This paper arguments that if competency assessment is to make any contribution as a potentially “liberating” curriculum strategy for struggles of community development and self-determination then it needs to contest the authoritarianism of the national qualification frameworks that have been established in Australia and New Zealand. This article critiques research and policy efforts, in particular for indigenous learners which seek to merely make authoritarian curriculum and assessment structur…
Case studies The contribution describes principles and possible yields for the implementation of case studies in the area of adult education. The research practical implementation itself is deliniated with an example from a research project from the area of learning research. Amplified are especially the central phases of the approach to the research field and the interpretation work.
This article discusses the consequences of increasing access of non-traditional students to higher education (HE) in Sweden for society, individuals, and HE. The findings are based on a recently finished European Research Project called Access and Retention: Experiences of Non-traditional Students in Higher Education (RANLHE) with seven countries involved. First, an introduction about opening access to HE is presented, followed by a review of Swedish HE policy. Next is a presentation of the RAN…
Fachdidaktik ist die fachbezogene Schwester der allgemeinen Didaktik. Als Lehre von der Vermittlung einer bestimmten Sache legitimiert sie sich über deren Eigenwert. Mathematik lehrt man anders als Religion. Aber wie wichtig ist die »Sache« in der heutigen Erwachsenenbildung? Wer benötigt Fachdidaktik, wenn es nicht mehr um die Sache, sondern um Kompetenzen geht? Ist es dann überhaupt ein Problem, dass das Erwachsenenpädagogische Personal immer querschnittskompetenter wird? Ja, denn es droht d…
In the usually clearly word- and text-oriented research field of adult education, for a while now, approaches have been observed, which understand visual presentations as data to be analyzed in a methodically controlled way. These data are used in order to generate and substantiate knowledge about adult education, whereby intensity, contexts, theoretical background and methods or methodology are different. This article presents these approaches in the research fields focusing on students, progr…
The following report focuses on the issue of recording the impact of learning in adult and continuing education. It depicts the complexity of empirical-analytical impact and sensitizes for a differentiated access of adult educational research, based on the demand for evidence-based practice and education policy, which increases the pressure to conduct research on valid data on the impact of educational activities. This is substantiated, inter alia, due to the complex topic and the particulariti…
In the past, continuing higher education at university level has been a marginal phenomenon in Germany, both within universities and the context of adult education on the whole. Internationally though, adult education has gained significant importance / relevance in recent years. While implementing the objectives of the bologna-process, German universities are undergoing a far-reaching transition. In addition, the rules of market economy will apply for universities increasingly. This very devel…
Computer aided data analysis in the qualitative adult education research Experiences with the software MAXqda 2 and Atlas.ti The qualitative social research has various different programmes to choose from when evaluating data which can make the systemization and organization of data easier. In the contribution two works from research in adult education and respective usage of software for qualitative data analysis are exemplarily discussed. Thereby especially the process of the (network) …
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 …
