Shaping entrepreneurial citizens: a genealogy of entrepreneurship education in Sweden

Abstract

The focus of this article is the discourse of entrepreneurship education in Sweden. Drawing on a genealogical approach, the analysis draws attention to how this discourse is shaped in the curriculum today, and how it has come to emerge. Focusing on two key events that constitute this discourse, responsibility and problem-solving, and tracing these events back in time, the analysis illustrates how the discourse on entrepreneurship education today shapes a specific kind of citizen, one who is responsible for themselves and who has developed a constant will and desire for learning, thus being able to adapt to the constant changing future. Such a citizen is distinctly different from the one emerging in the 1960s and 1980s, where a citizen that shows solidarity with others, and especially the weak, and who develops problem-solving skills in order to actively engage in the development of society, emerges. These results can be related to wider trends in education policy, where neo-liberal rationalities have become more central, in Sweden as well as in other countries, where there has been a shift of focus, from an understanding of education as a common good, to an understanding of education as a private good.