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Numeracy practices are always dependent on the social context in which they emerge. These contexts, however, are unstable because of a range of technological and socio-political changes. How does this instability affect people’s agency in the world? After reviewing key approaches to numeracy practices research, we distil key findings from recent numeracy studies. We introduce the concept of the numerate environment to examine the context in which opportunities, supports and demands present them…
The paper raises the question of how inclusion, in the sense of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is operationalized in institutional learning settings for adults. It presents findings of a qualitative pilot study. Based on a relational theory of space, the findings elicit a conceptual model of the architecture of inclusion at public places of learning for adults. The model illuminates the way social space is constituted in and by the actions of professionals, and th…
With increasing age, xenophobic and pejorative attitudes of people with a migration background and other cultures grow. Both adult education in older age and social work are hence faced with new challenges. On the basis of a statistic inventory on hostility of elderly people, different forms and specifications and also dimensions of discrimination are systematized by means of theory constructions. Enabling to focus on social community approaches, e.g. the concept of Habitus, as suggested by Bou…
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…
A video-study of language courses in adult education analyses the transformation of a learning side into a pedagogical space. The definition of pedagogical space is linked to the theory of social space. Space is thus viewed as an arrangement and perception between human beings and social goods. This recasting of social space as a pedagogical space specifies social space to include two additional elements: the representation of knowledge and pedagogical media. For this study, the transformation …
Schäffter, Ortfried: Innovation consultancy in the pedagogy of adult education Institutionalisation of innovation in the organisations of extended vocational training Firstly the contribution shows to which extent an organisational theory on the pedagogy of adult education offers explanatory possiblities for an ongoing innovative structural change. Then the implicit aspect of innovation in concepts of pedagogical organisational is being expatiated and conceptually differentiated. The diffe…
The reference to “classical” authors dominates the literature on organizational learning to an extent which is comparably large within the field of organizational sciences. After briefly reviewing the state of the art of theories of organizational learning, this article introduces a new model of organizational learning which builds on Knud Illeris’ “learning triangle”. Basically, it adopts the general structure of this triangle and transforms the crucial concepts of Illeris’ approach to analogo…
