Search

The aim of this study was to examine what sort of ability expectations university students have about the requirements of working life, and how the perception of these expectations relate to students' perceptions of their own employability. The participants comprised a sample of students (N = 1819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. They were asked to describe themselves according to a set of abilities and to then indicate those abilities that would be particularly important for them in the labour market. It was found that being stable and getting along with others were the most commonly considered generic capabilities for coping in working life. Furthermore, those university students who identified entrepreneurial skills and extroversion as predominant ability requirements were prone to have relatively pessimistic perceptions of their employability possibilities. Accordingly, the results of the study suggest that students' views of their expected abilities tend to shape their perceptions of their employment prospects, particularly with regard to entrepreneurial skills.

This study set out to investigate parental attitudes toward entrepreneurship education as evaluative directing components of social representations. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 625) was asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements about entrepreneurship education. The parents' attitudinal orientation suggested that they would rather avoid entrepreneurship education than approach it. Additionally, parental evaluations contained indecision and polarised opinions, and most parents saw it as unlikely or were unsure whether their children would become entrepreneurs. Parental attitudes correlated with the established representations of education and subsequent policy stands, suggesting that entrepreneurship education has been made familiar by anchoring attitudes in the field of educational debates. It was suggested that current trends in educational policy and work life may stimulate the formation of polemical social representations pertaining to entrepreneurship education.

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.

This study set out to replicate a survey conducted 20 years ago on Finnish parents' social representations of educability. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 642) were asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements pertaining to topical educational issues. The results indicated that educational discussion is still structured by two major competing representations of intelligence, the "natural" and the "social", and the corresponding educational policies, the "selective" and the "comprehensive". Further, some novel and still relatively independent representations, such as the diversity of human abilities and entrepreneurship education, were identified. The comprehensive representation found support particularly among the vocationally educated parents, who were worried about social equality, while the selective representation, i.e., the ideology of natural giftedness, found support among the academically educated fathers. The representational field of educability seemed quite established, indicating relative continuity of educational discourse.

The present study set out to explore how a group of Finnish school teachers constructs the meaning of entrepreneurship education and produces related characterizations of the abilities of the pupils in their interviews. In their discussions, the teachers deployed the discourses of "internal entrepreneurship" and "external entrepreneurship". Internal entrepreneurship was associated with the pupils' responsible attitude to (school) work; it was represented as an ideal subjectivity for all and accepted as the natural aim of schooling. The promotion of external entrepreneurship, however, was seen to be beyond the aims of basic education. Within the discourse of external entrepreneurship, the teachers explicated the differences between the pupils' abilities; they saw potential for entrepreneurship particularly in those boys who are not academically accomplished but are socially talented, creative, easygoing and risk-taking or competent at practical things. High-performing students, especially girls, were not included in the characterizations of "the entrepreneur type of pupil". (Contains 10 footnotes.)

This paper explores the effects of neoliberal education policies, by examining how the Finnish pre- and in-service teachers engage with the discourses of "external" and "internal entrepreneurship", create related inclusions and exclusions, and implement or challenge the aim of educating enterprising and entrepreneurial citizens. Whereas the promotion of "external" entrepreneurship was seen to be in conflict with the values of basic education, and therefore substantially rejected as the aim of schooling, both the pre- and in-service teachers constructed the view that every pupil/student should be encouraged towards internal entrepreneurship, i.e. an enterprising mentality with attributes of self-responsibility, diligence and independence. Internal entrepreneurship, then, was considered as an universal and natural educational aim. We suggest that internal entrepreneurship as a manifestation of neoliberal subjectivity is difficult to subvert, because it fits well with the traditional aims of Finnish education. (Contains 10 footnotes.)

This article examines the spread of the neo-liberal educational policy in Finnish schools by considering entrepreneurship education. We examined the kinds of gendered and classed enterprising selves that were narrated in the Finnish writing competition "Good Enterprise!" written by pupils in the 9th grade of comprehensive school. In their narratives of enterprising selves, the pupils constructed the middle-class version of the self, where the person was not contingent upon external effects but an autonomous self-governing individual. Moreover, the possible selves of boys matched the culturally valued representations of the autonomous, risk-taking entrepreneurial individual more closely than the self-representations of girls did. However, it was especially the boys' narratives of modest entrepreneurship with the traditional virtues of the respectable citizen that were successful in the competition. This finding is in conflict with the educational policies of the European Union, which call for risk-taking abilities and competition as pre-conditions for achieving progress. (Contains 2 tables.)

This post-structural policy analysis examines Finnish government programmes through the lens of neoliberal governmentality and the concepts of the entrepreneurial self and active ageing. In the context of Finland, as a Nordic welfare state in transition to a competition-state model, this study examines how government programmes construct an ageing workforce, especially regarding older entrepreneurship. The results suggest that older people are not only constructed as a difficult-to-employ workforce but also as passive and vulnerable care recipients. Furthermore, as a construction, older entrepreneurship is absent from the studied documents, suggesting that the older entrepreneurship is a marginalized group that has been silenced. This article increases knowledge about this silencing in terms of governmentality and provides perspectives via which to develop a more inclusive entrepreneurship policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the conditions of entrepreneurship education in Finnish schools from the perspective of the school’s tradition of national and territorial socialization and the new aim of educating European and global citizens. Entrepreneurship education presents a new challenge for the school system with regard to territorial socialization and the construction of the spatial self. The theme is discussed by using data consisting of Finnish pupils’ narratives of entrepreneurship which were produced in the essay writing competition Good Enterprise! in 1986–2006. The analysis focuses on the prize-winning narratives which reflect both the pupils’ possible selves and the ideals of entrepreneurship education. The article explores what kinds of representations of space, place and possible self young people produce in their narratives and what kinds of representations are favoured by school. Narratives representing entrepreneurship as familiar, domestic, rural and local activity constantly succeeded in the competition whereas the ideal of the global self was not so much appreciated. Moreover, the images of entrepreneurial spaces and places reproduced conventional representations of femininity and masculinity. The competition seemed to construct local and national versions of self and citizenship which were gendered, too. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]