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Meeting abstract

ANDRAGOGY AND ADULT EDUCATION SPECIALISTS IN CROATIA IN THE YEAR 2011

Milan Matijević ; Učiteljski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu



Abstract

The term ANDRAGOGY has been first mentioned by the German Alexander Kapp in 1833. Until today the term has been used in Central Europe and in the German speaking area. Under the influence of German literature and German experts, leading experts for the field of education have accepted this term for a science that studies regularities in adult education. There were attempts to label this science with a syntagm adult pedagogy, which could be a literal translation of the expression used in the literature from the English speaking area (eng. Adult education), but in recent Croatian literature this syntagm has not been used. Expression andragogy can also be found in the American literature, and is usually linked to Malcolm S. Knowles. It is common for experts who study adult education to be called andragogues. However, in recent times in Croatia and in some neighbouring countries this term has been used to label every person who deals with organizing formal and non-formal adult education, and not only for persons who have (maybe) somewhere studied andragogy as an academic discipline (for example, in Belgrade in Serbia or in Bamberg in Germany). At the moment no one in Croatia has been organizing undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate systematic training of experts for the research and advancement of adult education. Also, awareness and need to inform everyone who is preparing for work in the field of education and schooling about newest scientific theories and conceptions regarding this activity have not yet become reality. Although all official documents regarding education and schooling are packed with term “lifelong education”, teaching schools have offered them only pedagogic-psychological and methodological competences, so that many have entered working process without any andragogical competences and information about this activity and science. Andragogy as an academic discipline in Croatia has been officially placed on the list of academic disciplines in science field of PEDAGOGY, although some andragogues disagree with that. These are some of the questions which from time to time need to be discussed in science circles in order to better understand scientific literature and official documents that regulate this activity.

Keywords

Andragogy; andragogue; adult pedagogy; andragogical competencies

Hrčak ID:

104273

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/104273

Publication date:

12.12.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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