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In 2019, German folk high schools – Volkshochschulen (vhs) – celebrated the centenary of their inclusion in the Constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1919, an era when they founded local centres in many parts of the country. Ever since, they have played an important part in the adult learning and education (ALE) sub-sector of the German education system, meanwhile reaching a participation level of almost 9 million learners per year. Under the umbrella of its national association Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband (DVV), founded in 1953, the vhs offers courses in a variety of subjects and different forms through roughly 900 adult learning centres and almost 3,000 local branches. In 1969, DVV expanded its operations with the establishment of its own institute for international cooperation. DVV International, whose 50th anniversary coincided with the vhs centenary, has institutionalised the diversity and ever-growing scale of cross-border and global cooperation activities of the national association. Marking both anniversaries generated a kind of collective cultural memory which located the vhs in the institutional foundations of a democratic society, and paved the way to advance policy dialogue. At the same time, these anniversaries also fed into a marketing strategy to mobilise higher levels of support and participation. DVV International used the example of the evolution of the vhs system to demonstrate the importance of interventions for better policy, legislation and financing at local, national, regional and global levels. Activities throughout the anniversary year included high-level events, conferences and workshops, publications and studies. Based on these activities and outputs, the authors consider and compare commonalities and differences of ALE milestones in other countries and regions of the world, and their potential for learning from the past for the future.

After the German reunification in 1990, East Germany transitioned from a centrally planned economic system to a market economy. To tackle surging unemployment, upskilling through adult education was deemed essential at the time. Besides substantial mandatory training programs provided by active labor market policies, Volkshochschulen (VHS) were the most important providers of voluntary adult education. Based on newly digitized data, we estimate how VHS courses affected unemployment in a county-level analysis of East Germany between 1991 and 2002. Our identification strategy employs the decentralized expansion of courses, which led to substantial, quasi-random variation in their regional supply. We do not find any significant effects of VHS courses on subsequent unemployment. Lacking labor demand and low market dynamics may have restricted the realization of education effects. Regional disparities support this notion: In counties bordering West Germany, courses reduced unemployment. Our results hint towards multiple mechanisms at play, as both work-related and recreational courses were found to be effective in border counties.

In view of the growing number of people with a migration background, continuing education organizations are faced with strategic tasks of intercultural opening. These tasks require leaders to initiate and expand integration-promoting teaching work, to promote the intercultural sensitization of the members of the organization, and to develop an intercultural culture. This is a wide issue and concerns leadership action regarding funding, regular and special course programs, training for staff and lecturers, intercultural training, etc. In this qualitative study, the types of intercultural openness adopted by the management of adult education centers were categorized into proactive, reflexive, ambivalent, and symbolic types of openness. Using the procedure of exploratory sequential design, hypotheses were tested with the aim of gaining information that would facilitate broader statements about the field of adult education providers. The quantitative distribution was analyzed using a data set called 'wbmonitor' and a regional data set.

Young-old learners are an underresearched group in foreign/second language research. The present mixed-methods study aims to provide a more differentiated view of this group in the context of lifelong learning and, more specifically, learning English as a foreign language. The author draws from concepts in gerontology, psychology, adult education, and foreign/second language research to investigate the L2-self-concepts of young-old language learners at Volkshochschulen in Germany.

This paper analyzes developments in the foreign language course offerings of the Adult Education Center of Greater Berlin (VHGB) from its founding in 1920 to its dissolution at the end of WWII. Having created a digital database of the yearly course programs and newsletters, this quantitative and qualitative analysis explores the programmatic and didactic embeddedness of foreign language courses over time, paying particular attention to the influence of leadership changes on program planning. In addition to documenting the geopolitically motivated expansion of foreign language course offerings that peaked during WWII, these results also uncover important omissions in previous representations of the VHGB and challenge views that all important stakeholders during the Weimar era were democratically aligned. Because of the VHGB’s status as a flagship organization, these findings also provide general insights into the historical development of foreign language courses within German adult education through the Weimar and Nazi eras.

An Evaluation kommen Bildungswissenschaftler wie Bildungspraktiker heute nicht mehr vorbei. Evaluiert werden Projekte und Lernleistungen, die Qualität von Produkten und Dienstleistungen, die Effektivität von Prozessen und Strukturen, Programme, Ziele und Outputs von Organisationen. Der Bedeutungszuwachs von Evaluation manifestiert sich in Prozessen der Institutionalisierung und Kanonisierung: So wurden Institute für Qualitätsentwicklung oder Qualitätsentwicklungsabteilungen in Organisationen gegründet, Berufsverbandsstrukturen wie etwa die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Evaluation sind entstanden, Standards und Lernarrangements für Evaluatoren sind ein Beleg für die wachsende Professionalisierung in diesem Sektor. Vor dem skizzierten Hintergrund schließt dieses Lehrbuch eine Lücke, indem es Evaluation in Bildungsorganisationen in einer umfassenden und zugleich kompakten Weise darstellt. Es bietet einen Überblick über Entstehungsbedingungen und Funktionen von Evaluationen und führt in unterschiedliche theoretische Ansätze sowie in aktuelle Diskussionen ein. Es geht auf zentrale Formen, Methoden und Verfahren der Evaluationsforschung ein, bezieht diese auf ein Spektrum von Bildungsorganisationen und auf unterschiedliche Inhaltsdimensionen. (Orig.).

\"This article examined the implementation of an occupational skills training partnership developed between the Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services and four local community colleges. Case study methods were used to describe the pattern of services provided to rehabilitation consumers and document the resulting changes in the community college and rehabilitation systems. Data were collected through individual and group interviews, document review, and written surveys. All consumers served in the case study sites received (a) orientation to the community college; (b) career exploration and planning; (c) individualized curriculum and customized training plans; (d) access to additional college services; (e) ongoing progress monitoring, support, and advocacy; and (f) exit planning and job placement services. Partnership services resulted in improved access to the community college and increased the ability of consumers with disabilities to successfully navigate the community college system.\" Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-qualitativ; empirisch. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).