Editorial

Later life learning from experience: the cross-cultural importance of ‘life reviews’ in seniors’ lifelong education and learning

Lifelong education for seniors is becoming a significant policy focus because of factors relating to the global aging society phenomenon. Yet the modern ‘educational demoralisation’ that can result from informal experiential learning not being sufficiently valued or encouraged, may also apply to later life learning—typically manifest as a ‘fear of ageing’ as well as ageism. This is especially so in contexts where policymakers tend to just mainly focus on the worrying economic, health and other …

Zur Notwendigkeit eines neuen gesellschaftlichen Enwurfs des Alters

This article discusses participation of older people from five different perspectives: the perspective of images of old age, the perspective of individual potentials for change and participation, the perspective of the creation of public space, the perspective of social relationships and the perspective of structures of care. Participation is thus understood as a combination of personal, social, cultural, communal and societal factors. Education is seen as a central mechanism for building struc…

»Langlebigkeit ist der schönere Begriff«

Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildungsangebote systematisieren

Courses of scientific continuing education are diverse and heterogeneous. This impedes their comparability and their connectivity to existing qualification frameworks. This article provides a proposal for a systemization, which has been implemented in Baden-Württemberg, and shows possible connections to the German qualification framework (DQR).

»Ich habe viele andere Verpflichtungen und Interessen«

Why do senior citizens stop taking part in continuing education? The author tries to find and explain reasons, drawing on a survey regarding courses of scientific continuing education of Ulm University. One key finding is that the biggest impediments are a lack of time and other obligations.

Partizipation Älterer in der digitalen Welt

Older people often lack the competences for the handling of digital media. This is problematic in a society which is more and more based on digital exchanges. Courses of continuing digital education for older people prove to be successful when they are embedded into their living environments. In this article, the author presents several of these educational formats.

»Im Geiste jugendlich«

In this article, the dialogue between young and very old people is examined structurally and with regards to contents in the context of education and learning. Topics, interpretations and motivations are the factors which decide how educational and learning processes of different generations can be shaped and understood.

Non-formal selbstbestimmt

The “Boulevard of Thoughts 50 plus” (“Denk-Raum 50 plus”) is a successful example of self-determined learning in old age. Drawing on this example, the author discusses advantages of self-determined learning and shows success factors of such a format.

Ich sterbe, also bin ich!

Death is a central part of our lives, but coping mechanisms are oftentimes less than constructive. The author shows our problematic handling of death and our fear of death and argues that adult education can help facilitate a more productive way of dealing with death and our mortality.