Responsibilising the next generation: Fostering the enterprising self through de-mobilising gender

Abstract

In this article, our interest is in what subjectivities are fostered among schoolchildren through the recent introduction of entrepreneurship initiatives in primary and secondary school. The educational terrain is but one example where entrepreneurship has been discursively transformed during recent decades from the notion of starting businesses into a general approach to life itself in the advancement of neoliberal societies. The inherently elitist and excluding position of the entrepreneurial subject is now offered to all and sundry. While entrepreneurship pedagogy is explicitly intended to be gender neutral and inclusive of all such identities traditionally suppressed in the entrepreneurship discourse, we ask what kind of enterprising selves are mobilised and de-mobilised here. Second, in what way are these seemingly ‘gender-neutral’ enterprising selves gendered? Our analysis of three recent and dominating entrepreneurial initiatives in the Swedish school system emphasises the need for activation, performativity and responsibility. The analysis also shows that gender is indeed silenced in these initiatives but is at the same time productive through being subtly present in the promotion of a ‘neo-masculine’, active, technology-oriented and responsible subject. Entrepreneurship is presented as being equally available for all and something everyone should aspire to, yet the initiatives still sustain the suppression and marginalisation of women and femininities. The initiatives specifically promote a responsible and adaptive masculine subject position while notions of rebellious entrepreneurship and non-entrepreneurial domestic positions are mobilised out of the picture.

Universities need leadership, academics need management: discursive tensions and voids in the deregulation of Swedish higher education legislation

“…Like Collinson (2014), Gleeson and Knights (2006), and Zoller and Fairhurst (2007), we acknowledge the need for awareness of how tensions are not only suppressed and hidden aspects of discourses but are also drawn upon in establishing 'regimes of truth'-acceptable formulations of problems and solutions. As noted by Stenson and Watt (1999), Jones and Spicer (2005), and Berglund et al (2017), discursive processes also tend to create hidden agendas, agents, objects of concern and counter-narratives, which may be mobilised out of the picture. Such downplayed and discarded discursive elements are still of interest in the analysis-as voids and absences.…”

Women's entrepreneurship, neoliberalism and economic justice in the postfeminist era: A discourse analysis of policy change in Sweden

“…This concerns a move away from promoting small business for the benefit of women, to a broader understanding of entrepreneurship, underpinned by the entrepreneurialization of identities (cf. Berglund et al, ; Lewis, ). Unlike displacements II and III, this displacement occurs within the discourses as well as between them.…”

“…This concerns a move away from promoting small business for the benefit of women, to a broader understanding of entrepreneurship, underpinned by the entrepreneurialization of identities (cf. Berglund et al, 2017;Lewis, 2014).…”

Rendering sexism invisible in workplace narratives. A narrative analysis of female entrepreneurs’ stories of not being talked to by men

“…This opens up a paradox, since normative (masculine) Discourses of entrepreneurship also index entrepreneurship in the symbolic sphere of the male (Ahl, ), yet within neoliberal and postfeminist Discourse entrepreneurship is viewed as a meritocratic field of economic activity where women can flourish. This implies an interesting catch‐22 situation for women, since neoliberal and postfeminist Discourses obscure the primacy of traditional masculinities (Berglund, Lindgren, & Packendorff, , p. 5) yet to succeed in this entrepreneurial world identities that rely on traditionally masculine traits are required. First, both neoliberalism and postfeminism endorse individualism to the extent that there is a near rejection of any social, political or other external constraints or influences on subjects.…”

“…Third, both concepts appear to call upon women more than men to undergo personal transformation, for example, to make themselves more confident or resilient (Gill, Kelan, & Scharff, , p. 231). For instance, within neoliberal society, women are compelled to become enterprising selves, to improve themselves and embrace the entrepreneurial ideal, and ‘within the enterprise culture, otherness and its ensuing disadvantages are seen as matters of individual responsibility and ambition, never as structural phenomena’ (Berglund et al, , p. 6). This bears resemblance to the promotion of choice and disavowal of structure associated with postfeminism (Lewis, Benschop, & Simpson, , p. 213).…”