Didaktisches Handeln in Organisationen Allgemeiner Erwachsenenbildung. Erste Ergebnisse

What collective ideas about teaching and didactic action exist in general adult education organisations? Is there standard knowledge of how teaching should be organised? And what kind of implicit knowledge structures actual practice? These questions guided empirical research on teaching in adult education developed and conducted by the author. In this qualitative-reconstructive study, the perspectives of members of various general adult education organisations were analysed. The author has conducted group discussions and episodic interviews. A total of six organisations active in general adult education and based in Germany have been analysed so far and eighteen group discussions and six interviews with directors have been conducted. This article presents and discusses the first - still preliminary - interpretations which resemble four ideal aggregations of collective ideas of didactic action: didactic action as reactive external expectations, as a standardisation of practice, as micro-didactic tools and as extensional action. The article concludes with thoughts on the (further) development of didactic theories in the context of the discussion about new cultures of learning.