Prof. Bernd Käpplinger

Prof. Dr. Bernd Käpplinger is full professor for continuing education at the Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty 04, University of Giessen.

• Program planning
• participation in adult and continuing education
• guidance&counselling
• quality development
• history of adult education

CG 4: Programme planning and analysis in adult education: Dealing with power and going beyond power

Co-Moderators: Prof. Borut Mikulec

Although adults can learn independently and in self-directed way, many of them learn in an organised way through (formal, non-formal) educational offers available to adults. Both ways can even support each other mutually. Different types of organisations therefore provide learning opportunities for adults through their educational programmes, and programme planning and provision of programmes represent a core activity of professional practise in adult education. 

Programme analysis refers to the analysis of educational programmes. Programmes in adult education: (a) serve as a hinge between potential learners and the provision of learning offers; (b) mean a wide variety nowadays, ranging from printed catalogues, leaflets, posters, websites, downloadable pdf documents, databases on the internet or posts of learning events on social media; (c) can be seen as everyday documents or temporary marketing tools, but are much more than that; (d) often include a brief description of the aims and content of a course, how the learning will take place, who the teachers are, target groups of learners, location, time, cost, etc. Programmes often illustrate the current “zeitgeist”.

Classification of the organisations where the programme can be found: 1) Public providers by the state (e.g. folk high schools), 2) Private providers by communities (e.g. voluntary work by actors or activists), 3) Market providers (e.g. commercial institutes selling education as a product), 4) Enterprise-based continuing training (e.g. adult learning offered within enterprises solely for the own employees).

Programme planning should address three core dimensions of planning, which means that we can use programme analysis to analyse the following three domains of programmes: (1) technical domain (e.g. structure and components of the programme), (2) sociopolitical domain (e.g. power relations) and (3) ethical domain (e.g. ethical issues).   

1. Käpplinger, B. (2025). Quality management in its relation to professionalisation revisited: A landscape shaped by internal and external forces. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 16(2), 165–178. https://doi.org/10.3384/rela.2000-7426.5614

2. Käpplinger, B. (2025). Social Change by right-wing movements. In: Hake, B., Ahonen, K./Stifter, C. (Eds.) Reformers, Activists, Intellectuals, and the Circulation of Knowledge - Studies in Social, Cultural, and Popular Educational Movements in Europe, 1815–1973. Berlin: Peter Lang, p. 103-118.

3. Allespach, M., Käpplinger, B. & Wienberg, J. (Eds.) (2024). Handbuch Betriebliche Weiterbildung – Emanzipatorische Ansätze in Theorie und Praxis. Frankfurt/Main: Bund-Verlag. URL: Handbuch Betriebliche Weiterbildung (bund-verlag.de)

4. Käpplinger, B. (2022). Arbeitspläne und Leitideen in der Weimarer Republik – Divergente Richtungen der Volkshochschulen in Bremen und in Gießen. Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung 45, 275–293. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40955-022-00209-7

5. Käpplinger, B. (2020). Modernisation of organisations due to migration? : Mixed blessings in adult education centres in Germany. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 11(3), 293–308. https://doi.org/10.3384/rela.2000-7426.ojs1699

6. Käpplinger, B., Lichte, N. (2020). “The lockdown of physical co-operation touches the heart of adult education”: A Delphi study on immediate and expected effects of COVID-19. International Revue of Education 66, 777–795 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-020-09871-w