[Preparing for retirement. Aspects of didactic adult education]

The beginning of the post-professional lifetime is one of the most significant transition points in human biography. Adult education is a central institution which prepares people for important changes of their living conditions after retirement. This article gives a description of motivations for an institutional preparation for retirement and shows its possible limitations. It introduces the elementary didactic categories of a differential pedagogical concept as participant-orientation and experience-orientation and shows their effects on planning, arrangement, and practice of special educational offers.