Adult education

 

Adult education deals with the subject of life long learning in research and teaching. On the one hand, we focus on biographical processes and subjective appropriation strategies which take effect in transition phases in particular. In these situations lifelong learning can appear promising yet threatening at the same time. On the other hand, we focus on the institutional framework and the professional educational support of education and learning processes throughout a lifetime. Here, too, social participation is put into practice and social inequality is reproduced at the interface of educational transitions. Therefore, the focus is primarily on the mutual exchange between education and employment in the course of a life a continuing individual and social task, which is characterized by continuous change.

Our Topics

  • Adult education and learning in formal and informal contexts within Europe and around the World
  • The institutional framework of transitions across the lifespan
  • The fields of work and occupational fields of adult eduction/further education, changes in the conditions of professional practice in the area of adult education and the removal of boundaries in educational contexts and educational tasks.
  • Discourses of lifelong learning
  • The history of adult education/further education, historical developments, epoch-making tasks and issues
  • Research, theories and subject areas of adult education/further education
  • Target groups, participants, social backgrounds in the area of adult education/further education

Our Research

  • Professional behaviour in the context of adult eduction and continuing education
  • The relationship between education and employment
  • Education biography-related transitions from an institutional and from an individual perspective
  • Comparative transition studies with a focus on Europe
  • Multi-level analysis of the interaction between the supranational education policy and regional educational practice
  • Education and labour mobility in Europe