The contribution reports central thoughts of the American psychologist Csikszentmihalyi from the book “FLOW“, and it sharpens the statements on the reality of learners and teachers. “Flow“ stands for the “optimum experience“. Therewith Csikszentmihalyi indicates a feeling of high spirits, of deeply felt joy that lasts long and that occurs when body and soul of a person is strained to limits in the voluntary endeavour to achieve something difficult and something valuable. In this condition, orde…
The Grundtvig project European Intercultural Competence Programmes (EICP) conducted at the DIE tests further education measures for administrative bodies that involve intercultural competence, not just as far as staff development is concerned, but also in terms of organisation development. The concept is based on the idea of civilian dialogue and addresses heads of administration as well as representatives of migrants’ organisations.
The article focuses on guidance in adult education as a type of institutional talk. Multiple data sources were collected through a comparative case study of two providers to examine how the institutional contexts influenced the guidance. On the one hand the providers define the subjects of their guidance service and their selection of consultants is based on the content knowledge. Also the providers pursue institutional goals with their guidances. On the other hand the guidance-seekers have the…
Pioneers from the Islands - National Qualifications Framework in England, Scotland and Ireland This article looks into the genesis and structure of the qualifications frameworks in England, Scotland and Ireland, compares them and concludes with notes to be taken into account for developments in Germany. The qualifications frameworks described, which are considered the forerunners of the EQF, have improved connections between the educational sectors. Their recognised benefit is the transpare…
The author discusses the way in which scientific knowledge and results of research are made public. He questions Gordon Shepherd’s assertion that scientists themselves are best qualified for a transmission of their results to the interested public, and rather makes a case for the expert as a mediator. In order to do so, he identifies the characteristics of science versus expertise, and defines the expert as one who, in addition to the knowledge required, also possesses communicative skill, disc…
In the future it should be possible for educationally qualified applicants to be able to attend a university without university-entrance certificates acquired in a secondary school. This is meant to help ease the looming shortage of skilled labour in Germany. Facilities in the area of adult education are also to help facilitate the transition to a school of higher learning. The authors of this article report on a promising approach along these lines – the Lower Saxony model project »Open Univer…
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…
Recent empirical data show that 7.5 million adults in Germany do not reach a minimum level of reading and writing skills and, therefore, are classified as functional illiterates. However, the social and educational background of this part of the population differs considerably from wide-spread perceptions of the target group as it is represented in courses for illiterates in adult education. While the latter normally showed heavy learning problems at school, the wider group normally passed scho…
