Internal Entrepreneurship -a Trojan horse of the neoliberal governance of education? Finnish pre-and in-service teachers' implementation of and resistance towards entrepreneurship education

This paper explores the effects of neoliberal education policies, by examining how the Finnish pre-and in-service teachers engage with the discourses of 'external' and 'internal entrepreneurship', create related inclusions and exclusions, and implement or challenge the aim of educating enterprising and entrepreneurial citizens. Whereas the promotion of ` external' entrepreneurship was seen to be in conflict with the values of basic education, and therefore substantially rejected as the aim of schooling, both the pre-and in-service teachers constructed the view that every pupil/student should be encouraged towards internal entrepreneurship, i.e. an enterprising mentality with attributes of self-responsibility, diligence and independence. Internal entrepreneurship, then, was considered as an universal and natural educational aim. We suggest that internal entrepreneurship as a manifestation of neoliberal subjectivity is difficult to subvert, because it fits well with the traditional aims of Finnish education.