Extract

The strategy of the European Union highlights the importance of the development of an entrepreneurial culture by fostering an entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurship skills and an awareness of career opportunities (Commission of the European Communities, 2006). In Finland, entrepreneurship education has a central role in the national core curricula at all education levels. Since teachers are key players in promoting it, we stress their point of view as promoters. However, there is a very limited amount of research concerning the teachers’ role in entrepreneurship education, and where such exists, the focus is on higher education (for example Fiet, 2000a, 2000b; Klandt, 2004; Shepherd, 2004; Béchard and Grégoire, 2005; Henry et al., 2005a, 2005b; Backström-Widjeskog, 2008; Neck and Greene, 2011). Moreover, from the theoretical point of view there is a lack of entrepreneurship education theories focusing on its pedagogy. As Honig (2004) argues, given the importance of entrepreneurship education in the academic and public sectors, and given the increasing sums of money allocated for the various promotional activities, the need for detailed pedagogical analysis and design is both immediate and critical. Entrepreneurship education requires its own specific body of empirical literature.