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The following article focuses the neglected relation between identity and learning by reconstructing foreign language learning efforts by adults. In spite of educational policy’s proclamation of (continuous) lifelong learning, real learning processes are characterised by various discontinuities. Adults deal with these discontinuities by perceiving, describing and structuring them dependent on their self-images as learners. Interpretations of interviews with adult language learners supply eviden…
Although trainers can be expected to be important for the success further of vocational education, there is no regulation of the qualification of trainers in Germany. A so-called train-the-trainer certificate often serves as proof of professionalism. The study describes the topics of those certificates and their frequencies. Therefore we looked at the programs of 47 providers in terms of a qualitative content analysis. The inductively generated category system contains 56 categories on three hi…
In the context of lifelong learning, adults are increasingly being viewed from a biographical perspective. This article takes a look at how differently – and in some cases inconsistently – adults are construed as biographical subjects in education policy, in educational practice, and in research on adult education. It argues that to even begin to examine the processes and practices of biographical subjectification that take place in adult and continuing education, biographical research must be …
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…
In day care nursery, people without a preceding educational training can be employed after a vocational re-training. For the employees, a new professional perspective and a non-normative transition open up. Analysing focused-narrative interviews with two child minders, we intend to reconstruct the motives of these women for such a professional re-orientation.
Unlearning has been established as a phenomenon in common parlance, but has been neglected by educational science so far. Very few authors use the term “unlearning”, even rarer is a clear, precise and sophisticated definition. This article starts with the dilemmata appearing when using the term as a category of analysis in empirical studies. The critical re-analysis of one of these studies yet evokes a work programme designed to explore the phenomena of unlearning. As a first step, this article…
