Global and societal change requires the development of basic skills in order to be able to (re-)act proactively, sustainably and in a solution-oriented manner (Fernbach, 2020). In this context, social entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important. It means recognizing social problems and solving these by using entrepreneurial approaches (Gerholz & Slepcevic-Zach, 2015). (Social) entrepreneurial spirit and personal skills such as initiative, self-confidence, constructive handling of failures, social responsibility and Empathy - which are important for both, a vibrant civil society and a functioning market economy (Lindner, 2016), should not only be addressed at Higher Education Institutions. According to a resolution of the EU Parliament, fostering the development of these skills already at a young age is crucial (EU Parlament, 2015). Therefore implementing corresponding learning environments in classwork is important, which calls for enabling and encouraging practicing teachers in school service as well as teacher trainees to act as multipliers for sustainable, (social) entrepreneurial acting.

This was the starting point of the project ‚Teachers as Changemakers‘, which is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry. As a part of this project we shaped – inspired by the changemaker program in Vienna and Graz (Schlömmer & Dömötör, 2022; Kamsker et al., 2023) –  a learning environment for students in university-based primary and vocational teacher training (business education), which is carried out over the course of one term and encompasses partnerships with primary and (upper) secondary schools in the region of Bamberg, Germany. The teacher trainees are trained and support students in schools in finding and pursuing social entrepreneurship projects. The latter complete – accompanied by tandems of teacher trainees –  the entire process of a social entrepreneurial challenge: from becoming aware of societal issues and sustainable development goals via coming up with ideas, using the social business model canvas, implementing the idea as well as marketing and pricing activities right through to offering the resulting products and service ideas on a market day and reflecting on the process subsequently. The cooperations with local schools are beneficial for all involved: For the teacher trainees they offer the chance to try out didactic-methological approaches of teaching social entrepreneurship as well as the relationization of theory and practice (Caruso et al., 2022). The schools and practicing teachers in school service get to know the mentionned approaches in a low-threshold way through simply accompanying the lessons conducted by the teacher trainees. And the students in school learn in an action-oriented way plus might develop self-efficacy and competences for taking innovative action and for collective problem-solving (Alden-Rivers et al., 2015; Kalemaki et al., 2019).

The first realization during summer term 2023 has been evaluated formatively and summatively. This contribution aims to i) point out organizational conditions for successful practical phases and to investigate ii) whether the teacher trainees perceive Social Entrepreneurship Education (SEE) differently after the course and which situations made them think about SEE.

The analyses are based on qualitative data collected via learning journals (with prompts), messages from participating teacher trainees (n=29) and accompanying teachers in school service (n=7) as well as didactic reports written by the teacher trainees at the end of the term. For the purpose of identifying organizational conditions for successful practical phases (i) we conducted structuring content analysis according to Mayring (2008) based on the messages (n=98) and learning journal entries (n=100). Categories for the analysis were derived deductively from requirements of planning practical phases, whereas subcategories were developed inductively from the material. Based on this category system, units of meaning from the messages and learning journal entries were coded. In order to answer research question ii we also conducted content analysis, but on the basis of didactic reports (n=29). With regard to the teacher trainees' perceptions of Social Entrepreneurship Education we proceeded inductively – but the key events were differentiated in situations that occured during classes at university or during conducting the workshops in school.

Analysis concerning the first aim indicates the necessity to take counteracting planning horizons into account and also prepare teacher trainees for those as well as mixed perceptions of being assigned to certain schools and the benefit of arranging and having arranged preliminary meetings with teacher trainees and accompanying teachers. Regarding the second research question, analyses show that most of the teacher trainees recognize the importance of Social Entrepreneurship Education afterwards and that situations, they stated made them think about it, predominantly occured while interacting with the students in school. This indicates the importance of cooperating with schools in this context.

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