Entrepreneurship education has acquired an increasingly important role in recent years and is becoming a central topic in the educational policy of many institutions (Komarkova et al, 2015; Lackeus, 2015).

However, in the international literature and in the institutional documents different terminological interpretations are identified (Lackeus, 2015; Mwasalwiba, 2010) and defining the concept of entrepreneurship education from a pedagogical point of view has been difficult and challenging for research due to a lack of a shared understanding (European Commission, EACEA, & Eurydice, 2016; Haara et al., 2016).

In the last few years, there has been a shift from a narrow definition of entrepreneurship education related to business creation, to a broader perspective aimed at developing entrepreneurial behaviour (Komarkova et al., 2015) and considering entrepreneurship as a key and transversal competence to foster employability and active citizenship. The Recommendation of the European Council identified entrepreneurship as the seventh key competence for lifelong learning (Council of the European Union, 2018).

In order to establish a common framework and overcome terminological differences, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has also developed "The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework" also known as "EntreComp" (Bacigalupo et al., 2016).

Regarding the aspect related to teaching and learning, the literature reveals the need to promote experiential learning practices, involving the student through active teaching experiences (Jones & Iredale, 2010; Morselli, 2016, 2019; Terzaroli, 2018) and indicates the importance of promoting entrepreneurship training practices for teachers (Ruskovaara & Pihkala, 2015; Seikkula-Leino et al, 2010) and head teachers (Ruskovaara et al., 2016).

In the Italian context, there are still few studies related to the development of the entrepreneurship competence at school, which are mostly linked to experiences in secondary schools (Morselli, 2016) or adult education (Costa & Morselli, 2019).

This study aims to investigate how this competence is developed in the school context, focusing in particular on primary and secondary level, and is carried out in the province of Trento (Italy).

The purpose of the research is to explore how entrepreneurship education is framed in school curricula and teaching planning, how teachers understand it and which teaching practices are developed to promote it. Furthermore, it aims to deepen those teaching practices that combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and territorial synergies. Developing entrepreneurship, understood as " the capacity to act upon opportunities and ideas, and to transform them into values for others."(Council of the European Union, 2018, p.11.), means in fact forming responsible citizens able to act actively in building their own future and that of their community, even through new social projects and entrepreneurial initiatives, to support a sustainable and responsible economy (Lindner, 2018).

The research project, described in the poster, therefore, intends to map and describe the development of entrepreneurship competence in the school context of the province of Trento (Italy), and to deepen those approaches that can represent a reference for practices focused on value creation for the territory.

The research project is designed according to a mixed-methods approach (Trinchero & Robasto, 2019). Referring to this research strategy, it is planned to combine different investigative approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, and different tools to explore the phenomenon of entrepreneurship education as a value creation process from different perspectives (students, teachers, head teachers, other stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship education). A three-level research strategy was chosen: a macro-level that refers to the context of the Province of Trento (educational system and school policy), a meso-level that refers to the context of school institution (primary and secondary schools) and a micro-level that refers to the classroom context, the student-teacher relationship and the learning environment. The research started from the analysis of the meso-level, conducted in spring-summer 2020. In order to provide a preliminary representation of the meaning assumed by the entrepreneurship competence in schools' educational planning, 64 school documents were identified and analysed. By using a purposely constructed analysis grid, the textual information taken from the documents of the educational institutions was translated into data for a subsequent statistical representation. The analysis of the meso-level will be completed with semi-structured interviews addressed to head teachers. To address the analysis at the macro level, experts interviews and content analysis of the school curriculum of the Province of Trento will be carried out. The micro-level will be investigated through interviews with teachers and students involved in entrepreneurship education projects (in particular in cooperative entrepreneurship and service-learning projects).

A preliminary data analysis of the meso-level showed that there is still some difficulty in introducing the term entrepreneurship in the school context. In fact, not all schools have mentioned this competence in their school documents and the definition given to it is not uniform. The study also revealed that schools identifying projects for the development of entrepreneurial competence show a broad interpretation of the construct of "entrepreneurship", which is not only related to business creation but seen in a transversal and empowering perspective, as noted in the literature review and as indicated by the EntreComp Framework (Bacigalupo et al., 2016). As far as the analysis of teaching practices is concerned, it emerged that the teaching methods identified for the development of entrepreneurship are manifold and are mostly referable to experiential and participatory practices. It was also found that many institutions adopt school cooperative experiences and solidarity projects for the development of this competence. In this perspective, the school context of the province of Trento could be particularly suitable to explore school experiences combining entrepreneurship, active citizenship and sustainability. Preliminary results from the macro and micro level analysis are also expected to be available by the time of the poster presentation.

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