The International PIAAC study has collected data on competencies of adults in three domains in 25 countries, in many of them for the first time ever. The article provides an overview of central terms, main aims and the methodological approach of this OECD study. It also discusses its potentials and limitations. One limitation is the focus on the labour force, excluding adults older than 65 years, a fast growing part of many populations in times of demographic change. To remedy this limitation,…
The author bridges the gap between culture and education by dealing with two sides of the coin. He initially observes a currently active interest in culture. Cultural education is a generally accepted objective in the field of cultural policy. By using a historical outline, the author illustrates this attribution to a lack of visions in cultural policies. Beneficiaries are institutions for cultural education as well as classical institutions for adult education such as adult education centres. …
While belief research has become an integral part of the educational research agenda, it has been uneven. One neglected area is the beliefs of adult education teachers. Focusing on five such teachers working in adult basic education and teaching numeracy in Switzerland, this exploratory study uses different data to describe their beliefs about numeracy and its teaching. It is shown that this group holds clearly different views from other groups of adult teachers and it is argued that extending …
Parent and child programmes are the most frequently offered programmes in family education. The intergenerational experiment of education and lifelong learning has proven its worth in adult and family education and may be regarded as a counter weight to the »expertisation« during the early childhood.
The development of interest in adult education This article presents results of a project funded by the DFG on the development of interest in continuing and further education. We connect our work to most recent research on biographical genesis of interest and focus occuring during an individual’s participation in adult education. As theoretical approach we refer to the Munich theory of interest and the pragmatist approach. We empirically investigate the opportunities and limitations of a qua…
The Financing of vocational adult education has changed a lot over the last decade. Demand-led funding instruments were introduced at federal as well as state level, aiming to support various (target) groups. The paper reviews, whether these funding instruments addressed special gaps in the funding system and tries to provide first and preliminary impressions whether and to what extent these instruments might have contributed to increasing participation rates in Germany. The analysis suggests t…
