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.
The focus of this article is on a historical-didactical theory which aims at establishing skills in historical thinking, broken down into skills in historical knowledge, questions, methodology and orientation. The approach, its potential and challenges facing it are explored using the example of the Berlin Wall Monument, a particularly useful example with Germany commemorating the 50th anniversary of the construction of the wall in 2011.
Museen sind Aufbewahrungsorte und Fundgruben für die materielle Kultur von Ländern, Schichten und Zeiten. Sie sind Orte gemeinsamer Erinnerung und Vergangenheit, die heute mehr denn je den Anspruch erheben, nicht nur Orte zu sein, in denen man seine Freizeit verbringt, sondern Stätten für Begegnung und kommunikative Auseinandersetzung. Andererseits sind Museen zunehmend in der Krise: Sinkende Besucherzahlen und Budgetkürzungen zeigen, daß sie sich ebenso wie etwa die Einrichtungen der Erwachsen…
The National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) reflects upon adult learning from the perspective of a life profile. The article describes the system and methodological approach of the NEPS with a special focus on the group of adults. The education and employment history as well as the consequent competence development of the adult working age population is analyzed. Overall, 60,000 people are surveyed in the NEPS including more than 11,000 adults. First data is already available to the expert publ…
The following article focuses the neglected relation between identity and learning by reconstructing foreign language learning efforts by adults. In spite of educational policy’s proclamation of (continuous) lifelong learning, real learning processes are characterised by various discontinuities. Adults deal with these discontinuities by perceiving, describing and structuring them dependent on their self-images as learners. Interpretations of interviews with adult language learners supply eviden…
In the context of lifelong learning, adults are increasingly being viewed from a biographical perspective. This article takes a look at how differently – and in some cases inconsistently – adults are construed as biographical subjects in education policy, in educational practice, and in research on adult education. It argues that to even begin to examine the processes and practices of biographical subjectification that take place in adult and continuing education, biographical research must be …
Continuing digitalisation is a macrosocial phenomenon – dealing with it is a macrosocial task. For the educational field, it does not only concern a change of teaching-learning situations due to digital media but also the issue of contributing to the changing situation - without excluding certain groups. According to the author, the issue of digitalisation does not allow federal disputes and segment-specific separation of educational areas.
Wertedebatten sind immer schwierig. Sie stehen traditionell im Verdacht, eine übergeordnete Orientierung des Handelns restaurieren zu wollen, wo Wirklichkeit unübersichtlich geworden ist. Das Heft versucht ohne moralischen Zeigefinger auszukommen und beschreitet hierzu zwei Wege: Es untersucht erstens Prozesse der berufsethischen Vergewisserung der Erwachsenenbildung und ihre kodifizierten Manifestationen, z.B. Leitbilder. Zweitens versucht es ethischen Konflikten in der Erwachsenenpädagogische…
A variety of investigations are concerned with examining competencies of professionals in fields of adult education, neglecting the question what characterizes the activities they perform in order to organize learning situations. By analyzing an opening sequence of two different adult education lessons, the author shows, how microethnographic approaches of analyzing videotaped face-to-face interaction offer new insights in how participants ordinarily deal with challenges of establishing and sus…
The "Green Series" introduces reliable knowledge, current topics and didactic methods, which were tested in other fields, to adult education specialists. All volumes are designed from the action perspective, convey application-oriented formulas, and set standards based on the state of research, They contribute to competence and quality development in practical adult education.