Histories of entrepreneurship education

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education often appears as a recent innovation shaped by contemporary challenges or zeitgeist. Historical evidence, however, shows it has deeper roots and greater complexity than commonly assumed. This special issue adopts a ‘marketplace’ metaphor to show how supply-push (academic initiatives and pedagogical innovations) and demand-pull (policy agendas, practitioner needs) factors have shaped educational practices across time and place. The four featured articles uncover distinct historical contexts in which entrepreneurship education arose and evolved, challenging the prevailing notion of its recent emergence. Together, these studies demonstrate how earlier practices influenced the ways entrepreneurship is currently taught and understood. Ultimately, this special issue prompts educators and researchers to consider how the past can inform innovative directions for entrepreneurship education moving forward.