The School and the Teacher Autonomy in the Implementing Process of Entrepreneurship Education Curricula

• Main Authors: Kaarina Sommarström, Elena Oikkonen, Timo Pihkala
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Education Sciences
• Subjects: entrepreneurship education; autonomy; teacher; school–company interaction
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/11/5/215

The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of the opportunities offered by teacher and school autonomy in entrepreneurship education with companies involved. The research question was: How do schools and teachers use their autonomy in the implementation of entrepreneurship education? This research question was complemented by two additional research questions that were: How does teacher autonomy benefit the implementation of entrepreneurship education? and How do teachers want to utilize autonomy in teaching? This qualitative study used content analyses and the data were collected via semi-structured interviews, with a total of 35 people from 23 schools in Finland. The findings show that school and teacher autonomy brought excellent results in implementing entrepreneurship education and, in these cases, the message of the curriculum worked as fuel for the activities carried out by the school and the teachers. At the same time, some groups of schools and teachers disregarded the message of the curriculum for a set of reasons. Hence, the educational authorities nationally and locally need to consider the balance between autonomy and the core curriculum and weigh the pros and cons of the situation. The study suggests further research on teachers’ perceptions of the relationship between the curricula expectations and implementation of entrepreneurship education.