The following report offers an insight on the theoretical and empirical issue of cultural adult education. It is understood as an institution for the refinement of the aesthetic senses which, according to Welsch, can easily become anesthetic – a situation of suspended sensitivity. A second empirical approach presents the current provisions systematized by three “Portals of Participation“. Cultural educational provisions may be attributed to the “systematic-receptive type“, the “independent-crea…
Voluntary work 2.0? Media-related conditions for voluntary work in the Internet A participation culture has developed in the Internet which is broadly discussed under the rubric of “Web 2.0” and which is explored in this article to determine the principles of voluntary work operating here. To this end the author first forwards a definition of voluntary work in “offline” reality before examining the communications-related conditions prevailing in the Internet upon which a conception of volun…
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…
In 2015, a report led by the mentors of the World Health Organization Age-friendly cities program, proposed a review of the concept of active aging, including, alongside the three pillars (health, security and participation), lifelong learning, both as formal education (access to grade and diplomas), and in their informal dimension (when learning take places in daily life or in leisure activities). This study aims to analyze if the question of lifelong learning was raised and what the salient t…
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 th…
The mature adult who participates voluntarily in free educational programmes is a basic assumption, which equally often supports theories and practices of adult education as it is empirically challenged. Neither supply nor demand is consistently characterized by voluntariness. Up to a certain degree, programmes and participation are mandatory. The assumption that responsible adults do not want to, should not and cannot be taught is also considered to be problematic. The article reveals good rea…
Environmental education that fosters meaningful community participation and learning has been considered a requisite to sustaining our human and natural environments in many of the global conferences, agreements, declarations and charters since the 1972 UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm. Despite this growing consensus there is a small amount of published research in Australia in this field of practice we have decided to call popular and informal environmental education – education t…
The demographic development in Germany will lead to the society servicing more older people than younger people. Against this background the contribution shows in which way institutions of communal adult education are called upon for developing specific offers that consider the different educational requirements and educational necessities of a very heterogeneous age group. By means of examples from the work at adult evening classes (Volkshochschulen) the author clarifies how contents, teaching…
In Deutschland entstanden unmittelbar nach Kriegsende 1945 die ersten kirchlichen Akademien als Orte offener und zugleich gemeinwohlorientierter Diskussions- und Denkkultur, in denen es um nicht weniger ging als den Neuaufbau einer durch Krieg und Nationalsozialismus materiell und moralisch zerstörten Gesellschaft (Schütz 2004, S. 15f). Bemerkenswert schnell und konsequent erwiesen sich katholische wie evangelische Akademien als Träger demokratiestützender Bildungsarbeit. – Was können sie jedoc…
Beim Lernen spielen emotionale Prozesse eine große Rolle. Ergebnisse einer Befragung von erwachsenen Lernenden zeigen, dass gerade kooperative Lernformen positive Emotionen wie Freude hervorrufen und Lernmotivation und Lernerfolg erhöhen, so die Autorin und der Autor.
