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.
PISA and adult education – temptations and open questions “The PISA results are an invitation for the debate and for developing the research rather than conclusive judgeements on the miracle recipe to improve the educational performance” (Heller 2003, p. 30). Earmarking for the discussion of policies of adult education after PISA is that the results are taken to express most different positions in little differentiated way. To this also the typical reception problems contribute, such as t…
In adult education, fields of activity have lost their strict boundaries: administrative employees also perform pedagogical work – such as counselling, for instance – and full-time pedagogical employees also have to handle administrative work – e.g. in project management. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, administrative employees play an important role in the pedagogical functioning of institutions of adult education, although this factor is often neglected in both research and measures of…
The book deals, for the first time, with the further education and training participation of adults in a systematic and regionally disaggregated fashion. The analyses differentiate not only socio-economic and demographic characteristics, but also regional contexts. Some regions show particularities in further education behavior. Additional case studies in these regions reveal enhancing or impeding regional contexts that have an impact on education chances of adults within regions. These regio…
The paper tackles the issue of procedures for the validation of competences, which are used in the tertiary education sector in order to evaluate an individual’s study ability on the basis of his/her vocational qualifications. This contested terrain will be explored by means of the University of Hamburg’s validation procedure (the so-called Eingangsprüfungsverfahren, §38 HmbHG). The focus of interest will be put on a qualitative reconstruction of individual decision-making processes during thes…
Im Mai 2025 wurde Karin Prien (CDU ) zur Bundesministerin für das neu gegründete Ministerium für Bildung, Forschung, Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend ernannt. Erstmals vereint ein Bundesministerium alle Bildungsetappen von der frühen Kindheit bis ins Alter und ermöglicht so eine durchgängige Perspektive auf lebenslanges Lernen. Über ihre Pläne und deren Bedeutung für die Erwachsenen- und Weiterbildung sprachen mit ihr die Herausgeber Prof. Dr. Josef Schrader und Dr. Peter Brandt.
The article focuses the question whether workforce literacy strategies in research and policies may tend to exclude relevant fields of literacy, which have emancipatory chances for participants, but which regularly fail in including low qualified or literate adults, namely the area of basic civic education. The relevance of basic civic education will be discussed using contemporary theories, which point at a crisis of democracy and explain this by the spread of income and capital and its legiti…
The book provides an overview of the current situation in Adult and Continuing Education in Austria. At the beginning stands an introduction into the Austrian education system together with a delineation of the historical evolution of Adult and Continuing Education. The portrait thoroughly informs about the legal foundations, governance approaches as well as institutions, quality assurance, financing, provision and participation. Moreover, the occupational field and strategies for professionali…
The article focuses on reflexive competencies, their importance in the context of adult educational professionalization and professionalism, and their embedding in existing procedures for the validation of competencies. Reflexive competencies are a key component of adult educational professionalism. Their recognition and certification, however, is particularly challenging because it cannot be based on detailed descriptions of these competencies. Therefore, it will be examined how the recognitio…
Dieses Lehrbuch bietet einen Überblick über den Diskussions- und Forschungsstand zu den Institutionen der Weiterbildung. Weiterbildung ist ein Teil des Bildungswesens. Da sie aber zugleich auf vielfältige Weise mit der Gesellschaft verknüpft ist, lässt sie sich im Vergleich zu den anderen Bereichen des Bildungssystems nur unscharf institutionell abgrenzen. Um diese institutionelle Differenziertheit der Weiterbildung zu erschließen, werden sozialwissenschaftliche Konzepte aufgegriffen. Auf diese…
