Data on adult education centres kept since 1962 shows interesting longitudinal historical results regarding time structures for adult education classes offered at adult education centres: (1) The increase in continuing education activities which can be observed on the whole is only accounted for by course-type classes, not by individual classes. (2) The average course time has decreased by about 20 percent over the last 20 years. (3) With respect to forms of time organisation, the evening cours…
Participants related and milieu related aspects of participation in adult education It is assumed that the participants quotas, participants interests and participants motivation do not only differ regarding the central sociodemografic features but also differ strongly with regard to the respective milieu affiliation. Theoretically the milieu studies add on to the traditional pilot studies of adult education (cp. Strzelewicz among others 1966) and the differentiating analyses of the modern r…
Lehrkräfte bilden die zahlenmäßig größte Gruppe der Praktiker in der Erwachsenen- und Weiterbildung. Sie firmieren je nach Handlungsfeld als Trainerinnen, Dozenten, Teamerinnen, Lernbegleiter oder Kursleitende. Ungeachtet ihrer Bedeutung für die Qualität der Lehr-Lernprozesse und ihrer Funktion als Repräsentanten der Einrichtungen gegenüber den Teilnehmenden standen sie lange nicht im Fokus der Bemühungen um Professionalisierung und Professionalitätsentwicklung. Im Zuge aktueller Projekte rücke…
The perspective of administrational staff in educational organizations is barely in focus in adult education research. This paper reacts on this desideratum of research and tries to answer the following question: How does the administrational staff of Adult education organizations perceive the collaboration with the pedagogical staff? This question is answered within a qualitative research design. Therefore, the existing data of a qualitative study concerning cultures of teaching in adult educa…
Critical adult education Adult education in the horizon of contemporary societal criticism The essay contacts basic lines of the early critical theory in order to connect it with power analytical surveys on neoliberal restructuring of education. Foucaults analytics of power serves as a guide to decipher the current self-organisation discourse in adult education as part of a power-knowledge-complex. Thereby the present reform strategies manifest themselves as gouvernemental arrangements for …
Counselling: Changes for a Sustainable Development If counselling should survive as a generally accepted human service at the beginning of the 21st century, a fundamental shift in paradigms and the therewith connected development of sustainable offers for counselling becomes necessary. Permanent co-evolution of needs from clients, economy and society calls for specific skills and knowledge for analysis and coping with multiple subjective realities, ecological contexts, non-linear causalities…
The Observation of the Observer Constructive adult education The entry of constructive perception into adult education is closely linked to the name of Horst Siebert. Together, and in the debate with Rolf Arnold he began, at the beginning of 1990, to “perturb” or rather refresh thinking on adult education. How this “fresh thinking” developed in the shaping of scientific thinking is the question which, based on three texts from Horst Siebert from 1991, 1993 and 1999, will be analysed in this…
Inclusion – An Organisational Challenge. Steps towards Inclusive Adult Education. Part 1 The report evaluates the option of offering inclusive adult education at adult education centres on a larger scale. The compatibility of the new policy statement in adult education centres and the principle of inclusion are pointed out. Implications of the concept of inclusion are presented, which lead to the conclusion that inclusion can only be implemented with a comprehensive organisational developmen…
Receptive or hostile to continuing education? Course tutors caught between the pressure to conform and resistance This article presents the results of a qualitative dissertation. The author has investigated the acceptance of adult education teacher training courses among part-time and freelance teachers based on the example of the initial adult education teacher training qualification offered by the North Rhine Westphalia VHS (adult education centre) regional association. For the issue of a…
Es ist nahezu ein Allgemeinplatz, von der Pluralität der Lernorte zu sprechen und mittlerweile Konsens, die Vielfalt der Orte des Lehrens und Lernens sowie deren Eingebundensein in gesellschaftliche Strukturen und Funktionen zu akzeptieren und wissenschaftlich zu verorten. Es gibt eine diszplinübergreifende Übereinstimmung darin, dass es neben den traditionellen Orten institutionalisierten und organisierten Lernens eine Vielzahl von „offenen“ und „freien“ Lernorten gibt. In jüngster Zeit gewinn…
