Suchergebnisse

Competence is a concept imported into the adult and continuing education arena from the psychological terminology of human resource development in work organizations. It has been elevated to a societal and political level as part of a new discursive regime. This article points out the significance of the particular circumstances in which the competence discourse has emerged, and argues for its critical investigation within a Marxist framework. A new discourse of learning and competence reflects a new material dependency of capital(ism) on the concrete quality of work and workers, requiring a total program of learning for work. This opens a new arena of political struggle over the direction of learning processes and the participation of workers in work and society. The socio-economic realities and new understanding of the interrelationship between knowledge, skills, learning and practice central to the competence concept, raises a potential issue about the role of work and the living worker in a capitalist economy. This requires a re-development of the notion of economy based in the value and interest of working people, and enabled by the full development of the competences of the workers themselves. A notion of the "political economy of working people" is proposed as a framework for investigating the potentials of competence development for enhanced democracy. (DIPF/Orig.)

"The HSR Focus presents a psycho-societal approach to qualitative empirical research in several areas of everyday social life. It is an approach which integrates a theory of subjectivity and an interpretation methodology which integrates hermeneutic experiences from text analysis and psychoanalysis. Its particular focus is on subjectivity - as an aspect of the research object and as an aspect of the research process. By the term 'approach' is indicated the intrinsic connection between the theorizing of an empirical object and the reflection of the research process and the epistemic subject. In terms of methodology it revives the themes originally launched in FOS exactly ten years ago: 'Subjectivity and Reflectivity in Qualitative Research' (Breuer, Mruck and Roth 2002; Mruck and Breuer 2003). This editorial introduction presents the intellectual background of the psycho-societal methodology, reflects on its relevance and critical perspectives in a contemporary landscape of social science, and comments the way in which an international and interdisciplinary research group has developed this approach to profane empirical research." (author's abstract)

"Der Aufsatz stellt einen psychosozialen Ansatz für die qualitativ-empirische Sozialforschung in verschiedenen Bereichen des Alltagslebens vor, der auf einer Subjektivitätstheorie fußt. Anschließend an die methodologische Diskussion, die in FQS vor zehn Jahren zum Thema 'Subjektivität und Selbstreflexivität im qualitativen Forschungsprozess' geführt wurde (vgl. Breuer, Mruck & Roth 2002 sowie Mruck & Breuer 2003), integriert er Methoden der hermeneutischen Textinterpretation mit der Psychoanalyse. Hier ist Subjektivität der Fokus sowohl als Forschungsobjekt und als auch als ein Aspekt des Forschungsprozesses. Der Forschungsansatz impliziert eine enge Verbindung von Theorie, der Reflexion des Forschungsprozesses und des Erkenntnissubjekts: Der Beitrag zeigt den theoretischen und methodologischen Hintergrund psychosozialer Forschung auf. Er reflektiert die Relevanz und die kritischen Perspektiven in der gegenwärtigen Sozialforschung und beschreibt den Erkenntnisweg einer internationalen und interdisziplinären Forschungsgruppe, die diesen Ansatz der empirischen Sozialforschung entwickelt hat." (Autorenreferat)

Interpretive Interactionism liegt – nachdem es zuerst 1989 veröffentlicht wurde – nun in der zweiten Auflage vor. Es präsentiert DENZINs spezifische Synthese aus Interaktionismus, Hermeneutik und Ethnografie. DENZIN möchte mit seinem Ansatz, den er in der "post-modernen Periode" verortet, Forscher(innen) in die Lage versetzen, gesellschaftliche Konflikte und Veränderungen, wie sie in der Lebenswelt zum Ausdruck kommen, zu verstehen. Das Buch durchschreitet die verschiedenen Phasen der empirischen Sozialforschung und bietet zur Veranschaulichung Beispiele aus der Biografieforschung und der einer "dichten Beschreibung" verpflichteten Ethnographie. Das Buch mag für praktisch orientierte Leser(innen) ohne größere Forschungserfahrung zu kurz greifen, aber es DENZINs einfühlsame Reflektion über die Herausforderungen angewandter Sozialforschung und es verdeutlicht seine Position. In der hier vorgelegten Besprechung werden zusätzlich Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen amerikanischen und europäischen Interpretationsansätzen diskutiert, eine Diskussion, die nahe legt, dass DENZINs Verständnis von Interpretation zu stark an das Individuum und sein/ihr unmittelbares Bewusstsein angebunden sein mag.

Social economy in its many variations and vague delimitations is an environment produced by global capitalism. Yet it may also enable social practices and learning processes which might not necessarily follow the mainstream rules of today's capitalism. In fact, such social practices can be seen as a learning outcome responding to life conditions and contradictions in capitalism. If we understand societal dynamics as historical and material processes we must direct empirical attention to study the micro-processes in which such endogenous dynamics may potentially grow up. Assuming that learning within such micro-processes form the key to any agentic capacity of social change this thematic issue has visited a few particular cases which expose specific learning environment and specific learning processes. Even though some of the articles do not theorize learning very explicitly they seem to indicate that social economy can be both the presupposition and the potential outcome of such emergent learning processes. (DIPF/Orig.)

The editorial presents the articles of this issue on the topic of marketization and commodification of adult education of which some are conceptual and some empirical. (DIPF/Orig.)

This editorial will pursue this notion of competence as a governing regime in discussion of what's new by highlighting some distinctive material circumstances which have supported its dominance. We trace the wider emergence of lifelong learning in the European policies of the 1990s from discourses from outside education. We argue that this reflected and fueled scepticism over whether education could fulfill societal needs. Education, before and after the Second World War had been seen as a force for social change. But after Reagan and Thatcher in the 1990s, and now coming from groups who gained influence in the development of neo-liberal policy agendas, this skepticism supported a turn to the market. Education was understood to need to become more flexible and functional in support of the labour market. Knowledge and skills became the 'objects' of value and disappointed expectations of the potential of education to transform societies paved the way for a new discursive constellation. The velocity of wider social and economic change, an older relative shift towards post-Fordist work production mechanisms and the new European Union agenda of monitoring and comparing skills and competencies combined to support a new governing regime. (DIPF/Orig.)

"The article is a guided tour to Alfred Lorenzer's proposal for an 'in-depth hermeneutic' cultural analysis methodology which was launched in an environment with an almost complete Split between social sciences and psychology/ psychoanalysis. It presents the background in his materialist socialization theory, which combines a social reinterpretation of the core insights in classical psychoanalysis - the unconscious, the drives - with a theory of language acquisition. His methodology is based on a transformation of the 'scenic understanding' from a clinical to a text interpretation, which seeks to understand collective unconscious meaning in text, and is presented with an illustration of the interpretation procedure from social research. Then follows a brief systematic account of key concepts and ideas - interaction forms, engrams, experience, symbolization, language game, utopian imagination - with an outlook to the social theory connections to the Frankfurt School. The practical interpretation procedure in a Lorenzer-based psycho-societal research is briefly summarized, emphasizing the rote of the researcher subjects in discovering socially unconscious meaning in social interaction. Finally an outlook to contemporary epistemological issues is given. Lorenzer's approach to theorize and research the subject as a socially produced entity appears as a psycho-societal alternative to mainstream social constructivism." (author's abstract)

Practices of adult education and learning have historically been closely related to policy arrangements – often by defining and reproducing the culture of local, regional or subcultural communities – but increasingly in the service of the consolidation of the nation states. Depending on political situations and institutional arrangements, the states in Europe have been involved in the promotion and institutional framing of adult education and learning. Today the role of the nation state is changing in many ways, and it also affects the role assigned to education and learning arrangements. Both policies at the supranational level and market forces have had an increasing influence on the understanding of what adult education/lifelong learning is about. The shifts in the meaning and use of central concepts in this field are illustrative of these changes. In this issue the authors have intended to create a space for reflection on these policy transformations and their consequences. In a call for articles four questions were guiding contributors in addressing 'the work and effects of policies for the education and learning of adults': 1. How can we interpret the shift in policy vocabulary e.g. from 'education to learning', and from 'emancipation to empowerment'? 2. What is the influence of transnational agencies and how has this inspired education policy at the national level? 3. How is the role of the state in education and learning policies conceptualized? Are there differences in differing (local/national/international) contexts? 4. What is the future role of the nation state in adult education? (DIPF/Orig.)

"Der Artikel führt in Alfred Loerzers tiefenhermeneutische Kulturanalyse ein. Lorenzer schlägt eine Methode vor, die in dem methodologischen Umfeld der arbeitsteiligen Aufspaltung von Sozialwissenschaften, Psychologie und Psychoanalyse begründet ist. Dieser Forschungsansatz ist der Hintergrund seiner materialistischen Sozialisationstheorie, die eine Reinterpretation von Grundbegriffen der klassischen Psychoanalyse - des Unbewussten, der Triebe usw. - mit einer Sprachtheorie verbindet. Lorenzer hat das 'szenische Verstehen' im klinischen Deuten der Psychoanalyse in ein Textinterpretationsverfahren transformiert. Es geht darin um das Verständnis kollektiver unbewusster Bedeutungen eines Textes. Diese Methode der Textinterpretation wird mit sozialwissenschaftlichen Verfahren der Textinterpretation verglichen. Daran schließt sich ein kurzer systematischer Überblick über Loerzers Schlüsselbegriffe an - Interaktionsformen, Engramme, Erfahrung, Symbolisierung, Sprachspiel, utopische Phantasie - in Verbindung mit Begriffen der Soziologie der Frankfurter Schule. Die Praxis von Loerzers Interpretationsverfahren wird zusammenfassend an einem psychosozialen Forschungsprojekt kurz vorgestellt. Darin spielt das Forschungssubjekt bei der Entdeckung von unbewussten Bedeutungen in der sozialen Interaktion eine besondere Rolle. Loerzers Ansatz, die Individuen als gesellschaftlich produzierte Wesen zu theoretisieren und zu erforschen, erscheint als eine psychosoziale Alternative zum Mainstream des sozialen Konstruktivismus." (Autorenreferat)

Establishing a new scholarly journal can be justified by the functional needs of a welldefined scientific discipline – or as opposition to its institutional and paradigmatic framework. This is, however, not the case with the European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults (RELA). It is, rather, so that the journal is part of the emergence of a scientific community, very deeply embedded in societal practices at the same time as it is reconstructing intellectually these practices and their context as scientific objects. In this case, the journal can attempt to provide an arena and some of the communicative resources for academic and broader social development of such a community. To fulfil this mission, its rationale and specific goals are equally related to a diagnosis of these societal practices and some visions for the role of scientific inquiry in these practices. As two of the six editors of RELA, and responsible for the editorial work of the first issue of the journal, we will discuss why this journal has been launched, and how the editors want to position it in the area of the education and learning of adults. (DIPF/orig.)

"Die derzeitig bestehende europäische Agenda des 'lebenslangen Lernens' stellt eine Herausforderung für die qualitative Lern- und Bildungsforschung dar. Dabei bilden Theorie und Methodologie menschliche Erfahrungen weit komplexer ab, als sie die sogenannten 'Human Ressourcen' offen darlegen und erfassen können. Die Forschungsagenda sollte deshalb insbesondere durch die Offenlegung von Qualifikationspotentialen weiter entwickelt werden, um zu demonstrieren, welche Erfahrungen aus Lebensgeschichte und Alltagsleben, und dabei gerade auch die problematischen und repressiven Dimensionen des Arbeitslebens und die entsprechenden Potentiale Veränderungen ermöglichen. Vor dem Hintergrund der kritischen Theorie wird in diesem Beitrag die Erfahrung von erwachsenen Männern analysiert, die an ihrem Arbeitsplatz 'Pflegekultur' aufgesucht wurden." (Autorenreferat)

In exploring adult learning and education in connection with migration processes, questions pertaining to societies, individuals and educational institutions are posed. What educational potential is generated by migration for individuals and societies as a whole? What educational policies are developed by societies to deal with the challenge of migration? To what extent do researchers of adult and continuing education and learning study and discuss the phenomenon of migration and its consequences? (DIPF/Orig.)

The professionalisation of the field of adult and continuing education has been a source of intense debate and controversy in the last few years, although this debate has been patchy over the European nations and perhaps more intense in some areas (cf. Nuissl & Lattke 2008; European Journal of Education 2009; Research voor Beleid 2010). Germany, for example, is one of the countries where the 'professionalisierung' has been on the political and academic agenda more than elsewhere (Gieseke, 2005). National and European Union policies argue strongly for an increase in the quality of adult and continuing education through professionalisation (cf. European Commission 2006; Research voor Beleid & PLATO 2008; Research voor Beleid 2010), and the European Commission identifies 'challenges' to be addressed by those who have a stake in adult learning (2006). The Commission plans action to address these challenges and proposes to manage the adult and continuing education terrain by encouraging nations across Europe to accept their arguments for quality improvement through adoption of their performance indicators and benchmarks. (DIPF/orig.)