VALED 2 nd Meeting in Telsiai 06.2012 RESEARCH ON VALUES (Germany)

VALED2nd Meeting in Telsiai

06.2012

RESEARCH ON VALUES

(Germany)

I. Definition of “value”a) General definition

• „Alles, was Schätzung erfährt und als bedeutend angesehen wird, ist ein Wert. Das gilt für materielle wie für soziale, kulturelle und sittliche Werte.“

• According to KOPP the term value is mostly used in colloquial language and in economy, the routes come from economy and philosophy in the 19. Century.

• Also many scientific subjects use the term and we can explore many different definitions about it.

• The term value is mostly used in sociology. This subject uses the terms “social values” or “sociocultural values”.


• Most of today available definitions are based on KLUCKHOHN from the early 50ies:

• „Ein Wert ist eine explizit gemachte und implizit gelassene Auffassung [a conception] vom Wünschenswerten [the desirable], die für ein Individuum oder für eine Gruppe kennzeichnend ist und die Auswahl verfügbarer Handlungsweisen sowie der Handlungsmittel und -ziele beeinflußt.“


• THOME lists us three main points that arise out of this definition: Values are no longer seen as objects, but as imaginations, ideas or ideals. The difference between the desired and the desirable occurs as the central topic.

• According to this definition values do have two functions – the selection criterion for mode, means or goals of one’s action and the role of identity for an individual as well as for the group.


• The function of identity we see in REINHOLD’S definition: Values form basic, central und crucial elements on the highest level when it comes to interpretation, integration and layer of control, therefore they are of crucial importance for human coexistence.

• Values are „allgemeine Zielvorstellungen, Orientierungsleitlinien und -standards für das Verhalten von Menschen.“ (general objectives, guidelines and standards for human behavior)


• „Soziokulturelle Werte konstituieren in enger Verflechtung mit Ideen, Weltanschauungen, Religionen und Ideologien den Kern einer Kultur.“ (socialcultural values constitute the core of one’s culture in close interdependance with ideas, world-views, religions and ideologies)

• Also values are standards of selective orientation for the direction, goals, intensity and for the selection of means of human behavior – people that belong to a certain culture and society.


• KATTERFELD und VOGEL show us with their “list of values” that values are objects that correspond with basic personal needs and personal life style.“ Some of the performed values seem to be either norms than values of a society. Therefore we can detect that values can be weighted differently.Autorität

BarmherzigkeitBescheidenheitBesonnenheitBrüderlichkeitEhrlichkeitEinordnungExistenzsicherungFleißFreiheitFreundschaftFriedenGehorsamGemeinschaft (Familie, Menschheit)GerechtigkeitGewinnsinnGleichheitKlugheit

LeistungLiebeMenschenwürdeMinderheitenschutzMitmenschlichkeitmoralische MarktwirtschaftMutOrdnungsliebePflichtRegelmäßigkeitSelbständigkeit und freier WilleSolidaritätSoziale BeziehungenTapferkeitUnterordnungVerantwortung für die ZukunftZuverlässigkeit

b) Definition in/for the field of Adult Education

• MÜLLER und MADER make clear that both the topic of values within the discussion on contents of adult education as well as the topic of responsibility is not set on the daily agenda of educational research.

• According to WEINBERG we can explore three batteries of questions that deal with the topic of values:– „1. Welches sind die anthropologischen Prämissen für

ein zeitgemäßes Bildungsverständnis?– 2. Wie kann die Erwachsenenbildung mit der Sinn- und

Werteproblematik umgehen?– 3. Lässt sich eine erwachsenenpädagogische

Handlungsethik entwickeln?“

b) Definition in/for the field of Adult Education

• I would like to encourage adult education to be value-orientated. There is no discussion about the need of lifelong learning or furthermore a learning that accompanies our personal live (Lebensbegleitendes Lernen). Also JARVIS claims that „[e]ducation for adults is a site within which human morality is worked out.“, therefore all areas of teaching and learning need to be examined.

• It becomes more clear when we speak about education as a lifelong task that doesn’t stop in adulthood. "Education begins in child hood, but of it's nature it can and ought to be a principal and continuing element in the life of every man and woman."

II. Institutional values

• Is there a point of time where a person’s “value frame” is complete?

• Don’t we learn about values from early childhood and with the beginning of adulthood the personal “value frame” doesn’t change any more?

• „Wertevermittlung ist ein Prozess, der in der frühen Kindheit beginnt und in der Erwachsenenbildung seine Fortsetzung findet. Zentral ist dabei, dass Menschen für sich und ihre Umgebung Verantwortung übernehmen lernen.“


• Lifelong learning or lebensbegleitendes Lernen causes thought-provoking impulses and individual learning processes, you start to think about things, you rethink things and you continue thinking: learning and thinking causes change.

• Every adult that tries to gain different competences and knowledge during his life to study and develop further, will meet precise changes. He/she will explore precise changes during the examination of own and different/foreign values in a similar matter.


• Value education in adulthood mainly means the conveying of values in kind of responsibility. It deals with the topic, how to promote, to support, to discuss, to change or to develop a sense of responsibility through adult education.

• MÜLLER was speaking about the thought of responsibility as pretense of educating („Verantwortungsgedanken als Bildungsanspruch“) that could be approached both from the perspective of conveying and of acquirement.


• When speaking about value education within adulthood we don’t speak about conveying values in kind of studying values. Adults have studied values in their past periods of live.

• In adulthood the topic is (re-)exploring own and different/foreign values.

• Also adults need to think about how to realize own values: to assume responsibility and to take over responsibility. Only those persons who are value-orientated are able to do so, they are able to „being concerned for the other“.


• As a necessary basis for value-oriented action I see in all these different levels three conditions: practicing dialogue, willingness of understanding and coexistence.

• Only when you are able for equal dialogue, you can reach mutual understanding with the other. And only through a combination of dialogue and understanding coexistence can made possible.

• Therefore another focus will be laid on the values of ability and openness to dialogue.


• Value-oriented and value-promoting adult education must be able to provide such skills.

• These skills are in close connection towards intercultural competence, but in my opinion they go one step further.

• Intercultural competence is acquired through intercultural learning. The aim of intercultural learning is described in FRIESENHAHN as "to be able to act in different cultural and international contexts“.


• In the light of our globalized labor market structure intercultural competence got more and more the function of a key competence.

• If we extend the concept of intercultural competence and add personal and social competence, the described actions can be described as a so-called value competence for a qualified handling and use of values in acting and negotiation.

III. National Values

• Currently not only people who are responsible for learning and education with children and youngsters are concerned with values. Also providers in the field of adult education take up the cause of values and the development of mission statements is of great importance.

• Adult education definitely deals with the topic of values. Therefore they write about it in their programs as well as in their mission statement. In the field of Christian adult education and in activities of the German Volkshochschule (adult education center) we can explore seminars in the field of philosophy that specially deal with ethics.


• My first impression was that these activities are especially offered in the field of value education within family education.

• I wanted to find out whether there are seminars and further activities within adult education that deal especially with value orientation and value education – designed for adults and not only in the context of family education.

• To get an overview on existing offers on value education, I decided to arrange a written questionnaire. I send it to the directors of several institutions in the greater area of Stuttgart.


• In the following I will only present the questions, you can guess on my intentions:

1. Braucht die Erwachsenenbildung/Weiterbildung Werte? Inwieweit besteht ein Bedarf an Werteorientierung und Wertevermittlung in Bildungsveranstaltungen für Erwachsene?2. Wie steht Ihre Einrichtung/Institution zum Thema Werte?3. a) Gab oder gibt es in Ihrem Angebot Veranstaltungen für Erwachsene, die das Thema Werte in irgendeiner Weise behandeln (Werte, Ethik, Moral, Religion, Philosophie, interkulturelle Themen)?3. b) Würden Sie mir dazu das entsprechende Programmangebot zur Verfügung stellen oder mir alternativ die betreffenden Angebote kurz beschreiben?


3. c) Wie wird das Thema Werte in Ihren Angeboten didaktisch und methodisch umgesetzt?3. d) Ist ein solches Angebot für die Zukunft geplant?3. e) Wenn ja, wie wird dieses Angebot voraussichtlich aussehen?4. a) Hat Ihre Einrichtung/Institution ein Leitbild?4. b) Wenn ja, welche Schwerpunkte werden darin gesetzt? Kommt darin die Begrifflichkeit Werte o. ä. vor?


• After having evaluated the written answers to my questions at this point the contents of the examined program offers should have its place. The numbers of the entries in the uppermost categories confirm my thesis that responsibility is a main reference point of values-oriented adult education.

• Community and brotherliness, orientation and sense and responsibility are in my opinion values which are narrowly linked together with each other.


• In the following you can see the most often appeared values in descending order:– Community (32)– Orientation and meaning

(29)– Responsibility for the future

(29)– Brotherliness (28)– Peace (15)– Moral economic system

(13)– Solidarity (13)– Belief (11)– Human dignity (09)– Courage (07)– Free volition (06)

– Justice (06)– Accomplishment (05)– Human rights (04)– Social Relations (04)– Only one or two times

mentioned: equality (2), classification, ensuring survival, freedom, protection of minorities, humanity

– Not mentioned: authority, charity, conservativeness, considerateness, honesty, application, friendship, obediently, cleverness, love, love of order, duty, regularity, independence, bravery, subordination, dependability.


• None or only few naming’s doesn’t mean that these values have no place within the agenda of adult education. While encoding I have always concentrated upon the value that most clearly stepped forward.

• Behind each code is written the titles of a seminar and the advertising texts itself.

1. code: community2. code: orientation and sense3. code: responsibility for the future4. code: brotherliness

IV. Personal opinions/conclusions

• Every person has his own experiences in the course of his life. Some are valuable and some will be for sure without any value. One finds his life valuable, the other one doesn’t know whether his life is of any value at all.

• From my point of view life can get a higher value if you are dealing with values and find orientation out of them.

• The question whether education has/is a value can, in my opinion, clearly be affirmed. Since certain time everybody is talking about “added value”, usually linked to the term “tax”. Value-based adult education encourages everybody to think about the added value of life.

IV. Personal opinions/conclusions

• Basically also the adult educator is a learner himself. That means that value orientation and value education should be part of the agenda for this target group, too. Values that are conveyed this way can be reflected in different ways: on institutional and organizational level in the shape of a mission statement, on the teaching and learning level in the shape of value based lessons for adult learners.

Documents

VALED 2 nd Meeting in Telsiai 06.2012 RESEARCH ON VALUES (Germany)