Research
We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
Services
Digital tools, specialist portals and data – for teachers, researchers, students and interested parties.
Institute
We offer research, transfer and infrastructure for lifelong learning.
Natural Sciences as a Constitutive Element of Modern Adult Education Imparting natural scientific knowledge to a socially broad audience was already quite common in manifold forms before adult education as such was really constituted in the last third of the 19th century. Some of the questions raised when natural science spread in the 18th and 19th centuries are still or again relevant in the 21st century. This paper tries to demonstrate that notion in a summarized form on the basis of an ex…
Colleagues from various European countries were invited to an international lecture series at the University of Duisburg-Essen to talk about trends in adult and continuing education. Looking back on this lecture series, we intend to examine different approaches to the term “trend” as well as to outline results of current research in adult and continuing education. We will then give an overview of main arguments of the essays presented in the following. Finally, common trends in European adult a…
The paper reviews trends in adult learning in England in the ten years from the election of Labour government in 1997. It highlighted an initial focus on expanding and widening participation in a wide range of initiatives in the years to 2002. From 2003 there has been a dramatic narrowing of focus giving priority to funding qualifications related to the labour market. Throughout the period it highlights restless change in institutional structures.
Recent international trends in Adult Education (AE) mirror the diverse realities this field is experiencing around the world. This article discusses the trend towards democratization through a revision of existing knowledge in three main domains: theory, research and practice. First, a theoretical framework of democratization as applied in AE will be outlined. Second, recent research developments will be reviewed as they inform the process of democratization through Adult Education which is occ…
This article examines the guidelines and objectives of political (societal) and citizenship education in Finland during the past 40 years approximately. During this relatively short period different programmes have arisen which aptly reflect changes which have taken place, in viewpoints, in the social atmosphere and in citizens’ political interests. The article is concerned with the reports of two committees, the Adult Education Committee and the Lifelong Learning Committee, since the beginning…
Does law governing continuing education distinguish between general and vocational education? This article examines the question as to whether and in what manner applicable law governing continuing education in Germany distinguishes between general and continuing vocational education. The analysis of the historical line of development shows that this was definitely the case especially during the phase of the so-called “qualification campaign” in the 1970s and 1980s. In the present, on the ot…
»57/07« steckt den zeitlichen Horizont ab, der die Geschichte des Instituts markiert: 1957 gegründet, wird das DIE im Herbst 2007 50 Jahre alt. So ist die vorliegende Ausgabe eine Festausgabe – und irgendwie auch doch nicht. Wie in der DIE Zeitschrift üblich, soll nicht das Institut selbst im Mittelpunkt stehen, sondern das, was draußen passiert (ist). Gliederndes Prinzip bei der Auswahl der Themen sind dabei öffentlich bedeutende Ereignisse des Gründungsjahres, die ihre Schatten weit in die Fo…
From the “Göttinger 18” in the “Wyhler Wald”. The learning movement of a social movement beginning in 1957. 18 German nuclear physicists signed a declaration in 1957 in which they refused to take part in the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. This “Göttinger Declaration” was the beginning of the anti-atomic energy movement, which subsequently developed into a self-organised educational scene. One symbol of this is the Wyhler Wald Adult Education Centre in Baden, which the article …
Competence profile of the “specialist in violence” The changing requirements and roles of soldiers 50 years after the first military draft, this article explores the requirements and roles of German Army soldiers over the period 1957 to 2007. The changing competencies and skills required of soldiers must be understood in connection with the profound changes which the German Army has undergone in its transformation from a defence-oriented force to an army actively involved in military missions…
Traumatisation and national emergency semantics. Continuities in educational policy from Sputnik to the PISA shock The successful launch of the Soviet satellite “Sputnik” in the autumn of 1957 had a lasting impact on u.S. educational policy: expenditures on education and science skyrocketed in order to keep up in the technol-ogy race with the Soviet union. this article explores the conditions in which the launch of a satellite led to a profound shock while at the same time analysing the sema…
