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The article analyses the linkage between the age of participants of continuing education and the function which learners appoint to their participation. Therefore, the influence of the subjective age for further education is studied. The study differentiates professional, social and personal functions of participation in continuing education. The result of a factor analysis designs subjective age into the two constructs cognitive and social-psychological subjective age. The data of two survey s…
In February 2009, a national association of guidance practitioners and scientific experts, known as the German National Guidance Forum for Education, Career and Employment (nfb), presented a widely recognized key issues paper. The following report comments on the paper from the perspective of continuing education research with a special focus on the following issue: Will the structural improvement of continuing educational counselling lead to an increase of participation in adult education? Due…
Between prestigious office and everyday support. Voluntary commitment in continuing education When people engage in voluntary work in the field of continuing education on behalf of an institution, this is often because organisations believe they can obtain social capital in this manner. These persons then operate as organisers or in development associations. The focus of the author, however, is on those people who voluntarily provide support but often remain invisible – referred to in the li…
Data on adult education centres kept since 1962 shows interesting longitudinal historical results regarding time structures for adult education classes offered at adult education centres: (1) The increase in continuing education activities which can be observed on the whole is only accounted for by course-type classes, not by individual classes. (2) The average course time has decreased by about 20 percent over the last 20 years. (3) With respect to forms of time organisation, the evening cours…
The contribution aims at outlining a proposition as to how institutions of further education may be typed and systematically increasingly differentiated within the framework of developments on the landscape of further education. In addition to explaining how this differentiation could be achieved, the article also offers a broadening of the current perspective of typologies of institutions by including adjunctive education as a category of typification. The approach is thus anchored at the inte…
Similarly to Austria and Switzerland adult education competencies could be recognized cross-provider in Germany. Within a joint research and development project the DIE and different associations of adult and continuing education develop basics for a correspondent method for teachers. The authors focus on preceded feasibility studies and needs assessments of the DIE. These show an overwhelming approval of the target group to initiate such activities, but also see risks as well as opportunities …
A sectoral educational training framework for continuing education can become a uniform reference point for continuing education. Projects such as Flexi-Path, QF2TEACH or the study »Key competences for adult learning professionals« fit together like pieces of a puzzle to form a larger strategy. The authors view the advantages of a sectoral educational training framework to be found in the fact that an SCEF-CE is closer to the continuing education system than general educational training framewo…
New service for programme research. The DIE online archive of further education programmes The German Institute for Adult Education (Deutsche Institut für Erwachsenenbildung, DIE) has an archive of Volkshochschule programme plans from 1957 to 2004. Now, a new stage of development has commenced, in the form of its online archive of further education programmes: a smaller-scale digitalised continuation which also forms a picture of the structure of the Volkshochschule situation. This article p…
Constructive approaches to the EQF and DQR - Basic and advanced certificate model for further education teachers This article presents a specific qualifications framework for the sector of further education, consisting of a two-stage model (basic and advanced certificates). This touches on the discussion about the EQF and DQR as a motivation and opportunity for the professionalisation of further education. The model takes up examples from Austria and Switzerland and is aligned toward prelimi…
Scientific Education This issue combines empirical and conceptual access points to research of an area of education which has been for the most part neglected by continuing education: What role does natural science knowledge play in the context of informal and non-formal learning processes of adults? And what impetus can be derived for the structure and design of teaching-learning arrangements in other areas? This issue provides insight into specific issues, providing a contribution to inter…
