Entrepreneurship education but not as we know it: Reflections on the relationship between Critical Pedagogy and Entrepreneurship Education

The meteoric rise of entrepreneurship education in higher education continues apace. This expansion has however only recently begun to elicit a more critical approach as to its nature and purpose. Using Critical Pedagogy, and specifically Freire's work, we compare aspects of Critical Pedagogy to Entrepreneurship Education drawing attention to five commonalities. These commonalities relate to an action-orientation, transformational potential, freedom orientation, identity development and the power-relationship between educator and student. Overall, the conceptual comparison challenges uncritical assumptions that entrepreneurship education serves only as a means to consolidate rather than question existing socio-economic structures. It supports notions of entrepreneurship education's empowering and emancipatory potential. As one of only few studies to date that theorise the relationship between entrepreneurship education and critical pedagogy it presents a foundation upon which others may build in an expanded understanding of entrepreneurship education, its processes and place within existing educational scholarship. Practical implications are suggested. •Undertakes a comparison of Critical Pedagogy and Entrepreneurship Education.•Models five commonalities between Entrepreneurship Education and Critical Pedagogy.•Offers a critical approach at placing entrepreneurship education within the context of institutional structures.