Corona & Beyond

Subject: Between educating and teaching the adult population. Andragogical perspectives on the Corona Pandemic

Professor: Prof. Burkhard Schäffer

Project dates: 01.04.2021 – 30.9.2022

Funding: Volkswagen Foundation


The project aims to investigate from an educational perspective how populations are lead to adopt certain knowledge and behavior in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic via teaching and education. Through the analysis of politicians' speeches, experts' contributions, narrative interviews with citizens, and social media contributions, both the andragogical actions of politicians and experts shall be reconstructed and how the adult population appropriates them. Adopting an education scientific perspective, the project thus contributes to research on state-citizen crisis communication and helps to understand the processes of political education, the transfer of scientific knowledge, and how the population deals with political andragogical interventions.