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European countries, North America and Japan are strongly affected by demographic change and ageing populations. In these countries a discourse emerged about using the potentials of older people and the role of lifelong learning in this process. This text focuses on international results of further educational participation of older people and outlines concepts of learning in later life in Germany.
Positive learning experiences in childhood, adolescence, as well as during employment have a favourable effect on learning in old age. From a gerontological perspective, the significance of school education and of professional qualifications attained later in life for educational behaviour in the post-employment phase can be explained with the continuity theory. To evaluate the relevance of one’s educational biography, a representative survey was conducted. 500 individuals at the age from 50 to…
The study Competencies in Later Life (CiLL) provides for the first time representative data regarding the competencies of older people between the age of 66 to 80 years in three different domains: literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments. It is shown that there are significant differences between people with different qualification, but also between people of different birth cohorts. Despite major qualification differences between men and women, there are no signi…
Im Rahmen des nordrhein-westfälischen Modellprogramms „Lernregionen und Lebensqualität der ‚Generation Plus‘“ haben sich von 2009 bis 2011 auf Einladung des Ministeriums für Gesundheit, Emanzipation, Pflege und Alter des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (MGEPA) Partner aus Wissenschaft und Praxis in regelmäßigen Zusammenkünften zum Thema Verbesserung der Weiterbildungssituation älterer Menschen in ausgewählten Lernregionen ausgetauscht. Die folgende Veröffentlichung beinhaltet die Ergebnisse der drei…
First results from the PIAAC survey, which was conducted in 25 countries, will be published in October 2013 by OECD. PIAAC collected information about adult competencies through representative data from a background questionnaire and from assessments of three competence domains. In Germany exists an additional study called "Competencies in Later Life" (CiLL), which is designed for people (aged) between 66 and 80 years. This article presents the context of the study, the process of data collecti…
