Mid Sweden University

Holmgren disputerade på en avhandling om undervisning i Kina. Hennes forskning inriktas numera främst mot analyser av senare förändringar av grundskolans undervisning och vuxenpedagogik.

I kapitlet redovisas en analys av den utbildning för entreprenöriella föreställningar och färdigheter som bedrivs vid OFB. Vidare görs en analys av de grundläggande idéer om entreprenörskap, lärande och personlighetsutveckling som OFB baserar sin verksamhet på. Analysen jämförs med tidigare modeller för undervisning och utbildningsreformer av den svenska grundskolan.

Many researchers, and policy makers, across Europe emphasise entrepreneurship education as the way to a future new welfare society. Why? The aim of this article is to discuss critically entrepreneurship education, starting in contemporary European research on entrepreneurship. Earlier research defines entrepreneurship as a temporary process of innovation, only possible in capitalistic societies. In more recent research entrepreneurship is located within the entrepreneur, to a limited number of traits typical for the entrepreneurial personality despite its surroundings. Environmental or cultural factors are treated as either to promote or inhibit entrepreneurial behaviour/personality. The locus to specific traits of the individual is the logic behind the, normative and quite naïve, favouring of entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship education, characterised by learning by doing, practice-orientation, and so on, is viewed as the way to foster the right kind of individuals; individuals with the specific traits who form a kind of inner resources that can be profitable on the global market. In this perspective, entrepreneurship education seems to be a part of the ongoing neo liberal oriented restructuring process, which is sweeping through Europe, and the writings on entrepreneurship education can be understood as a specific political/ideological activity. I

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to explore and discuss entrepreneurship education, and to raise some critical questions inspired by the work of Basil Bernstein. The discussion is based on writings on entrepreneurship education and thereby gives one picture of the intellectual debate on entrepreneurship education. In contrast to traditional education, viewed as transformation of knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship education is said to be about changing attitudes and motives. There is a consensus in the field that students can be successfully endowed with an entrepreneurial culture, when their attitudes are changed in the desired way. The focus on fostering a certain identity in entrepreneurship education might be seen as a part of the ongoing neo-liberal oriented educational restructuring process, which is sweeping through Europe.

Many researchers, and policy makers, across Europe emphasise entrepreneurship education as the way to a future new welfare society. Why? The aim of this paper is to discuss critically entrepreneurship education, starting in contemporary European research on entrepreneurship. Earlier research defines entrepreneurship as a temporary process of innovation, only possible in capitalistic societies. In more recent research entrepreneurship is located within the entrepreneur, to a limited number of traits typical for the entrepreneurial personality despite its surroundings. Environmental or cultural factors are treated as either to promote or inhibit entrepreneurial behaviour/personality. The locus to specific traits of the individual is the logic behind the, normative and quite naïve, favouring of entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship education, characterised by learning by doing, practice-orientation, and so on, is viewed as the way to foster the right kind of individuals; individuals with the specific traits who form a kind of inner resources that can be profitable on the global market. In this perspective, entrepreneurship education seems to be a part of the ongoing neo liberal oriented restructuring process, which is sweeping through Europe, and the writings on entrepreneurship education can be understood as a specific political/ideological activity.

The aim of this paper is to explore and discuss entrepreneurship education, and to raise some critical questions inspired by the work of Basil Bernstein. The discussion is based on writings on entrepreneurship education. The discussion thereby gives one picture of the intellectual debate on entrepreneurship education. In contrast to traditional education, viewed as transformation of knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship education is said to be about changing attitudes and motives. There is a consensus in the field that students can be successfully endowed with an entrepreneurial culture, when their attitudes are changed in the desired way. The focus on fostering a certain identity in entrepreneurship education might be seen as a part of the ongoing neo liberal oriented educational restructuring process, which is sweeping through Europe.