Reischmann Andragogy: Contributions to an Emerging Discipline

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-3-7583-4219-6
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 190 Seiten

In "Andragogy: Contributions to an Emerging Discipline" Prof. Dr. Jost Reischmann reexamines key facets of andragogy by presenting a series of reprints that contribute significantly to the field. - The book opens with "Andragogy and Andragogues", offering a clear definition and exploring the vital role and necessary competencies of andragogues as "change specialists". - "Andragogical Concepts" provides valuable insights for educators and scholars by analyzing andragogical theories such as "learning en passant", "lifewide learning", and "compositional learning". - The section "Projects and Examples" bridges theory with practice, highlighting the synergy between theoretical understanding and practical application. - Lastly, the book explores "International Comparative Adult Education", offering a comprehensive exploration of this research area. It presents examples and proposes ways to enhance studies in this field. "Andragogy: Contributions to an Emerging Discipline" is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and libraries, offering a fresh perspective on adult education. This book informs and inspires readers to think critically and innovatively about the discipline.

Prof. Dr. Jost Reischmann, born in 1943, (www.jost.reischmannfam.de), specialized in andragogy/adult education. He studied Pedagogy, Psychology, and Sociology at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and chaired the Andragogy department at Bamberg University from 1992 until his retirement in 2008. In 1988, he edited the first English-language book on Adult Education in Germany. Dr. Reischmann served as the first president of the International Society for Comparative Adult Education (ISCAE) in 1992. His contributions to the field were acknowledged with his induction into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in 1999 and receiving the AAACE "Outstanding Service Award" in 2006. He has presented papers at various international conferences around the world. xxx

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reischmann, Jost

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2. Andragogy and Andagogues
In the title and throughout this book a central term is “Andragogy”. On several occasions, I tried to explain the meaning and function of this term: Andragogy can be defined as the “discipline, the subject of which is the study of education and learning of adults in all its forms of expression” (Savicevic, 1999, p. 97). The subsequent chapter was published in an encyclopedia. Forthcoming chapters will go deeper into the understanding and helpfulness of using this term. 2.1 Andragogy (2005)1 The term andragogy has been used in different times and countries with various connotations. There are three main understandings: (a) andragogy as the scholarly approach to the learning of adults, viewed as the science of understanding and supporting their lifelong and lifewide End page 58
Start page 59 education; (b) andragogy in the tradition of Malcolm Knowles, which refers to a specific theoretical and practical approach based on a humanistic conception of learners who are self-directed and autonomous, where teachers who work with learners to facilitate their learning are also in a learning mode; this understanding is most common in the United States; and (c) andragogy used in an unclear way, with its meaning changing from “adult education practice” or “desirable values” or “specific teaching methods," to refer to “reflections” or a specific “academic discipline,” as well as the “opposite of childish pedagogy.” Terms make sense in relation to the object they name. Relating the development of the term to the historical context may explain the differences. The History of Andragogy The first person to use the term andragogy, as far as we know, was the German high-school teacher Alexander Kapp in 1833. In a book entitled ‘Plato's Educational Ideas’ he describes the lifelong necessity to learn. Midway through that book, which begins with a section on early childhood, there is a section on adulthood entitled “Die Andragogik oder Bildung im maennlichen Alter” (Andragogy or Education in the Man's Age); a replica of this book can be found on www.andragogy.net and on page 31 in this book. In 60 pages, Kapp argues that education, self-reflection, and character education are the first values of human life. He then refers to vocational education for those in the healing professions, soldiers, educators, orators, rulers, and men as fathers. In a common pedagogical pattern, Kapp includes and combines the education of inner, subjective personality (character) and outer, objective competencies; for Kapp, learning happens not only through teachers, but also through self-reflection and life experience, and is about more than teaching adults. Kapp does not explain the term andragogik, and it is not clear whether he invented it or whether he borrowed it from somebody else. He does not develop a theory but justifies andragogy as the practical necessity of the education of adults. Yet it was not considered unique, which may be the reason why the term lay fallow: other terms and ideas were available. The idea of adult learning was not unusual in the time around 1833, neither in Europe (Enlightenment movement, reading-societies, workers' education, educational work of churches), nor in America (Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Lowell Institute in Boston, Lyceum Movement, town libraries, museums, agricultural societies); all had important dates between 1820-40. The existing initiatives had their own terminology, so a new term was not needed. The Second and Third Invention In the 1920s, Germany adult education became a field of theorizing, especially among a group of scholars from various disciplines, the so-called “Hohenrodter Bund,” who developed in theory and practice the Neue Richtung (new direction) in adult education. Here some authors gave a second birth to the term andragogik, now used to describe sets of explicit reflections related to the why, what-for, and how of teaching adults. Andragogy became a sophisticated, theory-oriented concept, used as an antonym to "demagogy" too difficult to handle, not really shared. So again the term fell into disuse and was forgotten. But a new phenomenon End page 59
Start page 60 was arising: a scholarly, academic reflection level “above” practical adult education. The scholars came from various disciplines, working in adult education as individuals, not representing university institutes or disciplines. The idea of adult education as a discipline was not yet born. It is not clear where the third wave of using andragogy originated. In the 1950s, andragogy can suddenly be found in publications in Switzerland (Hanselmann), Yugoslavia (Ogrizovic), the Netherlands (ten Have), and Germany (Pöggeler). Still, the term was known only to insiders and was sometimes more oriented to practice, sometimes more to theory. Perhaps this mirrors the reality of adult education at that time. There was little formal training for adult educators, some very limited theoretical knowledge, no institutionalized continuity of developing such knowledge, and no academic course of study. Adult education was still an unclear mixture of practice, commitment, ideologies, reflections, theories, mostly local institutions, and some academic involvement of individuals. As the situation was unclear, the term could not be any clearer. But the increasing use of the term signaled that a sharp distinction between “doing” and “reflecting” was developing, one that was perhaps in need of a separate term. Andragogy: A Banner for Identity The heyday for the term andragogy for the English-speaking adult education world came with Malcolm Knowles, a scholar of adult education in the USA. In his 1989 book, Knowles describes his 1967 encounter with the term. A Yugoslavian adult educator, Dusan Savicevic, participated in a class Knowles was giving at summer session in Boston University. Savicevic explained the German roots of the term to Knowles. Following Kapp's use of the term, andragogy lay fallow until it was once more introduced by a German social scientist Eugen Rosenstock, in 1921, but it did not receive general recognition. The term was resurrected when in “1957 a German teacher, Franz Pöggeler, published a book, Introduction into Andragogy: Basic Issues in Adult Education, and this term was then picked up by adult educators in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Yugoslavia ...” (Knowles, p. 79). Knowles published his first article (1968) about his understanding of andragogy with the provocative title “Andragogy, Not Pedagogy.” In a short time the term andragogy, now intimately connected to Knowles received general recognition throughout North America and other English-speaking countries “within North America, no view of teaching adults is more widely known, or more enthusiastically embraced, than Knowles' description of andragogy” (Pratt & Associates, 1998, p. 13). Knowles' concept of andragogy “the art and science of helping adults learn ... is built upon two central, defining attributes: First, a conception of learners as self-directed and autonomous and second, a conception of the role of the teacher as facilitator of learning rather than presenter of content” (Pratt & Associates, 1998, p. 12), emphasizing learner choice more than expert control. Both attributes fit into the specific socio-historic thoughts in and after the 1970s, for example the deschooling theory (Illich, 1971), Rogers's person-centered approach, and Freire's conscientization. Perhaps a third attribute added to the attraction of Knowles' concept: constructing andragogy as opposed to pedagogy provided an opportunity End page 60
Start page 61 for educators to be seen as „good teachers” instead of pedantic ones. This flattered adult educators in a time when most were andragogical amateurs, doing adult education based on their content expertise, experience, and a mission they felt, rather than on specific training or educational competence. To be offered understandable, humanistic values and beliefs, some specific methods and a good-sounding label strengthened a group that felt inferior to comparable professionals. And this was accompanied by a significant growth of the field of practice plus an increased scholarly approach, including the emerging possibility of studying adult education at universities. All these elements document a new period (“art and science”) in adult education; it made sense to concentrate them in a new term. Providing a unifying idea and identity, connected with the term andragogy, to the amorphous group of adult educators was certainly the main contribution that Knowles gave to the field of adult education at that time. Another was that he strengthened the already existing scholarly access to adult education by publishing, theorizing, researching and educating students who themselves through academic research became scholars, and by explicitly defining andragogy as science (Cooper & Henschke, 2003). Issues with Andragogy Nevertheless, over the years a critique has developed against Knowles' understanding of andragogy. A first critique argues that Knowles claimed to offer a general concept of adult education, but like all educational theories in history andragogy is but one concept, born into a specific historical context. For example, one of Knowles' basic assumptions is that becoming adult means becoming self-directed, a view that is often rejected because...