Lernen im Kontext von Biografie und Lebenslauf

The following article focuses the mostly neglected relation between identity and learning by reconstructing foreign learning efforts by adults. In spite of educational policy's proclamation of (continuous) lifelong learning real learning processes are characterized by various discontinuities. Adults deal with these discontinuities by perceiving, describing and structuring them dependent on their self-images as learners. Interpretations of interviews with adult language learners supply evidence for three strategic forms of identity: the identity as a 'heroic' learner, fighting against various obstacles; the identity as a 'natural' learner, whose learning goes without saying; and the identity as a 'potential' learner, who presents himself as always willing to learn. The different identities, which might change during the life course, maintain continuity even when learning activities turn out to be discontinuous or even when there is hardly any learning at all.

Starting out with deliberations on the relationship between the course of life and the constructed biography of an individual, this article intends to elucidate the contexts of learning as they are treated in various (inter-)national studies, by focusing on the individual’s course of life. To clarify which methodological design is most appropriate to study processes of (lifelong) learning and education, it then seems necessary to highlight a particular methodological approach. This leads, ultimately, to a general distinction between learning and education.

In the context of lifelong learning, adults are increasingly being viewed from a biographical perspective. This article takes a look at how differently – and in some cases inconsistently – adults are construed as biographical subjects in education policy, in educational practice, and in research on adult education. It argues that to even begin to examine the processes and practices of biographical subjectification that take place in adult and continuing education, biographical research must be combined with ethnographic methods.

The following article focuses the neglected relation between identity and learning by reconstructing foreign language learning efforts by adults. In spite of educational policy’s proclamation of (continuous) lifelong learning, real learning processes are characterised by various discontinuities. Adults deal with these discontinuities by perceiving, describing and structuring them dependent on their self-images as learners. Interpretations of interviews with adult language learners supply evidence for three strategic forms of identity: the identity as a “heroic” learner; the identity as a “natural” learner; and the identity as a “potential” learner. The different identities, altering during the course of life, maintain continuity even when learning activities turn out to be discontinuous

The development of modern societies depends on a wide variety of an individual’s social commitment beyond gainful employment that can be subsumed under the term “volunteering”. Analysing empirical interviews, this article outlines the range and the transition of subjective educational biographic meanings of volunteering from the perspective of the volunteers. Thereby the appropriateness of qualitative longitudinal studies for specific research-purposes of long-term educational biographic change processes can be revealed. According to a systematic consideration of significant individual and collective contexts of volunteering, there will be conclusive reflections about its double-dynamic structure.

In day care nursery, people without a preceding educational training can be employed after a vocational re-training. For the employees, a new professional perspective and a non-normative transition open up. Analysing focused-narrative interviews with two child minders, we intend to reconstruct the motives of these women for such a professional re-orientation.

The article discusses the chances of using a gerontological data base (Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adulthood, German Acronym: ILSE) for analyses in educational biography research: Learning to age tends to be the central category of this analyses. The article comments on the current debate of aging and education and expounds the problems of politically driven activation of elders and the programmatic turn in the discussion. In a second step the article elaborates on what terms it is helpful to connect this research to current debates of biographical research on education. In order to be able to analyse narrations along the process of aging, it is necessary to resort on a dataset which is able to observe this process. The database of ILSE covering “biographical explorations” over a period of 20 years provides extraordinary opportunities. In this article, a case study of the ILSE dataset is selected in order to provide a potential way of further analyses. Narratives of Ageing (retirement, active retirement, productive aging) are selected as a heuristic for a relevant context of aging and those are related to two narratives of one individual at two points in previous time (1994 and 2005).

Unlearning has been established as a phenomenon in common parlance, but has been neglected by educational science so far. Very few authors use the term “unlearning”, even rarer is a clear, precise and sophisticated definition. This article starts with the dilemmata appearing when using the term as a category of analysis in empirical studies. The critical re-analysis of one of these studies yet evokes a work programme designed to explore the phenomena of unlearning. As a first step, this article deals with one of these tasks: developing heuristics of unlearning on the basis of a literature review.

Although trainers can be expected to be important for the success further of vocational education, there is no regulation of the qualification of trainers in Germany. A so-called train-the-trainer certificate often serves as proof of professionalism. The study describes the topics of those certificates and their frequencies. Therefore we looked at the programs of 47 providers in terms of a qualitative content analysis. The inductively generated category system contains 56 categories on three hierarchy levels. The courses’ main purpose seems to be on the hands-on empowerment for designing workshops. Many topics refer to group dynamics and communication processes. Theoretical and empirical knowledge seem to be less important.

10.1007/s40955-015-0004-2

DOI 10.1007/s40955-015-0001-5

DOI 10.1007/s40955-015-0003-3

DOI 10.1007/s40955-015-0005-1

DOI 10.1007/s40955-015-0006-0

DOI 10.1007/s40955-015-0007-z