Live, learn, lead: Adult´s forms of learning and needs of Bildung in the frames of lifelong learning

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Heide von Felden
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258758132

The research project wants to explore how people learn in the frames of lifelong learning. Since the 1990ies, lifelong learning as a concept of education policy has also been established in Germany. It provides to convey learning as a lifelong and life wide strategy to the members of society, due to the facts of the societal challenges, such as dynamic shift, demographic changes and the necessity of flexible and self-dependent societal participation. Especially self directed learning and the relationship between formal, non formal and informal learning is viewed with increased importance. Whereas shapes of learning and the need for learning are socially accepted, the academic discussion refers to life time learning in different ways. On the one hand, different terms of learning are taken for granted, on the other hand long term learning processes are conceptualized in the framework of life course research or biographical research. So far, it is a contentious issue in academic literature how to detect the relationship between formal, non formal and informal learning and the association with the shapes of learning. Furthermore, it remains unclear if and how the appeals for lifelong learning reach the members of society and how they react on it. Up to now, there is only little research on the effects of the education policy´s offensive strategy, especially the effects on the people with their own interpretations and their decisions for their processes of learning and Bildung. There are solely experience reports at European level so far. Our project wants to fill this academic void by examining how adults acquire the appeals for lifelong learning, how they respond to the transfer of the responsibility for their own learning process (i.a. in the form of self directed learning), how they learn in formal, non formal and informal learning environments and which meaning such kind of learning has for them .Clear and briefly: how they learn in the frames of lifelong learning. The focus of the research project should be on a) the appellative character of lifelong learning, b) the question concerning the self directed learning and the increased responsibility for people´s own learning and c) the relationship between formal, non formal and informal learning. Concerning the methodical approach, we plan to incorporate two approaches in our project: on the one hand episodic interviews with persons of different ages and with different educational backgrounds and on the other hand, in terms of the relationship between formal, non-formal and informal learning, to cross-refer the data of the NEPS with the results of the interviews. In this respect, it is planned to come to increasing knowledge through output-triangulation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Participating Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Zentrum für Bildungs- und Hochschulforschung (ZBH)
• Participating Persons: Professorin Dr. Eva Borst; Professor Dr. Rudolf Egger; Professorin Dr. Marina Hennig; Professorin Dr. Christiane Hof; Dr. Jürgen Schiener