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Literacy as a social practice in a district. An ethnographic theory for basic education practice In German-speaking countries, the theoretical discussion on literacy work is characterised far more by a focus on deficits than is the Anglo-Saxon debate. This article narrows this theoretical gap by adopting Barton & Hamilton’s ethnographic research approach to local literacies for an empirical investigation into literacy practices. The project presented here studies how and why reading and wri…
Serving oneself. The new voluntary work and the role of full-time educationalists People’s own learning and development motives play a more important role in the “new voluntary work” than before. This article relates subjective descriptions by volunteers of the learning motives underlying their commitments and adopts a profession-oriented theoretical perspective to relate these to a strategy of support for volunteers by full-time educationalists, referred to as learning and development supp…
This article presents the results of an empirical research project in which participants in continuing education and employees were surveyed about their learning times. The survey indicated that (1) continuing education is co-financed on a large scale through the devotion of private time. (2) Individuals show flexibility and commitment in creating their own learning and continuing education times. (3) Times can no longer be clearly assigned to “learning” and “working” even from a subjective poi…
Foundation of a family as a predetermined breaking point? On the interaction of parenthood and participation in adult education and continuing education Within the context of an empirical longitudinal research project, the processes and turning points of the continuing education practise are documented and discussed in a gender-typical context of life. The survey proves the gender-typical change of the (continuing) education behaviour of men and women when they become fathers and mothers: The …
The authors explain their model of transferring self-directed learning elements from the context of projects to their daily work as adult education teachers in the Volkshochschule des Landkreises Gießen (adult education school). They focus on usability and investigate the learners' view on self-directed learning. Their results: If resources are used wisely, the implementation of self-directed learning is possible and learners appreciate it.
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…
"Discourses of transformation" A discourse-analytical examination of professionalism coming into being and its changes After a few basic textual and methodological clarifications on an empirical discourse analysis, focused on Höhne, the author verifies with this method the mythological development models of professionalism.
Die Entwicklung einer Lernkultur selbstgesteuerten Lernens stellt Weiterbildungseinrichtungen vor große Herausforderungen. Wissenschaftlicher Reflexionsbedarf besteht nach wie vor - insbesondere im Hinblick auf die drei Aspekte "Umgang mit Lernwiderständen von Teilnehmenden", "didaktische Gestaltung von Selbstlernumgebungen", sowie "Entwicklung einer angemessenen Lernberatung" als neue Herausforderungen an das professionelle Handeln des Personals. Es werden empirische Forschungsarbeiten aus…
