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This article about European networks as support for lifelong learning starts with an attempt to define the differences between European projects and European networks. The European Association for the education of Adults (EAEA) is put forward as an example of a European network. It focuses on the association’s mission statement, its aims and activities and how it can support adult learning in Europe. In this way it also demonstrates how these networks can reinforce transnational cooperation and…
Learning a language is an indispensable prerequisite for participating in both public and working life. Adult education, also in Germany, is currently facing a great challenge in the area of language teaching: In addition to language teaching for migrants and refugees, a key problem is the alphabetization of German and non-German speaking functional illiterates. This paper looks at the conditions for successful language learning by the adults here in focus in organized teaching and learning set…
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 …
Didactic transition between education and working life This article examines the orientation of vocational training towards “learning areas” in the context of the larger thematic topic of “occupation and education”. The pivotal question around which the whole topic revolves is whether and in what ways the concept of “learning areas” can contribute to a constructive change in the dialectic between education and occupation. It is with this in mind that the relationship between education and p…
For various reasons adult participation in lifelong learning does not measure up to expectations tied to the agenda of lifelong learning. The article suggests that adults relate learning activities to their conceptions of life stages. Therefore, participation in institutionalized continuing education must rather be linked to life-stage-dependant decisions based on sociocultural patterns than to the acceptance of lifelong learning in general. Specifically in the stage of professional life, these…
On the mediation difficulty of social competence in adult education/further and continuing education Problems are presented which can emerge in seminars for adults when mediating social competence. Called on are for this the results of a research work of the author on the topic of advanced vocational training in societal situations of upheaval.
This article describes the “Dorfbildungstage” ("Village Education Days” as a specific instructional format widely used in the valleys of the autonomous Italian province of South Tyrol. The format's regional importance comes from the fact that it integrates an inter-ethnic factor. In these largely rural communities, where differences between ethnic groups are always in the foreground, the village education days form a culture whereby German and Italian ethnic groups shape village learning togeth…
This article discusses the question how knowledge may be used for new or alternative learning decisions and in how far the post-modern understanding of “knowledge” is involved in this process. More precisely, it is discussed how organisations and individuals use knowledge as a result of learning in general and with respect to continuing learning decisions and how expectations and evaluations regarding the use of continuing education are placed in cultures of learning. The argument is based on l…
The studie „Cultures of Teaching“ focusses on the question, to what extend teaching beliefs are anchored in the pedagigal practice of Adult Education. Particullary the relation between teaching beliefs and organizational contexts is analysed. These questions are answerd by the means of a qualitative research design in which nine organisations of adult education were integrated. Therefore, all members of each organisations (mananagment, pedagogical and administrative staff) took part at intervie…
