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.
In the present European context migrants and refugees are represented as a threat to security in the first place. Adult Education, especially when subsidised by the state, finds itself in a double-bind. On the one hand it has to offer a place for “Bildung” for all adults, where they can develop themselves according to their interests, capabilities and needs. Unequal chances are to be reduced and the humanistic ideal of development and expression of one’s personality shall be met. On the other h…
Teachers’ knowledge about teaching methods is an important facet of adult education teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK). The authors examine whether and how this knowledge is correlated with the educational background and the teaching experience of N?=?212 adult education teachers. The results point to a positive correlation between the amount of further training concerning the topic teaching and learning and the knowledge about teaching methods. Moreover, teachers with a focal …
The question how to improve the short-term as well as the long-term success of continuing vocational education and training (CVET) is of great importance for companies. Currently, however, evaluations in practice are still often only of a summative nature. Based on a practically applicable model and empirical data from participants in a wide range of CVET courses (N?=?477), this paper presents various factors organisations can use to affect the subjective success of CVET, both in the “learning …
Further training (FT) is an important element of the modern knowledge economy. Based on expert interviews from four case-study regions, the paper analyses the relevance of markets, hierarchies, and networks as coordination mechanisms in FT, the strategies of providers, and the resulting performance of local FT service systems. We find increasing modularisation and digitalisation of FT services, which enables FT provision in less attractive markets but does not contribute to the value coproducti…
The field of education policy, in particular adult education policy, is gaining importance in recent international-comparative research on education and adult education. In comparative politics, education policy is also a young but increasingly established issue. The close connection of education policy to the discipline of comparative politics, as well as theories used in that discipline, provide a well-founded research approach on education policy, which should be considered by international-…
The paper raises the question of how inclusion, in the sense of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is operationalized in institutional learning settings for adults. It presents findings of a qualitative pilot study. Based on a relational theory of space, the findings elicit a conceptual model of the architecture of inclusion at public places of learning for adults. The model illuminates the way social space is constituted in and by the actions of professionals, and th…
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…
The area of further teacher education is rarely explored in the German-speaking countries. The few existing studies primarily show one problem: The transfer of contents of further teacher education into lessons seems to be very difficult (transfer problem). Based on these findings, this research project deals with the question how effective vocational schools in the Canton of Zurich organise and implement their school-intern further teacher education. For this purpose the teaching staff of six …
