Offenheit

The area of further teacher education is rarely explored in the German-speaking countries. The few existing studies primarily show one problem: The transfer of contents of further teacher education into lessons seems to be very difficult (transfer problem). Based on these findings, this research project deals with the question how effective vocational schools in the Canton of Zurich organise and implement their school-intern further teacher education. For this purpose the teaching staff of six vocational schools was interviewed by using triangulation technique in terms of combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The results reveal that a huge discrepancy between the surveyed schools in terms of impact of school-intern further teacher education exists. While some schools organise the contents of their further teacher education according to their school programme, others choose them rather selectively. Above that, the study shows that the questioned teachers do not think that school-intern further teacher education has any positive effects on their lessons at all. Thus, they do not want any support in transferring the contents into their lessons. In this respect, when it comes to further teacher education, not only the transfer problem exists but on part of the teachers above all there is an effectiveness issue.

The so-called Q-sorting operation is an unknown research method, hardly known as a pedagogically-oriented research method, typically used to compile complex responses and attitudes from a subjective perspective. The following article examines the question whether the Q-sorting methodology might also be implemented as a practical collection instrument to evaluate teacher beliefs in the context of professional development for educators. In particular, it will be examined whether an index formation can grasp a possible change in the relation between transmissive and a constructivist orientation of math educators could. The results suggest it worthwhile to continue to keep the Q-sorting methodology in place as an economic and motivating way to collect educators’ beliefs.

Learning a language is an indispensable prerequisite for participating in both public and working life. Adult education, also in Germany, is currently facing a great challenge in the area of language teaching: In addition to language teaching for migrants and refugees, a key problem is the alphabetization of German and non-German speaking functional illiterates. This paper looks at the conditions for successful language learning by the adults here in focus in organized teaching and learning settings as identified by research across different disciplines. A systematic literature research was conducted, using relevant databases (FIS-Bildung, ERIC), upon which 314 publications were identified and subjected to a content analysis. The literature research focuses on three questions: First, how is adult language learning in organized teaching and learning settings discussed in the field of adult resp. further education and other disciplines. Second, which research questions were pursued during the years 2010 and 2016. And third, what suggestions are proposed to adequately support teachers and learners. To illustrate the wide scope and heterogeneity of the reviewed research on language teaching and learning, this paper presents and discusses examples of different topics. The results indicate that research in language teaching and alphabetization is predominantly conducted within the fields of adult education, psychology and linguistics, applying a broad variety of discipline-specific methods. The review also shows that within the span of the analysis only few studies produced reliable results regarding the effectiveness of successful language acquisition.

The paper raises the question of how inclusion, in the sense of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is operationalized in institutional learning settings for adults. It presents findings of a qualitative pilot study. Based on a relational theory of space, the findings elicit a conceptual model of the architecture of inclusion at public places of learning for adults. The model illuminates the way social space is constituted in and by the actions of professionals, and the resulting consequences for access to public learning places and order/ings of participation there, in particular regarding “dis/ability”. Thus, places of learning act as a magnifying glass on the daily arena of (contested) negotiations on belonging to the community of learners.

The field of education policy, in particular adult education policy, is gaining importance in recent international-comparative research on education and adult education. In comparative politics, education policy is also a young but increasingly established issue. The close connection of education policy to the discipline of comparative politics, as well as theories used in that discipline, provide a well-founded research approach on education policy, which should be considered by international-comparative research on adult education. This paper is a literature review, systematically analysing publications dealing with educational policy topics in an international-comparative perspective, using approaches and theories from the discipline of comparative politics. The contribution is based on a systematic literature research in relevant databases for the period 2006 to 2016. 65 titles were included in this literature review. The theories and approaches identified in the publications include the Welfare State Theory, Varieties of Capitalism, Partisan Theory, Globalisation and Europeanisation, Path dependency, and Actor-centered Institutionalism. This paper presents the theoretical approaches used in the publications and outlines their research results. Additionally, the paper discusses limitations, potential use and benefits of these theories and approaches for international-comparative research on adult education policy.