A university represents a highly traditional place of learning for young adults. At such a place, the issue of inclusion in the sense of dis/ability has become a major concern, for, in the wake of ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, Germany committed to ensuring ‘an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning’ (UN 2006, art. 24). Whereas this policy agenda has initiated substantial changes in Germany’s traditionally highly segregated education school system, only very reluctantly, the realms of adult education academia and professional practice also acknowledge their pivotal role in theorising and conceptualising approaches for inclusive learning and education (see e.g Schreiber-Barsch 2018). This also touches upon the question, how to qualify students at indeed exclusive places of learning, like a university, for the issue of inclusion? Enabling social sustainability as part of qualifying students emerges, in this sense, as one of tertiary education’s leitmotifs. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces the didactical setting of a Participatory Research Workshop of learners with and without disabilities within the wider framework of an on-going qualitative oriented research project on adults with learning difficulties (also known as intellectual disabilities) and their numeracy practices as part of adult (basic) education (NumPuD-project; part of the Hamburg Numeracy Project, 2017-2020). Following landmark works on key principles of participatory research by von Unger (2012) and linking this to works of the Disability Studies (Buchner et al. 2011; Chappell 2000; Kiernan 1999), a university course on ‘doing research’ was designed and firstly implemented in summer term 2018 at Hamburg University (Schreiber-Barsch & Beck; a successor will follow in the summer term 2019). This approach entailed multiple layers: spatial issues (the university as a place of learning for persons who are usually not meant to be there, and, for persons who are usually meant to learn inclusive education in an exclusive setting); didactical issues (how to create a learning and teaching setting on equal basis); and content-wise questions (how to negotiate research topics in a non-deficit-oriented way). Thus, insights will be given in the theoretical underpinnings of these place-based learning activities, in the usage of a range of feasible methods (e.g. photovoice-method), and, ultimately, in pedagogical findings just like in remaining challenges.

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