REPORT

The report presents first results of a study dealing with the whereabouts of former participants of literacy classes. Assuming courses of adult education have a beginning and an end, the authors pursue the phenomena of participants sojourning permanently at adult education courses. Taken data material into account, the reconstruction of possible reasons for staying in the courses finally leads to the demand for an initial consulting – analogical to the starting and learning consultation in the course, which might contribute to the professionalization the literacy staff.

This article explores „biography” as a separate field of research within adult education. It focuses on analysing the outcome of alphabetization and basic education courses on biographies and coping mechanisms of functional illiterates. At the same time, the importance of biography research for practical work with illiterates is highlighted. The article also discusses a list of requirements that need to be met for an innovative adjustment of such practical work, and thus making better use of its potential.

The focus of this article is on the necessity of competences and qualifications in the lower job segment of the labour market and the applicability of educational programs to acquire these and encourage people with low skills to participate in lifelong learning. Various requirement profiles of literacy in the work context are described. The importance of operational multipliers used in job-related basic education is pointed out. Exemplary methods, used in GRAWiRa in order to concretize basic education as an element of operational personnel development, are traced.

This article describes the attempt to reveal the most suitable methods of learning for learners of the German language without previous knowledge of the Latin alphabet (Literacy DaZ Courses). Seven different methods of learning are compared in four different courses so that each syllabus will be mediated in one course with method A and in another with method B and so on. The method of teaching/learning will be switched with each new syllabus. The article focuses on the critical description of the methodology of this study.

The term ”multiple literacy” is up-to-date. Taking up the history of the term, we are attempting to contribute to a clarification. The relation of writing and reasoning on the one hand, and writing and society on the other is disputable. On that score, we are tracing the discussion and putting the concept of ”legitimate literacy” up for debate.

This paper deals with a new approach in the promotion of literacy, which focuses on social integration. This approach has been inspired by a concept of adult education aiming at integration and by social work oriented to the life world of the addressees. These concepts are being adapted to the work with functionally illiterate persons. The approach discussed here includes different forms of action promoting literacy: both learning and consulting, and also institutional cooperation in networks. A representative study has recently been carried out to check in how far the approach aiming at social integration is already being applied in the field of the promotion of literacy. Quantifiable data have been collected in Volkshochschulen all over Germany. This makes it easier to trace tendencies of further development in this field.