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 Erwachsenenbildung der vergangenen vierzig Jahre ist wesentlich von Hans Tietgens, dem ehemaligen Leiter der Pädagogischen Arbeitsstelle des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes, geprägt. Er hat in diesem Zeitraum in zahllosen Veröffentlichungen die grundlegenden und jeweils aktuellen Fragen der Theorie und Praxis der Erwachsenenbildung reflektiert. Dabei hat er seine Auffassung von Erwachsenenbildung und die Sache des von ihm geleiteten Instituts immer wieder auch in Auseinandersetzung mit d…
The article focusses on the importance of time for the political adult education. Current socio-cultural and socio-economic challenges – in particular: the commodification and acceleration in the context of education and learning – results in a wide range of pressing time issues. However the adult education und the political education pay little attention to the importance of time. For this reason, this issue will be deepened in the article. First, the situation of the political adult education…
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…
Over the past 15 years, a variety of approaches have been developed in (adult) education contexts to validate formal, non-formal and informal competences and thus harness them for lifelong learning purposes. Despite the development, testing and evaluation of appropriate procedures as well as process-accompanying research and procedural clarification processes, a nationwide implementation can not be observed. It can be deduced from these findings that the low degree of implementation of correspo…
The scope of literacy courses. Results of a representative survey among adult education centres As part of the EQUALS project, the German Adult Education Association (DVV) collected statistical data on literacy courses at adult education centres; this article presents the data and compares it with figures from 1994. The number of courses has risen, as has the number of participants, but fewer institutions than before provide this service. Compared with 1994, the participants are older and t…
In international comparative analyses on further education the clustering of countries is widely established. Frequently, such typologies are derived heuristically, referring to theoretical approaches or single indicators, which make it difficult to obtain a systematic overview. This contribution presents the main arguments of two theoretical approaches (welfare state regimes Esping-Andersen 1990 and varieties of capitalism Hall/Soskice 2001) that refer to indicators on the macro level for expl…
Qualification and innovation in the region The contribution of small and medium-sized companies In this contribution the results of a survey of small and medium-sized companies on qualification performances and further education outlays are sketched and follow up points for further results and perspectives of formation are presented.
Further education networks from the view of the sociological neo-socialisms The contribution analyses chances and perspectives which are opened up by applying the theory of sociological neo-institutionalism to network research carried out within the field of adult education. The theory is understood as complementary to those network theories and concepts which are referred to within research already. In a first step basic assumptions and concepts of the sociological neo-institutionalism are …