The benefits and challenges of enterprise education: results from an action research project in the third grade in Finnish basic education

Abstract

This article is the result of an action research project conducted in 2014 in a primary school in the city of Vaasa in Finland. The project focused on developing the practice of integrating enterprise education as a part of everyday teaching in Grade Three. The project involved three class teachers, the headmaster and a university researcher. This article focuses on the teachers’ perceptions of the benefits and the challenges of the project. The teachers viewed the project as beneficial to their own professional development as well as to the students’ learning. The process, however, also revealed several challenges associated with applying enterprise education in Grade Three, such as time or different personalities. Based on the experiences from this particular project, the article broadens the understanding of how enterprise education can be realised in Grade Three, as well as its benefits and challenges.

Keywords:

• Enterprise education
• entrepreneurship education
• primary school
• action research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.