Promoting the Gifted -
In Apprenticeship and Professional Life in Germany

von: Iris Hackermeier

Content

1 ABSTRACT  3

2 DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH 3

2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND  3
2.2 RESEARCH TOPIC AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS  5
2.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES  6

3 PLANNING OF THE PROJECT 8

4 RELEVANCE 8

4.1 SCIENTIFIC  9
4.2 SOCIETAL  9

REFERENCES 10
 

1 Abstract

This research proposal wants to pay attention to excellence in two broad areas of a human’s life: apprenticeship and profession. While the profession of a person is not directly with his/her abilities connected, education is (see Figure 1). Apprenticeship has in Germany the meaning of a double-edged sword because it combines vocation and education (Manstetten 1994, p. 4) while both have a different connection to excellence. Therefore, apprenticeship in Germany has long been neglected and even cross-cultural literature review provides only little and hardly proven data about giftedness in adulthood. On the one hand it is a reasonable approach to focus on children in promoting gifted students because humans of a very young age are very impatient and curious – best prerequisites for nurturance and learning. On the other hand is Germany an aging country, people older than 40 years dominate our country and this group will still increase in the next centuries. A focus on the minority can not be a sustainable approach; adults have needs as well as the possibility to create the future of the country. This is the reason why I suggest research in the field of adult education in a future oriented perspective, as a continuation of the secondary school level.

2 Description of the Research

2.1 Theoretical Background

“Life-long Learning” as issue number one for Germany’s educational policy stands for a holistic model which includes every form of institutional, formal and informal learning setting. It is reasonable because of national and international changes in economy, societal values and demography (Baethge 2001, p. 61). People need to be more flexible and need to hold not only technical skills but also social, emotional, personal, cross-cultural and metacognitive competencies (Peters 2000, p. 10). These can only be reached by a continuing provision of education starting from preschool and going though high school, university and/or apprenticeship to vocation and even further. Every German citizen has to have equal rights to take part in this ideal development of life-long learning.

Figure 1: Area of Conflict (Manstetten 1992, p. 4) [Abbildung in der Downloaddatei vorhanden] This is at least an indirect inclusion of gifted people and gets supported by the German Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung (2001, p. 15). While most studies document research in the field of programs for the gifted in school, this proposal focuses on two main stages of most – even gifted – people’s life. According to the Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung (2001, p. 15), about 75 % of adolescents in Germany enter an apprenticeship and follow their professional life. By following the approach of “life-long learning”, we should not neglect adulthood. The distinction between one quarter that enters university and three quarter of young people who enter an apprenticeship is surprisingly not based on intelligence or specific talents. Germany’s promises about equity of chances in education for all people covers several societal movements that lead to an opposite effect. The societal class determines whether a person enters a “Gymnasium”, “Realschule” or “Hauptschule”, and receives an influential position in his or her career or not (Heuser 2002). The GOLD study, documented by Weinert and Hany (2000, p. 88) showed similar results. Occupational status across life was mainly determined by the educational status of the parents rather than intelligence. The status could be improved best in combination of high ability and high educational background of the parents.

This explains why we will find many gifted students outside the universities in vocational trainings, who have similar needs like university students. Greven (2001, p.282) defines a general educational concept for promoting the gifted according to their talents and their identity rather than technical qualifications. In 1991 the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research developed a foundation for the promotion of the gifted that finished their vocational training (see www.begabtenfoerderung.de). The feature of the program is the financial support for further training off-the-job, which could be seen as a kind of “enrichment” possibility. An evaluation study by Fauser and Schreiber (1999, p. 11) of this program showed the high success of the support. Most students increased their self-efficacy and occupational competencies, and used the opportunity to attend specific and interdisciplinary courses, which lead to personal and social skills. While this kind of provision for the gifted supports exclusively early career because the limit for program participants is up to 25 years of age, there is a big group of people left who are in their mid and late career. Through changing demography this agegroup will increase and will be more and more important in the educational sector.

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