Promoting entrepreneurship education: the role of the teacher?

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to show how entrepreneurship education focuses on the teacher's learning and reflection and how, according to the data, undeveloped reflections impede the development of entrepreneurship education.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected through content typing in 2008 from 29 teachers at the basic, upper secondary and vocational educational levels. The focus is on self‐reflection – how and what teachers reflect on when writing about entrepreneurship education.

Findings

The teachers stress the need for coordination between subjects in developing a more entrepreneurially oriented working community. There appears to be confusion between aims and practices in entrepreneurship education: when asked to give the aims, the teachers describe the practices. Moreover, they “outsource” themselves but refer to aims from the pupils' perspective.

Research limitations/implications

This study only presents preliminary data from the project.

Practical implications/implications

The development of teacher learning in terms of reflection, which should be developed in their basic and in‐service training; the implementation of changes in the educational arena, such as curriculum reform, from the perspective of learning and reflection; and the connection between aims and results in the context of entrepreneurship education.

Originality/value

The approach taken to teacher learning and reflection in the context of entrepreneurship education has so far been an unexplored field of research. Moreover, our article highlights the crucial factor, the development of the teacher's learning, in the context of entrepreneurship education which, according to our results, has received far too little attention in the discourse on entrepreneuship education, and thus also in the strengthening of entrepreneurship. Our article introduces new trends for international research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, in which increasing attention should be paid to the learning processes of teachers and instructors.

Citation

Seikkula‐Leino, J., Ruskovaara, E., Ikavalko, M., Mattila, J. and Rytkola, T. (2010), "Promoting entrepreneurship education: the role of the teacher?", Education + Training, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 117-127. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911011027716