Alternative education opportunities are needed outside of formal education institutions to train individuals, develop skills, and sustain lifelong learning. Adult Education Centres, which have a ...priority and predominant position among institutions that support lifelong learning in Türkiye, are among the leading institutions that help individuals’ personal, professional, and social development. For this reason, identifying and solving the challenges of Adult Education Centres instructors positively contributes to the quality and traceability of adult education. In this context, the study aims to determine the opinions of adult instructors in Adult Education Centres about their challenges and to develop suggestions based on the findings. For this purpose, to obtain in-depth information about the challenges of adult instructors in Adult Education Centres, the phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was preferred in the study, and the study group was formed from thirty-six participants determined by maximum diversity sampling, one of the purpose sampling techniques. The research data were collected with a semi-structured interview form. According to the findings, the challenges of the instructors were in the themes of institutional challenges, professional challenges, and trainee challenges; trainers’ approaches to coping with problems were in the themes of the support-seeking approach, the planned approach, and the reactive approach; Adult Education Centres directors’ approaches to the challenges of trainers have gathered the themes of the supportive and insensitive approach. When the results of the study are evaluated collectively, the Adult Education Centres should create institutional solution strategies for the problems of the instructors; It is recommended that the trainers be employed permanently, that the unfavourable conditions they work in are corrected and that the psychological and social, technological, and physical support they need is provided.
Bireylerin yetiştirilmesi, beceri gelişimi ve yaşam boyu öğrenmenin sürdürülebilmesi için örgün eğitim kurumlarının dışında alternatif eğitim olanaklarına ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır. Türkiye'de yaşam boyu öğrenmeyi destekleyen kurumlar arasında öncelikli ve ağırlıklı bir konuma sahip olan Halk Eğitimi Merkezleri bireylerin kişisel, mesleki ve sosyal gelişimlerine yardımcı olan önemli kurumların başında gelmektedir. Bu nedenle de Halk Eğitimi Merkezi eğitimcilerinin sorunlarının belirlenmesi ve çözülmesi, yetişkin eğitiminin niteliğine ve izlenebilirliğine olumlu katkı sağlamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda araştırmanın amacı, Halk Eğitimi Merkezlerindeki yetişkin eğitimcilerin sorunlarına ilişkin görüşlerini belirlemek ve bulgulara dayalı olarak öneriler geliştirmektir. Halk Eğitimi Merkezlerindeki yetişkin eğitimcilerin sorunları hakkında derinlemesine bilgi edinebilmek için nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden fenomenoloji deseni tercih edilmiş, çalışma gurubu da amaçlı örnekleme tekniklerinden maksimum çeşitlilik örneklemesi ile belirlen otuz altı katılımcıdan oluşturulmuştur. Araştırmanın verileri yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu ile toplanmıştır. Araştırma bulgularına göre eğitimcilerin sorunları kurumsal sorunlar, mesleki sorunlar ve kursiyer sorunları temalarında; eğitimcilerin sorunlarla baş etme yaklaşımları destek alma yaklaşımı, planlı yaklaşım ve tepkisel yaklaşım temalarında; Halk Eğitimi Merkezi yöneticilerinin eğitimcilerin sorunlarına ilişkin yaklaşımları da destekleyici ve duyarsız yaklaşım temaları altında toplanmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları toplu bir şekilde değerlendirildiğinde Halk Eğitimi Merkezlerinin eğitimcilerin sorunlarına yönelik kurumsal çözüm stratejileri oluşturması; eğitimcilerin kadrolu bir şekilde istihdam edilmesi, çalıştıkları olumsuz koşulların düzeltilmesi ve ihtiyaç duydukları psikolojik, sosyal, teknolojik ve fiziksel desteklerin sağlanması önerilmektedir.
The following paper discusses as a research question the effects of increased migration by refugees and asylum-seekers on German adult education centres (Volkshochschule - VHS). Other studies have ...focused on the effects of co-called integration courses on learners, their trajectories, or general societal effects, such as inclusion in the labour market. In these studies, adult education was perceived as a means of how to deal with migration and integration, and the research was less focused on how migration and integration affects adult education centres. Based on modernity theories, this study used quantitative analysis in order to determine if the approximately 900 German adult education centres have changed in the last two decades due to increased migration and different legal frameworks. Program analysis were used in previous studies, while here the provider statistics were used for a longitudinal data analysis. This analysis focused on the following three factors: professional staff, the fields/subjects of provision, and financial sources. (DIPF/Orig.)
The paper analyses mainly non-vocational courses offered by a sample of 47 out of the approximately 900 public adult education centres (Volkshochschule - VHS) in Germany. The focus is on courses, ...events or other learning forms dealing with refugees in Germany from 1947 to 2015. Refugees can be taught in all-refugee or in mixed-groups, but it can also mean that flight and refuge is an educational issue for non-refugees. The method of program analysis is used. The results demonstrate changes over time. German adult education centres have partly turned into language schools for refugees and migrants. Civic or liberal education courses have lost importance. Refugees and migrants are addressed more than in the past when mainly non-refugees were informed about the reasons why people become refugees. Finally, ideas for courses are put forward. They are related to past practices and other studies. (DIPF/Orig.).
This case study describes and discusses a process developed by a local adult education organisation, Huon Adult Education Centre, to generate more informed and constructive debate in their local ...community, the Huon Valley, about logging the forests. It both defines the problem and outlines the impetus for community action which followed. Author abstract.
The paper reports findings from a research study carried out with adult education professionals working in Adult Education Centres (AECs) in Cyprus. It aims to explore how they experience their ...professional status in the programme as well as identify barriers that hinder their professionalisation and particular barriers caused in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study harnesses qualitative methodology and adopts a bottom-up approach as it gives voice to adult educators and makes meaning out of their working experiences. It makes suggestions for the improvement of their professional status based on the idea of humanisation, a multifaceted process in which both the state and adult educators themselves should become communions.
The paper explores the experiences and perceptions of older adults and their young educators regarding Intergenerational Learning (IGL) in the course of a non-formal adult education programme in ...Cyprus. It aims to identify the forms that IGL takes in the programme as well as any possible components of the programme that foster IGL. The research was located in the Adult Education Centres (AECs), a non-formal adult education programme, offered in the Republic of Cyprus. It is based on a qualitative research design and adopts a bottom-up approach, as it gives voice to older adults and their educators and makes meaning out of their IGL experiences. The results of the study present the different forms that IGL take in the programme under three different axes: the cognitive, the social and the psychological. They view IGL as a multilevel mutual beneficial form of learning for both the older adults and their younger educators. They also highlight the necessity of a learner-centered and cooperative learning approach for fostering IGL.
This article investigates use of digital storytelling as a learning activity in education about migration. Based on a study in two Norwegian schools and two adult education centers for refugees and ...migrants, the article analyzes student's digital stories and observations of the process of production. Counter to research on the promise of digital storytelling to promote diverse perspectives, personal experience and creativity, our findings show that digital stories as a learning activity includes powerful standardization drivers. The standardization limits diversity in students' knowledge and experience from coming into view in the final product. The identified standardization drivers are; (1) discursive blueprints of refugee experience, including the narrative about the 'Good Refugee' and idealization of the destination country, (2) challenges with representing traumatic experiences through photographic imagery, and (3) material affordances in the production process such as google algorithms. In conclusion, we argue that critical engagement with the involved modalities and standardization drivers is a condition for using digital stories to foster critical thinking about migration.
► Older people make a very rich use of computer-mediated communication tools. ► Cognitive-related issues are time-persistent, independent of ICT experience. ► With ICT experience, vision-related and ...using the mouse issues are overcome. ► Inclusion, socialization, competence and independence strategies are time-persistent.
Based on a 3-year ethnographical study, this paper discusses the prolonged use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools by approximately 400 older people in an adult education centre in Barcelona (Spain). Contrary to oversimplified views of older people as ICT users, this paper shows that they make a very rich use of CMC tools. Relevant elements of this use are their permanent desire to feel and be included, social, independent and competent ICT users. Despite the numerous interaction issues they face when using ICT, some are constant across different tools. Difficulties due to cognition limit their interactions more severely than those problems due to perceiving visual information or using the mouse. By examining the longitudinal aspect of the study, this paper addresses the evolution of technology use and whether the interaction issues that most of the current older people exhibit will be relevant when today’s more ICT literate young adults grow older. Interaction issues due to cognition are time-persistent, and independent of both experience and practice with ICT. Difficulties reading from the screen or using input devices are overcome with ICT experience. The strategies adopted by older people for coping with all these interaction issues are always targeted at feeling and being included, social, independent and competent ICT users. The results deepen current understanding of tools use in connecting older people with their social circles and the interaction issues most of them encounter when using ICT. The results also suggest that cognitive-related problems will be the most important ones in our work with the next generation of older people.
Our paper examines the relationship and differences between internationalization and globalization in contemporary development of higher education. Internationalization and globalisation are ...perceived as central realities of the influence of the 21 st century on higher education. Moreover, internationalisation and globalisation work together to transform the self-image and organisational activities of research universities and adult education centres. Some even go as far as to claim that the globalization process has produced a new grand model of global universities. We argue that globalization and internationalization of higher education help to bring talents, increase the balanced economic and scientific potential of a given country and shape up the human capital leading to the sustainable economic growth. However, the recent situation with the COVID-19 pandemic puts all these favourable outcomes under threat. More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled in United States colleges in the 2019-2020 school year. After decades of steady growth, that means a decline of nearly 20 000 international students per year. Our study examines against this background the differences between internationalization and globalization in the contemporary development of higher education. We discus the current and future developments of the globalization and internationalization of higher education and make predictions on their impacts on the universities in the United States and other countries.
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