Gendered discourses of entrepreneurship in UK higher education: The fictive entrepreneur and the fictive student

Abstract

This article posits the idea of the ‘fictive entrepreneur’ and the ‘fictive student’ to explore how the historical masculinisation of entrepreneurship has informed UK policy and higher education (HE) approaches to entrepreneurship education, and the implications of this for female students. Using a Bourdieuian perspective, discourse analysis is employed to critically analyse policy and research documents and identify entrepreneurship discourses that construct both a ‘fictive entrepreneur’ that students should aspire to become, and a ‘fictive student’ who will benefit from HE entrepreneurship education. It argues that rather than being gender neutral or meritocratic, these discourses of entrepreneurship are saturated with gendered meanings which position HE students and entrepreneurs in potentially damaging ways.

Annual review article: Is it time to rethink the gender agenda in entrepreneurship research?

“…Siphoning off women and issues related to them in this way then ensures that alleged 'mainstream' debate regarding 'core' entrepreneurial activities and processes (opportunity recognition, start-up, effectuation, growth, exit processes) are positioned as gender neutral whereas in fact, they are gender blind (Jones, 2014). Creating a separate women=gender niche facilitates the persistence of such assumptions; it is not disputed that creating separate spaces which position women and their priorities, views and needs as central is invaluable to generate voice and visibility.…”

Entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention: Do female students benefit?

“…Scholars suggest that differences in entrepreneurial activity may not be limited to the effects of biological sex Williams, 2003: Marlow andPatton, 2005), but may be related to issues relating to socially (and culturally) constructed gender (Gupta et al, 2009;Henry et al, 2015). Jones's (2014) qualitative study explored the relatively neglected view that EE is gender-biased towards masculinity and EE may generate negative outcomes for female students. The latter, in part, may be shaped by socially learned stereotypes associated with the devalued sphere of the feminine (Marlow and Patton, 2005), and the 'symbolically privileged sphere of the masculine' (Ahl, 2002).…”

A CULTure of entrepreneurship education

“…It is impossible to isolate activities within EE from wider societal understandings of who and what the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship is (Holmgren and From 2005;Ehrensal 2001;Jones 2014). Entrepreneurship is posited as a remedy to some of the fundamental problems of today's economies, such as unemployment and stagnating economic growth (Rasmussen et al 2011) and seems to offer a solution to problems associated with the increased pace and turbulence of social and economic change (Anderson and Jack 2008).…”

“…This theoretical turn emphasises the individual actor, resulting in a 'cult of the individual' (Stevenson and Jarillo 1990: 20) linked to specially endowed individuals and implying that not all individuals hold these traits (Shane and Venkataraman 2000). In acting on these thoughts EE often focuses on developing such traits in students, in order for them to become more closely aligned with the template of the supreme entrepreneur (Jones 2014).…”

“…In spite of evidence of a core, cross-national discourse that holds strong linkage to the economic contribution of enterprise (Dodd, Jack, and Anderson 2013) students may come to struggle to position themselves in relation to such representations of the deities that inform EE curricula. This highlights a fundamental tension in EE, which educators and students have to grapple with and yet this is rarely acknowledged in the classroom (Jones 2014).…”