Chapter 12: Educating for Democracy: Entrepreneurship Education as a Democratic Discipline?

In the Western world, we have an almost fetishized obsession with education. Current debates concern the problems relating to our increasingly instrumentalized approach to educational systems, where critics lament the fact that we are neglecting the importance of educating simply for the sake of providing people with an education (Biesta, 2010a). Education does not have to be targeted for it to be beneficial. The effective dissemination of knowledge, along with more democratized educational systems, has contributed to many beneficial societal developments. From the concrete, where knowledge and education about basic hygiene and antiseptic practices helped drastically decrease hospital deaths (Pittet & Boyce, 2001, p. 9f)to more general societal changes, where better educational levels seem to correlate strongly with increased income equality (De Gregorio & Lee, 2002), education can make a difference. The prevalence of democratic ideals in Western societies can in part be attributed to mandatory education, where students, in addition too basic academic and scholarly skills, are also taught about the values of living in a democratic society (Hoge, 2002, p. 105f).