“This class is not for you”

Abstract

Purpose-This paper investigates the social construction of gendered subjects in entrepreneurship education (EEd), through the analysis of course descriptions. For this purpose, the analytical constructs of the Fictive Student and the Fictive Entrepreneur are developed. Approach-Through analysis of 86 course descriptions from 81 universities in 21 countries, this study examines the degree to which course descriptions use gendered language, how such language constructs gendered subjects, and the resultant implications. Findings-This paper finds that course descriptions are predominantly, but not exclusively, masculine in their language. More importantly, the distribution of feminine and masculine language is uneven across course descriptions. Context variables such as regional or national culture differences do not explain this distribution. Instead, the phenomenon is explained by course content/type; whereby practice-based entrepreneurship courses are highly masculine, compared to traditional academic courses, where students learn about entrepreneurship as a social phenomenon. Practical implications-Universities and educators have not taken into account recent research about the real and possible negative consequences of positioning entrepreneurship in a stereotypical, masculinized fashion. This may offer an inexpensive opportunity to improve recruitment and description accuracy. Originality/value-The paper's contribution is fourfold. First, it contributes to debates on the gendering of entrepreneurship by extending these into EEd. Second, it extends Sarasvathy's (2004) concern with barriers to, rather than incentives for, entrepreneurship to include EEd. Third, it contributes to the emerging literature on entrepreneurship as practice, by highlighting the masculization of EEd, as it gets closer to practice and the role of language in this. Finally, it highlights the gendered implications of English medium courses.

Does gender balance in entrepreneurship education make a difference to prospective start-up behaviour?

“…Previous studies have emphasized differences between young men and women's knowledge, attitudes or intentions (e.g. Kourilsky and Walstad, 1998;Petridou et al, 2009) or gender bias in presentations of entrepreneurship education (Jones and Warhuus, 2018) as reasons for gender imbalance. While analyses have demonstrated gender bias in the discourses on entrepreneurship education (Jones, 2014) and in entrepreneurship education content (Leffler, 2012), there is little evidence on the consequences of gender bias, nor how it can be addressed.…”

“…The measures were derived from a careful review of previous theoretical and empirical work on entrepreneurship education (Duval-Couetil, 2013;Westhead and Solesvik, 2016;Jones and Warhuus, 2018;Rauch and Hulsink, 2015;H€ agg and Gabrielsson, 2020), entrepreneurial careers (Scherer et al, 1990;Kofoed, 2019;Ligouri et al, 2020) and gender balance (Lewis, 2006;Tatum et al, 2013;Opie et al, 2019). A description of how the variables were constructed can be found below.…”

“…Venture creation programmes have been found to influence students' motivation and intention to become entrepreneurs, as well as their development of an entrepreneurial identity (Donnellon et al, 2014;Williams Middleton and Donnellon, 2017). However, venture creation programmes also grapple with the masculine domination of entrepreneurship as a phenomenon (Jones and Warhuus, 2018). Entrepreneurship education is gendered when it comes to its conceptualization of entrepreneurship (Jones, 2015), its discourses (Jones, 2014), its recruitment of mainly male students (Cochran, 2019;Jones and Warhuus, 2018) and its outcomes (Westhead and Solesvik, 2016).…”

“…Hence, the phenomenon of entrepreneurship education still mirrors the gender skewness in entrepreneurial activity, resulting in a majority of male students in the entrepreneurial classroom. In particular, experience-based entrepreneurship education has been found to be masculine in its social construction (Jones and Warhuus, 2018), something that may influence entrepreneurial outcomes for male as well as female students (Shinnar et al. , 2014).…”

Evolving Entrepreneurial Identities: An Exploratory Study

“…The myth of the heroic entrepreneur is intrinsically tied to how entrepreneurship is defined within the research field because definitions legitimise assumptions (Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, 2004).Stereotypical depictions of the entrepreneur are apparent in academic realms including literature (Gill, 2017) and entrepreneurship education (Jones & Warhuus, 2018). Entrepreneurship research has been dominated by a tradition of male scholars researching male entrepreneurs resulting in a masculinised theory of entrepreneurship (Ahl, 2006;Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, 2005;Essers & Benschop, 2007;Hurley, 1999;Jones, 2014).…”