Session Information
27 SES 05 B, Integrated Contents towards New Competenciees
Paper Session
Contribution
Entrepreneurship and innovation has gained an increased focus in Sweden, as well as in the rest of the European Union, during the last decades. Entrepreneurship is listed as one of eight key competences for lifelong learning (EU-Parliament, 2006) and in 2012 the Swedish government released “the Swedish Innovation Strategy” as a key strategy for Sweden to remain a strong economy (Government Offices of Sweden, 2012). An important part of this strategy entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurship have been included in the Swedish national school curriculum (Skolverket, 2011), making it mandatory for all Swedish elementary and secondary schools to prepare the young for their future as an entrepreneurial work force. The language of entrepreneurial learning is adopted from the industrial sector where skills such as, for example creativity are emphasized, in order to make it possible to bring new ideas and products out on expanding and globalized markets. Entrepreneurship has also been introduced to the cultural sector in Sweden, through a governmental initiative in 2009. The term has emphasized the need of museums to become economically self-sufficient without loosing their traditional role. Cultural entrepreneurship is, just as theoretical ideas about learning, nowadays central to many museums. The current development give rise to questions of how meaning is attributed to entrepreneurship, as it is introduced in new and dispersed institutional contexts.
The aim of this paper is to present and discuss a forthcoming comparative case study on how entrepreneurship is enacted in three different sectors; educational, industrial and cultural sectors. The study investigates how knowledge and competence associated with entrepreneurship is recognized by the participants and how this approach contributes to the design of learning environments. By doing cross-sectorial comparisons the objective of the study is to provide perspectives on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning in school.
The following sets of research questions have been established to meet the objectives of the study:
How do the representatives from different sectors define entrepreneurship? How is it defined in local policy documents?
How do different sectors design for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning?
What is recognized as entrepreneurial knowledge and skills?
How does, what is recognized as entrepreneurship in the school context, change the very understanding of education?
Institution-theory is used as a theoretical perspective to examine how entrepreneurship is being recognized and evaluated in different learning settings. What counts as meaningful and what is recognized as valuable knowledge is always dependent on the social framing. Institutions, such as schools, workplaces and museums, are guided by rules, routines and conventions which regulate the agency of the participants. The institutional frame implies that certain actions and ways of regarding knowledge become normative. The notion of institution entails the idea that individuals are part of a collective set of regulations that has been shaped over time (Douglas, 1986, Berger & Luckman 1966/1991, Searle 1995). What has been selected and considered relevant and valuable knowledge in a certain context, is depending on the cultures of recognition that has been established (Selander & Kress, 2010).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Berger, Peter & Luckman, Thomas (1991/1966). The social construction of reality. London: Penguin Books. Douglas, Mary (1986). How institutions think. New York: Syracuse University Press. EU-Parliament (2006). Key competences for lifelong learning. Recommendation of the European parliament and the Council. Offical Journal of the Eurpean Union. Government Offices of Sweden (2012). The Swedish innovation strategy. Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications. No. 2012.33 Skolverket. (2011). Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet 2011, Lgr 11. Stockholm: Skolverket. Searle, John. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. London: Penguin Books. Selander, Staffan & Kress, Gunther (2010) Design för lärande – ett multimodalt perspektiv. Stockholm: Norstedts.
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