DIE Zeitschrift für Erwachsenenbildung

Modern society has widely been characterized as an information society, in that the possession of information (or rather knowledge) is seen as the predominant factor for success. But information is volatile: the need to replace or update obsolete information becomes ever more pressing, as technological and scientific development moves on. This, however, happens in the context of a compartmentalization of society into a sector of successful, flexible individuals on the one hand and a sector of those not adapted to the requirements of modern economy on the other hand, with a large sector of more or less moderately well-adapted persons in between. At the same time, institutionalized instruction and training are losing ground, as adults are expected to organize their educational activities on their own, under the heading of self-directedness. – What is to be done for those from the third sector, who must learn, but at the same time lack self-organizational competence and cannot rely on institutional readymade solutions either? The autor promotes, in addition to more traditional target group-specific adult education courses, voluntary work as conducive to the development of organizational and general competence. Job rotation as practised in Denmark, providing access to further education for those already working, and to employment for those currently unemployed, may be another answer to the challenge.

It has recently become widely accepted that reluctance to learning in adults may be explained by features inherent in the (presentation of the) subject matter, which may be perceived by the learner as being unsuited to his or her needs. A successful learning environment, the argument goes, must meet certain standards: for instance, learning should be active, self-directed, situated and constructive. Reluctance to learning in explained as a negative reaction to the absence of these standards. The author argues that the interpretation of learning reluctance as a basically rational, although not always conscious, reaction to didactic shortcomings is too simplistic: emotional parameters such as anxiety or a desire to please must be taken into consideration as well as cognitive ones in order to further professionalism in adult education.

In the current transition from industrial society towards an „information society”, the importance of access to and information
about new information and communication technologies is ever growing. A „digital divide” between competent users and nonusers,
forming a new class of „information have-nots”, may be the consequence. – The author points to the increasing importance
of the Internet as a provider of everyday information, as well as to the danger of excluding great numbers of individuals
from accessing and using Internet information as a consequence of differences in age, educational background, technical and
general media competence. He describes various problem levels relevant to the „digital divide” and argues in favour of long-term
political, educational and research strategies to alleviate these problems.

In multiethnic and multicultural societies, segregation between subgroups is a common phenomenon. Each group tends to define itself via characteristic features perceived to distinguish it from and contrast favourably to neighbouring groups. The author describes changing ways of looking at ethnos as a concept and analyses sociological, economic, judicial and psychological determinants. She goes on to discuss paedagogical measures to mitigate potential sources of conflict.