Setting the Scene: The Student-Process-Educator Nexus in Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relationship and interaction between the educator and the undergraduate student using the entrepreneurial learning space as a scene for student identity development. The context is entrepreneurship education where research is rather diverse. To date, the dominant focus concerning entrepreneurial pedagogy and teaching approaches has been on the outcome and less on ‘how’ to teach entrepreneurship and even lesser on how both students and educators should act in this perspective. However, there is a deeply connected dialogical relationship between the entrepreneurship educator and each student through the educational process. This relationship influences how the educator teaches entrepreneurship and the impact on the development of what happens in the classroom. The entrepreneurship educator plays a critical role in creating an entrepreneurial learning space which, depending on how this learning space is created, leads to varying levels of student engagement. Students who in turn act as active participants in their own learning develop their identity. The discussion throughout the chapter ends in a framework, that could act as an inspirational model for the entrepreneurship educator who wishes to develop undergraduate students’ entrepreneurial identity by focusing on how the entrepreneurial learning space is created.