IMPACT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ON THE RISE OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneurship is said to be an important driver of Europe’s economies today and it will become even more so in the future (EC, 2014, p. 3). Therefore, the European Commission is asking for educational programs that stimulate the entrepreneurial mindset (EC, 2015). Since female entrepreneurs (or women entrepreneurs) are meant to foster especially societal benefits (De Jong, 2013), the aim of the thesis is to provide insights on how to nurture the entrepreneurial intention and therewith the behavior of women. However, insights on how to raise the comparatively small number of female entrepreneurs through educational attempts are missing. Based on this, the thesis will plan on giving some implications to the following leading research question:

“Does entrepreneurship education need to be gendered to increase the number of female entrepreneurs?”

The papers will aim to discuss the following perspectives in particular: (1) peculiarities of gendered aspects of entrepreneurship education in higher education with a special focus on (2) epistemological beliefs regarding entrepreneurial learning and knowledge and (3) entrepreneurial behavior and roles. Those insights will all be concluded into (4) a didactical concept for entrepreneurship education that builds on the (un)genderedness of the propensity to act entrepreneurial. This impact in entrepreneurship education can be accomplished by adapting competences and using different learning styles.