26.11.2020

International Doctoral Student Colloquium "Adult Education"

"We may have finished our conversation, but our debate is far from over!" - this sentence of one participant summarized the experiences of the second international doctoral colloquium "Adult Education". It was hosted by the Chair of General Pedagogy at the University of Bamberg, which had organized the colloquium in cooperation with the other participants. On November 23 and 24, 23 students, their supervising professors and representatives of the UEM met. The doctoral students from Rwanda, Cameroon, Indonesia, Tanzania, Germany, DR Congo and Madagascar are working on their doctoral projects under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Claudia Jahnel, Chair of Intercultural Theology and Physicality at the Ruhr University Bochum, Prof. Dr. Annette Scheunpflug, Chair of General Pedagogy at the University of Bamberg, and are also being advised by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Jütte, Department of International Adult Education and Continuing Education, University of Bielefeld.  Topics of the colloquium were: "Transculturality, decolonization and intercultural theology" (Jahnel), "Learning in and from networks - the shift from center and periphery to nodes" (Jütte), and "Global learning of adults in encounters - empirical knowledge and theoretical background" (Scheunpflug).  The educational scientist Dr. Fransina Yoteni from GKI-TP, West Papua, reported on "Global learning in situations of structural racism" from the perspective of her context.
Interdisciplinary, international part-time doctoral program as a pilot project

The core of the student group was a team of three UEM scholarship holders from Germany, Indonesia and Congo. They come from the fields of theology, cultural studies and education and work in UEM member churches and at universities as principals, lecturers and scientific assistants.  A joint doctoral program - interdisciplinary, international and part-time - is a pilot project for UEM. The doctoral students live at home in their own countries and meet at least once a year in joint colloquia - if necessary, as is now the case, also on screen. In the meantime, however, they are in contact with each other and maintain a lively exchange with their professors. "I discuss every step of my work with my colleagues, the other doctoral students. Their comments are always exciting, they see from their own point of view - they are both theologians - indeed, completely different aspects of my subject than I do", explains for example Kakule Bulaya, principal at the CBCA in Kivu with an MA in "Quality in Educational Management". In his doctoral thesis, he is investigating the effect that the international encounters of church employees in UEM have on their work in his country and on his church.  Alena Höfer, theologian from the Rhenish Church in Germany, is researching how the understanding of Christology changes in transcultural spaces. And Julius Simaremare, lecturer at the theological college of the HKBP, is investigating the forms in which communication about incriminating and traumatic issues is taking place in his context.

The next colloquium is already planned: In autumn it is planned - hopefully in physical presence! - an "Autumn School" in Bochum. All participants are already looking forward to continuing the debates in direct exchange with one another.  

Angelika Veddeler (Executive Secretary Germany)

Andar Parlindungan (Executive Secretary Training & Empowerment)