs analysis Education needs analyses often appear in a picture of the "comparison" of definable desired value and measured actual value. Thereby mostly the impression of deficits arise. Depending on the arrangement of a needs analysis, therewith in a special way questions are posed concerning the processing and application of the empirical data material, especially w…
Participants related and milieu related aspects of participation in adult education It is assumed that the participants quotas, participants interests and participants motivation do not only differ regarding the central sociodemografic features but also differ strongly with regard to the respective milieu affiliation. Theoretically the milieu studies add on to the traditional pilot studies of adult education (cp. Strzelewicz among others 1966) and the differentiating analyses of the modern r…
The wide demand for physical education reflects a growing awareness of the value of physical activity in society as a whole. The concepts of comprehensive physical activity applied by institutions of adult education focus on physical coordination, strength, perseverance, stretching and the activation of persons with reduced physical capabilities. Institutions of adult education cooperate with other actors engaged in health promotion such as health insurance organisations. There is much common g…
Taking the Bavarian Vir tual University (Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern) as an example, the author shows that the innovative potential of vir tual universities lies in the idea of a cooperation of utterly different universities, with teaching staff from different faculties, schools and backgrounds. Bringing these divergent elements together, notably in the question of a mutual acknowledgement of credits issued by each university, is one of the most ambitious aims of the Virtuelle Hochschule Bay…
The author starts out from a review of the relationship between language didactics and other fields of research giving inspiration to it (learning psychology, linguistics, second language acquisition research, anthropology), exploring whether constructivism might be one of these fields. He criticizes that in order to explain constructivist perspectives on learning, constructivists tend to use „instructionalism“ as a background against which to position their own ideas, „instructionalism“, howev…
This text is focused on examining the relevance of the trends towards democratisation in the Adult Education context of Spain. After giving a description of the legal frame, the text develops a brief explanation of the different models which coexist in Adult Education centres. In particular, the author emphasises the relevance of the social model in the Spanish contexts of Adult Education, as it is starting from high expectations about the learners’ capacities and based on the participant’s rig…
