Do ‘good students’ make better entrepreneurs than ‘bad learners’? Ninth-grade pupils’ perceptions of entrepreneurial abilities within the school’s discursive practices

Abstract

Research on entrepreneurship education (EE) has not discussed the comprehensive school’s traditional discourse of abilities and the related aim of categorising pupils according to their ‘natural’ talents. It has also neglected pupils’ perceptions of entrepreneurial abilities; however, these perceptions are important for understanding the implementation of EE at school and its impact on how pupils position themselves at school and in working life. This study examined the ways entrepreneurial abilities were constructed by pupils in comprehensive school. The data were gathered through qualitative group interviews with 29 pupils (15–16 years old) from a school in eastern Finland. The following six interpretative repertoires were identified in the interviews: ‘academic talent’, ‘predetermined career’, ‘diligent student’, ‘common sense’, ‘personal characteristics’ and ‘loyal friendship’. The former three reproduced the school’s meritocratic notion of abilities and the related class- and gender-specific distinctions between head-on and hands-on abilities. The latter three challenged the value of academic talent for entrepreneurship. The findings demonstrated that while the school’s traditional discourse of abilities guides the pupils’ perceptions, in the pupils’ views entrepreneurial abilities are not evaluated according to the school’s intelligence criteria alone. In their accounts, a discourse of an enterprising self, which characterises the European and Finnish policy for education and training, is emerging. This new discourse will create new dimensions for the categorisation of individual differences at school. The results are discussed in relation to the trait approach to entrepreneurship, the ability ideals of EE and the related proposal for inclusive pedagogy, and the teachers’ perceptions that were explored in a previous study.

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