Education

Education is a comprehensive process of individual development that takes place in interaction with a person's environment as well as in the context of the cultural, material-objective, social and subjective world. The individual grows in a process of active co-construction and co-production and is thereby dependent on educational opportunities, aids and encounters for discovering and developing his or her cultural, instrumental, social and personal competencies. Educational processes for children and adolescents take place in many locations; they are not defined by institutional limits. They take place in the family, in kindergartens and schools, in institutions geared toward youth work, in clubs and initiatives, in peer groups, during the use of media, in leisure-time activities and in the workplace.

_{Based on: Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors and Youth (ed.). "Kinder- und Jugendbericht. Bericht über die Lebenssituation junger Menschen und die Leistungen der Kinder und Jugendhilfe in Deutschland." Berlin 2005.}

Formal learning, nonformal lerning, informal learning

Formal learning: learning which usually takes place in educational or vocational training institutions, which is structured (to achieve a given objective, for a given period of time or to provide support) and which leads to certification. Formal learning is geared toward achieving specific educational goals.

Nonformal learning: learning that does not take place in an educational or professional institution and which normally does not lead to certification. At the same time, nonformal learning is systematic (in terms of objectives, duration and support). It is goal-oriented from the viewpoint of the learner.

Informal learning: learning that takes place in everyday environments, in the workplace, in the family or during leisure-time activities. It is unstructured (in terms of objectives, duration and support) and does not normally lead to certification. Informal learning can be intentional, although that is not usually so (or any goal attainment is incidental). 

_{Based on: European Commission. "Communication from the Commission: Making a European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality," November 2001.}

Civic engagement

"Civic engagement" denotes voluntary efforts not predicated on material gain that serve the common good and are carried out collectively within the sphere of public life. The term refers to two activities: the communal participation of individual citizens for solving problems both large and small that cannot be sufficiently addressed either by the state or the family (volunteerism); and political engagement on the part of individual citizens designed to influence political or economic processes (political participation).

_{Based on: Special commission on "Zukunft des Bürgerschaftlichen Engagements."  Bürgerschaftliches Engagement: auf dem Weg in eine zukunftsfähige Bürgergesellschaft. Opladen 2002.}

Social capital

"Social capital" refers to the totality of resources deriving from social networks and the standards for mutual support associated with them. Social capital has an individual value, that is, it benefits individuals (by providing access to information, assistance in times of crisis, etc.) and a collective societal value (by reinforcing democratic values and a market economy, offering possibilities for conflict resolution, etc).

On a personal level, social capital can be employed by individuals, but is only available in connection with and in the context of other societal members. In the form of networks and standards, moreover, social capital only benefits those people who belong to the network, which might exclude others. At a societal level, total social capital can be seen as the level of trust within a society, which can be used for collective problem solving.

Civil society

The term "civil society" denotes a society in which individual citizens, living in a political democracy with guaranteed basic rights,  influence societal conditions and developments through their participation in self-created organizations and civic-minded endeavors. Civil society is thus seen as a public realm shaped by a number of institutions that are largely independent of the state and which evince a range of organizational forms, e.g. associations, clubs, foundations.

_{Based on: Special commission on "Zukunft des Bürgerschaftlichen Engagements."  Bürgerschaftliches Engagement: auf dem Weg in eine zukunftsfähige Bürgergesellschaft. Opladen 2002.}