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From 2002 on the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be sponsoring 80 regional networks in the context of the „Learning Regions – promotion of networks“ programme. This programme will be scientifically monitored by a consortium formed by the German Institute of Adult Education (DIE), the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW), and the universities of Duisburg and Munich. The author will be in charge of the overall scientific supervision. In his article he pres…
Net based communication is changing business and private life and education and learning of adults as well. Important condition for using new chances by new information and communication technologies for learning processes is media competence. – The authors describe components of media competence as a pedagogical target including technical competence, communicative competence and the competence of coping with the information flood. Problems are restrictions of participation on net based communi…
English version of the "Counselling" tape. What functions can counselling fulfil in literacy courses? Two projects carried out by the former Pedagogic Section of the German Federation of Adult Education Centres clarified this issue in the 1980s ["Literacy" (1982–1985) and "Elementary Education"(1985-19888)]. This summary of the results of both projects clarifies the concept of learning counselling, clarifies the central meaning of non-verbal forms of expression using practical examples and intr…
The dissertation analyses the contribution of a social space research perspective to the understanding of (non-)participation of groups of less well-educated individuals in organized further education. Both, the theoretical as well as the methodological framing are defined by a social space perspective. In a substudy of the project “Learning in Social Quarters – Significance of Social Space for Further Education”, at the German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Center for Lifelong Learnin…
Opening higher education for new target groups is regarded as an important political and social goal. Based on central political frameworks the following article analyses, which new target groups are addressed in higher education institutions and which specific demands they have for the organization and structuring of teaching and learning. In the focus of the analysis are studies from higher education research and instructional design. The perspectives of these two in the past almost separated…
Positive learning experiences in childhood, adolescence, as well as during employment have a favourable effect on learning in old age. From a gerontological perspective, the significance of school education and of professional qualifications attained later in life for educational behaviour in the post-employment phase can be explained with the continuity theory. To evaluate the relevance of one’s educational biography, a representative survey was conducted. 500 individuals at the age from 50 to…
Adult learning professionals are understood in the context of European Policy as key factor for the quality of adult education. In this paper a transnational European study programme, the European Master in Adult Education, is focussed on as an academic contribution to the professionalization of adult learning professionals: What core themes of European Adult Education can be identified? What didactic approaches are required for a transnational curriculum? How is the labour market taken into co…
Learning from other countries? International perspectives on participation in continuing education at schools of higher learning This article adopts an international comparative perspective to identify the conditions favouring or impeding participation in university continuing education and seeks to answer the question of what we can learn from other countries. To this end, data selected from seven countries through secondary statistical analyses is presented and systematically compared to t…
The results from the PISA study and the future of adult education The results of the PISA study have made it clear how urgent the individual as well as the society as a whole depends on a secure system for after school learning and a secure system for lifelong learning. In the contribution perspectives of the development of the qualification demand on behalf of the employment system are scetched with a view to globalization tendencies. In front of this background it is necessary to filter th…
Wie äußert sich Ambiguität in heutigen Gesellschaften und warum ist Ambiguitätstoleranz gerade in Demokratien wichtig? Und was ist der Unterschied zwischen Ambiguitätsintoleranz und den Grenzen der Ambiguität? Darüber spricht Redaktionsleiter Jan Rohwerder mit Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Soeffner, emeritierter Professor für Allgemeine Soziologie an der Universität Konstanz, Vorstandsmitglied und Permanent Fellow am Kulturwissenschaftlichen Institut Essen (KWI), Seniorprofessor und Sprecher des Bonner …
