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„First-party”, „second-party”, „third-party funds” (p.18-19). The brief article aims at increasing the terminological acuity of the topic focus and distinguishes between the use of the term „third-party funds” to „first-party” and „second-party funds” in the context of research and further education.

A theorist for professional organization and academic research on the one hand and the practical further education specialist on the other hand exchange their views and ideas on the positive and negative effects of a strategic orientation for third-party funds in an interview with „DIE”.

Searching for the third way. A statistical look at the practice of winning third-party funds over for further education institutions. The article provides empirical backgrounds for winning third-party funds over for further education institutions through the database of the German Institute of Adult Education. According to the database 17 % of the total financial backing for the Community Adult Education Centres came from third-party funds in 2005, after a maximum of 20 % in 2002. As a comparison: The third-party fund percentage in the collective pool, including other areas of umbrella organisations, of the combined statistics is with 9.5 % distinctly lower. Ecclesiastical and political education attract third-party funds obviously to a much smaller extent. Concentration effects are to be observed, e.g. 16 out of 1,000 Adult Education Providers share about 50 % of the funds for further education subsidized by the public recruitment agencies.

Competing for Third-party Funds. Development strategies for adult education providers. Which strategic opportunities are available for adult education providers which would like to successfully attract sponsors on the third-party funds market? This article distinguishes four concepts according to an organisational theoretical perspective which are widely accepted in practice and only partially combined: (a) „flexible specialization”: the purpose is to increase the reaction period of content-based tasks to the changing orders situation; (b) „Stakeholder-Value-Orientation”; i.e. adjusting the own performance to the performance expectations of the demanding groups (political authorities, sponsors etc.); (c); „knowledge management”: opportunities for competition are increased by setting oneself apart through innovation and organizational intelligence; (d) „strategic cooperation”; it is required to get back to respective cooperation partners in case of project matters and to plan projects cooperatively. Typical characteristics and strategic advantages have to be worked out for each of the respective concepts. Finally, the disadvantages of these four options will be disclosed. Thus, the article aims at a systematization of performance actions in further education.

Education Programmes under one Roof. The new EU action Programme for Life-long Learning (p. 34-37). The new EU education programme PLL (Programme for life-long learning) aims at combining the previous programmes SOKRATES II and LEONARDO DA VINCI II under the same roof, and hence extends the previous range of opportunities for financial backing through a cross-section programme which enables cooperation outside the boundaries of education. The article gives an overview about the complete programme, and takes thereafter the GRUNDTVIG opportunity for financial backing for the field of adult education into consideration. The programme offers more attractive strategies to win sponsors over than its predecessors due to numerous ways of reducing red tape and a slightly increased provision of funds.

Supporting Projects Replaces Safe-guarding the Infrastructure. Northrine-Westphalian structural change. The state funds of Northrine-Westphalia for further education were reduced from € 120 Mio to € 88 Mio between 2000 and 2007 by governments of different colours. The most recent reduction was carried out while promising € 12 Mio annually out of the European Social Funds (ESF) instead. This rearrangement from institutional base support to project-oriented support is a great challenge for further education. The article, by a managing director of a Community Adult Education Centre, analyses the first structural changes and discusses the long-term consequences. Only 40 % of the Northrine-Westphalian Community Adult Education Centres of different regions have participated in ESF-funds so far. The author evaluates the rearrangement as the introduction of structural insecurity into the system and discusses whether the politically set topics are the same all over the federal state or whether this may lead to fading out the regional particularities.

„Learn habitus” has its roots in the concept of habitus by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. According to Bourdieu the „habitus” is represented in the whole of all signs of life, i.e. the daily routine, job, clothes, behaviour, taste, value judgement, in which a person is bedded and which has become the person’s second nature. If our behaviour can be understood as ways of expressing the habits, so can be the way we learn. The learn habitus represents the whole of the learning disposition of an individual which they have acquired in the course of their life in primary and secondary social contexts. The learning habits present a key role in regard to the requirement of life-long learning: They provide the elite classes with the ability to learn due to the perfect adjustment to changing social requirements, although, the classes a long way off education are not only disadvantaged because of the deficit of not acquired knowledge, but particularly because of the crucial lack of a general learning ability.

The article introduces two commemorative articles for anniversaries of adult education providers and identifies their trivialising way of dealing with problematic parts of history. The commemorative article for the 100th anniversary of the „Heimvolkshochschule Tingleff” plays the role of its managing director during the NS-regime down. The commemorative article on behalf of a city’s 800th anniversary dealing with the history of the Community Adult Education Centre Dresden excludes the problematic past of the NS-time and the GDR-history from its list in favour of continuity. The author pleads for experiencing discontinuity in local history and sees, in the accompaniment of such processes through further education, a challenge for political education.