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.
Die Frage nach der Lernfähigkeit und der Lernmotivation Älterer hat eine lange Geschichte. Trotz vieler gegenteiliger Belege hielt sich bis in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts die Annahme, dass die Lernfähigkeit kontinuierlich, biologisch bedingt, abnimmt. In den 1980ern Jahren kam es zu einem Perspektivenwechsel. Schon damals zeichnete ich ein demographischer Wandel ab. Alter - bisher vor allem ein medizinisches Thema - wurde nun auch sozialwissenschaftlich und pädagogisch diskutiert. In…
The perspective of administrational staff in educational organizations is barely in focus in adult education research. This paper reacts on this desideratum of research and tries to answer the following question: How does the administrational staff of Adult education organizations perceive the collaboration with the pedagogical staff? This question is answered within a qualitative research design. Therefore, the existing data of a qualitative study concerning cultures of teaching in adult educa…
This article proposes two interpretational approaches which sociological transformation research offers to reflect on east German transformation processes after reunification. (1) Taking the concept of transformation as modernisation catching up, a picture is painted of a society going through inevitable modernisation processes with a time delay. (2) From the theoretical perspective of contextualisation, transformation is seen as an objectless, complex, conflict-prone process during which easte…
Scientific guidance as empirical research and consultancy Scientific guidance as a self-evident component of adult education stands in area of tension of empirical research and consultancy. This tension ratio can be dissolved when one dissolves scientific guidance in two phases, one survey phase and a consultancy phase, which are then defined as different situations of adult education.
Continuing education and justice The question as to the connection between education and justice has always been important, even before education was established as a functioning sub-system of society. This applies in a similar manner to the sub-field of “continuing education”. The REPORT examines different approaches to the difficult topic of justice and the required linkage between a discussion based on standards and norms and empirical data (which is too unreliable). The articles especially…
Was bedeutet es, die Wirkung von Weiterbildung zu messen? Was kann überhaupt wie gemessen werden? Und stellen sich in der Wissenschaft, in der Praxis und bei Fördergebern unterschiedliche Fragen bezüglich der Wirkung von Bildungsprozessen? Hierüber sprach Redakteur Jan Rohwerder mit Prof. Dr. Andreas Martin, Leiter der Abteilung System und Politik am Deutschen Institut für Erwachsenenbildung (DIE) und Professor für Bildungswissenschaft an der FernUniversität in Hagen, und Dr. Sabine Schwarz, Le…
Strata, Class, Milieu. Reference strategies in research on continuing education 1957-2007 The author provides a longitudinal look at 50 years of research on participation in continuing education. After presenting some important publications from 1957 (Schelsky, Dahrendorf), he presents sociological reference strategies which were used in the respective time periods to explain the social structure: first strata and class, and then later – due to the influence of Bourdieus – the social milieu: H…
The author describes and evaluates actual streamings of men’s studies at the background – and as a result – of the history and development of women’s studies. Ursula Müller’s main questions are: How is gender construction defined by men’s studies? Is it critical research in the sense of social criticism and self reflection? Her answer: It depends on the author. The position of Ursula Müller is grounding on the concept of Robert W. Connell’s plaedoyer for taking serious men as a specific social …
In zehn Thesen lotet der Autor das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Praxis der Erwachsenenbildung aus. Beide Bereiche sind an vielen Stellen eng miteinander verwoben, ihr Verhältnis aber ist komplex und nicht friktionsfrei. Gleichwohl bleibt es, so das Fazit des Autors, im Sinne einer gegenseitigen Perspektivenanreicherung gestaltbar.
A third of all families in Germany have a background of migration, which offers a great educational potential for family education. The author points out the increased risk situation of this heterogeneous group and warns against the misleading label as a »target group of particular circumstances«. She gives best practice examples and pleads for the intercultural opening of educational institutions.
