A Capability Approach to Entrepreneurship Education: Fostering Recognition and Community Care to Address Inequalities for Marginalized Youth

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education and training have emerged as a set of skills central in many developing countries’ education/training policies and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for ensuring employment and contributing to economic development in a global, and precarious, economy. In dominant global development discourses, entrepreneurship education and training is nearly ubiquitously framed in neoliberal terms used to address poverty and promote economic growth, but these approaches do little to address the social and economic inequalities that many youth in sub-Saharan Africa face. This chapter puts forth a postcolonial perspective to expand a capability approach used to identify critical capabilities necessary for sustainable livelihoods and well-being. Such an approach considers social and economic inequalities as they affect the education-work nexus, and it reframes notions of work and development around well-being for youth in their communities. The chapter then draws on a 5-year study of an entrepreneurship training program for marginalized youth in Tanzania to examine which capabilities and conditions emerged to support their livelihoods, address inequalities, and foster inclusion and well-being. Recognition, being regarded as an equal and being able to participate equally in society, and community care, contributing to and receiving care from others in the community to ensure self and others’ well-being, were two critical capabilities that emerged to support their livelihoods and well-being. These capabilities and conditions offer a heuristic for framing and designing entrepreneurship education to address not only unemployment but also the inequalities that underlie the education and unemployment problems for youth.