This chapter discussed the entrepreneurship education teachers’ ontological conceptions of entrepreneurship and education and studied potential mismatches in these conceptions. We started with analyzing literature on entrepreneurship and education. The analyzed literature included scientific journal articles, project reports, and official documents at the European and national levels discussing EE. We concluded from this literature review that there is an ontological mismatch between entrepreneurship and education because the development of education is ahead of entrepreneurship in the paradigm shift from realism to idealism. This mismatch is visible in scientific thinking and also appears, according to our theoretical analysis and practical observations, as an ontological headache in practicing EE teachers’ conceptions of entrepreneurship and education.
According to our results, EE teachers in basic education at the primary and secondary levels have a strong pedagogical education and tend to base their pedagogical thinking on social constructionism. At the same time, however, they tend to follow a traditional view of entrepreneurship that is the opposite of their pedagogical thinking. Conversely, university teachers, with backgrounds in, for example, business school or technology, all too often tend to base their pedagogical thinking on behavioristic pedagogy. At the same time, they tend to emphasize managerial competencies, business functions, etc. in entrepreneurship education. These empirical observations confirm our conclusions in the conceptual reasoning that there might be an ontological mismatch between entrepreneurship and education.
To ease the EE ontological headache, we have used the critical realist perspective in entrepreneurship and education as well as in their integration (i.e., in EE). The critical realist perspective bridges, on the one hand, realism-based discovery theory and idealism-based creation theory, and on the other, realism-based behaviorism and idealism-based social constructionism. Combining the critical realist perspective with the processual view on entrepreneurship enables acceptance that reality exists as a source for the opportunity creation process, and simultaneously, that reality is a creative outcome of human actions.
Based on critical realism, we suggest a practical model for EE teachers to use as content for their EE. We believe EE students will be able to utilize the model in both a business and non-business context when they wish to create new activities. In the business context, this may mean better abilities to create their own business startups or to create new business activities in established firms. In the non-business context, students may use the model to create activities in different types of organizations, including their schools.
In this chapter, our aim was to address the calls for theoretical and conceptual studies in entrepreneurship education focusing on ontological issues. Entrepreneurship education can be seen as an integration of entrepreneurship and education, and we argue that the ontologies of both of these EE components influence EE. Therefore, we have first juxtaposed the theoretical paradigm shifts in entrepreneurship and education from the ontological viewpoint. We have taken a first cut at building a practical model to ease the ontological headaches of EE actors with respect to the concept of entrepreneurship and the educational methods for teaching it.
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