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Introducing Entrepreneurship in a School Setting - Entrepreneurial Learning as the Entrance Ticket
Mälardalen University, School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Innovation and Product Realisation.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0164-5914
Stockholms universitet, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7889-2331
2015 (English)In: The 8th International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development, Sheffield: Sheffield University , 2015, p. 756-772Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The prevailing economic world order relies on financial progress and business development, and entrepreneurship is seen as an important means to achieve this. To inspire the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set among citizens, public initiatives through education has improved and consequently entrepreneurship education is booming. Positioning our research within the discussion regarding entrepreneurship as a broader societal phenomenon, our contribution lies within a much less researched context – entrepreneurship in the lower secondary school. In this context we focus on the teachers’ perspective to investigate how they approach entrepreneurship and what they actually do when teaching it. Our results indicate that there has been a change in terminology from entrepreneurship to entrepreneurial learning. Furthermore, there has been a change in practice. The empirics show that an entrepreneurial learning approach includes real-life connected projects, collaboration with the surrounding community and practising entrepreneurial skills. Adding to this, working with entrepreneurial learning has in this context resulted in enhancing the motivation of pupils as well as a changed perspective on teaching and learning. Our theoretical contribution lies within the literature on societal entrepreneurship, providing a conceptual model of entrepreneurship education in lower secondary education which is an attempt to clarify and enrich the discussion the discussion on a definition of entrepreneurship in a school setting.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sheffield: Sheffield University , 2015. p. 756-772
Keywords [en]
entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, enterprise education, learning.
National Category
Social Sciences Economics and Business
Research subject
Innovation and Design
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-35229OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-35229DiVA, id: diva2:1090183
Conference
The 8th International Conference for Entrepreneurship Innovation and Regional Development, ICEIRD2015, 18th and 19th June 2015, University of Sheffield
Available from: 2017-04-23 Created: 2017-04-23 Last updated: 2018-04-24Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Entrepreneurship in a School Setting: Introducing a Business Concept in a Public Context
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Entrepreneurship in a School Setting: Introducing a Business Concept in a Public Context
2017 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Entrepreneurship has during the last decades gained an immense interest in academia, politics and practice. It is argued from politics that more entrepreneurs are necessary for the economic development. In addition, nowadays entrepreneurship is also perceived as a solution to social and societal challenges. This drives a need for entrepreneurial people everywhere in society who can cope with the inconstant and uncertain world of today. As a consequence, there are around the world numerous educational initiatives trying to inspire and fuel an entrepreneurial mind-set. Here, educations of all kind become relevant contexts since they provide an opportunity to affect children, youth’s and adult’s interest and attitudes towards entrepreneurship, and as such give a possibility to reach a vast number of people.

Sweden is no exception, and in 2009 the Swedish Government launched a ‘Strategy for entrepreneurship in the field of education’ in which entrepreneurship is said to run like a common thread throughout education. The main focus is that self-employment is to become as natural as being an employee. As such the Government took an active stand for implementing entrepreneurship in the school setting on a broad front, from preschool to adult education.

This development can be seen as part of New Public Management; a development where concepts from the private sector are lent and transferred to the public sector. Thus, when introducing entrepreneurship in the Swedish educational system, this at the same time means introducing a traditional business concept in a public setting. Therefore, the overall aim of this thesis is to increase knowledge of and insights on how a business concept – entrepreneurship – is operationalised and constructed in a public setting.

When placing entrepreneurship in new societal contexts other questions arise and complexity intensifies. In this qualitative research, the empirical context in focus are schools. It investigates how entrepreneurship is constructed among teachers in their work. But also how this business concept is included in a non-business setting by studying how the entrepreneurship strategy is operationalised in educational practice.

As such the thesis and its findings contribute to the scientific discussions on societal entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, as well as on strategy and strategising in a public context. The research also aspire to serve inspiration, insights and food for thoughts on discussions and reflections on entrepreneurship within the school practice. 

This compilation thesis include five papers. To be able to fulfil the aim this research use a broad theoretical base and multiple qualitative research methods. The combination of methods include semi-structured interviews, in-depth interview using the stimulated recall method, focus group interviews, participative meetings, observations, document studies, digital questionnaires, written inquiries, analysing texts and critical incidents questionnaires.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Eskilstuna: Mälardalen University, 2017
Series
Mälardalen University Press Dissertations, ISSN 1651-4238 ; 227
National Category
Social Sciences Economics and Business
Research subject
Innovation and Design
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-35234 (URN)978-91-7485-325-4 (ISBN)
Public defence
2017-06-08, Filen, Mälardalens högskola, Eskilstuna, 13:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2017-04-26 Created: 2017-04-24 Last updated: 2017-07-10Bibliographically approved

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http://iceird.net/docs/ICEIRD%202015%20Conference_proceedings%20FCx.pdf

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Axelsson, Karin

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Citation style
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