Scientifically Based Or Policy Driven?: Using A Didaktik Approach to Encompass Transformative and Critical Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

This conceptual chapter re-actualizes the Didaktik-inspired discussions in entrepreneurship education, initiated by Kyrö, Blenker et al., and Bechard and Toulouse over 15 years ago. Didaktik in the German educational tradition is a pedagogical sub-discipline which, unlike the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” as teaching methods, focuses on the relations between the subject, teacher, and students, and considers questions regarding what to teach, how to teach, and why, as being interdependent. A review of literature on entrepreneurship education published in the last decades shows that research in the German Didaktik tradition is sparse, and that the awareness of the differences between Didaktik and “didactics” has been overlooked. This chapter has practical implications for entrepreneurship educators as it presents Didaktik as an approach which comprises planning, implementing, and evaluating teaching in a way that includes an awareness of the learners’ relationship to the subject without excluding the teacher’s key role in education. In a theoretical perspective, the chapter challenges the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” and proposes Didaktik as an approach to developing entrepreneurship education research and practice to be scientifically based in two fields and encompass transformative learning and critical perspectives, rather than being driven by political agendas and focusing on results.

Citation

Ellborg, K. (2023), "Scientifically Based Or Policy Driven?: Using A Didaktik Approach to Encompass Transformative and Critical Entrepreneurship Education", Corbett, A.C., Marino, L.D. and Alsos, G.A. (Ed.) The Age of Entrepreneurship Education Research: Evolution and Future (Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Vol. 23), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1074-754020230000023003