Entrepreneurship in schools - From a perspective with economic overtones to a perspektiv with social overtones

Author(s):

Eva Leffler

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching

Format:

Paper

Session Information

27 SES 03 C, Cross-Curricular Aspects

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

14:00-15:30

Room:

NIG, HS 2H

Chair:

Bernard Schneuwly

Contribution

Entrepreneurship and enterprise in schools are concepts appearing more and more frequently in local curricula for the compulsory nine-year school system. Conceptual problems are closely connected to entrepreneurship. Considerable efforts have been made to appropriate and claim rather than explain entrepreneurship which in turn has resulted in the concept becoming increasingly ill-defined and all-inclusive (see among others Berglund, 2007; Bull et al., 1995; Harwood, 1982; Landström, 2000). In the last few years the concept of entrepreneurship has started appearing in contexts other than economic ones and voices are raised for a widening of the concept to comprise all sectors of society. Entrepreneurship is also seen as one of the Key Competences for lifelong learning (the European Commission, 2004). Efforts at entrepreneurship and enterprise in education are being made all over Europe and the Western World with varying contents and results. Entrepreneurship has for a long time been provided with meanings both within different discourses and among different discourses. There seems to be two competing discourses; one discourse on entrepreneurship in general and one discourse within the school context but both of the discourses are related in a contradictory way. The dominant discourse on entrepreneurship is connected to business but the discourse on entrepreneurship in schools has its focus on pupils and learning. Entrepreneurship in schools is in many ways, more a question of how the dominant discourse is understood. This paper is aimed to problematize entrepreneurship and enterprise in schools by discussing the broader application of the perspective, the entrepreneurial perspective that focuses on a business orientation and the enterprise perspective concerning the development of an individual’s inherent abilities. As an analytical tool I use the concept of discourse (see for example Focuault, 1993; 2002; Whinter Jørgensen & Phillips, 2000) to elucidate what statements, concepts and theories conceptualize a certain area, in this case entrepreneurship. I want to show how the discussions of entrepreneurship in schools are constructed, what explicit conceptions there are, and what patterns are formed that provide conditions for what we can think and say and how we can act. No discourse is a closed unit, it is constantly being reshaped in contact with other discourses. When several discourses spread over a certain area, there will be a discursive battle fought in the language, since there are several different concepts describing the same thing but giving rise to different interpretations, tensions and meanings.

Method

The point of departure of this study is the result reported in my previous study (Leffler, 2006), results from investigations made by the National Swedish Board for Industrial and Technical Development and Forum for Small Business research, documentations and evaluations of in-service education in entrepreneurship and enterprise learning for schools conducted by Umeå University. These earlier results are being revisited in light of the direction that has been chosen for entrepreneurship and schools from an economic perspective during 2000-2007. I want to elucidate on the basis of my material, different problems and issues reflecting the discussion of entrepreneurship in schools.

Expected Outcomes

The results show that the discussion of a widening concept of entrepreneurship has changed from entrepreneurship with economic overtones to entrepreneurship with social overtones is mainly regarded as a manifestation of an economic need rather than as a need for educational policy. The juxtaposition of entrepreneurial education and traditional ‘humanistic’ education looks like a battle between economic and educational discourses. It will become a battle about pupil’s equal right to the ‘right’ education and of who and what should represent the ‘right’ education. There is also a battle fought in the language where the economists’ own the concepts of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, and the schools own the concepts of pedagogy. And therefore there seems to be a lack of strategies for the realization of implementation of entrepreneurship in the various different school activities.

References

Berglund, Karin (2007) Jakten på Entreprenörer. Om öppningar och låsningar i Entreprenörskapsdiskursen. [The hunt for entrepreneurs: on opening and closures in the entrepreneurship discourse]. Diss. Västerås: Ekonomihögskolan, Mälardalens högskola. Bull, Ivan, Howard Thomas & Gary Willard (Eds) (1995) Entrepreneurship – Perspective on theory building. Oxford: Pergamon. European Commission (2004) Implementation of “Education and Training 2010”Work programme. Key Competences for Lifelong Learning a European Reference Framework. Foucault, Michel (1993) Diskursens ordning [The order of discourse]. Stockholm: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposium. Foucault, Michel (2002) Vetandets arkeologi [The Arcaeology of Knowledge]. Lund: Arkiv. Harwood, Edwin (1982) The sociology of entrepreneurship, Encyclopedia of entrepreneurship. (Eds) Kent, Calvin A., Donald L. Sexton & Karl H. Vesper. Engelwood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. Landström, Hans (2000) Entreprenörskapets rötter. [The roots of entrepreneurship]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Leffler, Eva (2009b) Entreprenörskap i skolan: Företagande eller företagsamma elever? [Entrepreneurship in school: Entrepreneurial or enterprising pupils] Locus 2(forthcoming). Leffler, Eva (2009a) The Many faces of Entrepreneurship: a discursive battle for the school Arena. European Educational Research Journal 8(1) pp. 104-116. Leffler, Eva (2008) Critical moments - Reflexivitet i forskning i egen praktik. [Critical moment – Reflexivity in research in practice] Se skolan: Forskningsmetoder i pedagogiskt arbete. [See School: Research metods in educational work] Redaktörer Carina Rönnqvist och Monika Vinterek. Umeå: Umeå universitet, Fakulteten för lärarutbildning. Leffler, Eva (2008) Entreprenörskap och företagsamhet i skolan. [Entrepreneurship and enterprise in school] Grundskoletidningen, 2 pp. 34-42. Leffler, Eva (2006) Företagsamma elever: Diskurser kring entreprenörskap och företagsamhet i skolan. [Enterprising pupils: Discourses on entrepreneurship and enterprise in school]. Diss. Umeå: Umeå universitet. Leffler, Eva & Gudrun Svedberg (2005) Enterprise Learning: a challenge to education? European Educational Research Journal 4(3), pp. 219-227. Leffler, Eva & Gudrun Svedberg (2003) Enterprise in Swedish rural schools: Capacity building through learning networks. Queensland Journal of Educational Research, 19 pp. 83-99. Leffler, Eva (2002) Entreprenörskap och Företagsamhet i skolan – en del i Pedagogiskt arbete, [Entrepreneurship and Enterprise in school – a part of Educational Work]. Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning, Tema pedagogiskt arbete, 1-2 pp.87-100. Umeå: Fakultetsnämnden för lärarutbildning Umeå universitet. Whinter Jørgensen, Marianne & Louise Phillips (2003) Diskursanalys som teori och metod. [Discourse analysis as theory and method]. Lund: Studentlitteratur

Author Information

Eva Leffler

Umeå University, Sweden

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