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The report outlines the 50-year history of the statistics on adult education centres published by the German Institute of Adult Education and its predecessors since 1962. The chronology of events is depicted in a chart, whereas the tool‘s various characteristics, which generated key problems since the beginning and still do until today, are discussed in the text. The author fathoms future chances and challenges of input-oriented institutional statistics in a time with a tendency towards output …
In developing learning arrangements, adult educators can influence decisions in learning/teaching situations, improve learning effective decisions of learners and therefore enhance the range of opportunities. All aspirations enforcing attitude alterations on learners are unacceptable. Learners should preferably judge the effectiveness of their decisions in alignment with their individual standards. This report indicates methods of controlling learning-effective decisions without limiting the ra…
This paper brings into focus the discourse on competences and reviews critically the potential of large-scale assessments. The measurement of competences in adulthood is a step towards a deeper understanding of the development of competences during the life course, although only domain specific and not general competences are taken into consideration. Based on the current research, the debate on competences will be reflected and the central points in the field of modeling the constructs of skil…
Normative Patterns of Biography and Contradictory Experiences as Resources in Women’s Educational Biographies As part of a research project on discontinuities in female educational and professional careers, this essay focusses on conflicting expectations women experience – conflicts between set normative social standards and biographies on the one hand, and the different individual plans and perspectives on the other hand. Group discussions among the participants of a Women’s Studies Program…
Opening higher education for new target groups is regarded as an important political and social goal. Based on central political frameworks the following article analyses, which new target groups are addressed in higher education institutions and which specific demands they have for the organization and structuring of teaching and learning. In the focus of the analysis are studies from higher education research and instructional design. The perspectives of these two in the past almost separated…
Theoretical basics of a gender equal didactics Substantiations and consequences The contribution makes a subject of discussion the significance of the category gender for theoretical basics of didactical approaches in adult education. Structural gender characterize the adult education research, the institutions, the educational situations, the educational apprehension as well as the people participating with the educational actions and the worlds of their lives. These conditions for outco…
The report examines the transferability of Howard Gardner’s approach »Five Minds for the Future« to the field of continuing education. Along the »Five Minds«, he points out their significance as a plea for holistic education. Thus, future-oriented education does not impart a definite canon of knowledge but a positive preservation of learning. This pretence is transferable to continuing educational institutions which already include various holistic topics and forms of learning in their programm…
How does knowledge come into science of adult education? The research undertaking of the author is sketched, in which an honouring of publications and the time-line of the lasting acknowledgement is to be explored.
