Integrating social responsibility into an entrepreneurship education program: A case study

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education in the South Africa is often presented as a neutral discipline. Yet fundamental to any entrepreneurship education program should be the integration of key issues, such as ethics, values and social responsibility. This paper reports on a study that set out to explore student teachers experiences of engaging in an entrepreneurship education program specially enhanced to create an awareness of the link between entrepreneurship and social responsibility. It argues that exposure to a program of this nature is a powerful means to dispel the myth that entrepreneurship is a neutral discipline and that such exposure creates useful avenues for student teachers to examine their own constructions and perceptions of entrepreneurship and social responsibility. This paper draws on data constructed in a qualitative research project that engaged the tenets of symbolic interactionism in order to understand how students experienced the program and to understand their changing perceptions.