Social entrepreneurship learning

From: Transformative Learning through Social Entrepreneurship at Community Colleges

Education focused on social entrepreneurship and innovation prepares students for an ever-changing workforce and arms them with the skills necessary to address contemporary global and local challenges.

From: Social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the use of the techniques by start-up companies and other entrepreneurs to develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues.

The WEF report on Schools of the Future: Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, includes a focus on developing interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence (i.e. empathy, cooperation, negotiation, leadership and social awareness) through learning experiences that have a social entrepreneurship foundation.

(Schools of the Future pg. 20).

History:

From: Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition

The nascent field of social entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and attracting increased attention from many sectors. The term itself shows up frequently in the media, is referenced by public officials, has become common on university campuses, and informs the strategy of several prominent social sector organisations, including Ashoka and the Schwab and Skoll foundations. 

Interest in social entrepreneurship transcends the phenomenon of popularity and fascination with people. Social entrepreneurship signals the imperative to drive social change, and it is that potential payoff, with its lasting, transformational benefit to society, that sets the field and its practitioners apart.

Examples:

The Summerfuel’s social entrepreneurship program at Stanford is an excellent example of social entrepreneurship learning:

Summerfuel

South Tapiola High School, Finland (Etis) aims to integrate global perspectives to foster interpersonal skills within the context of a diverse entrepreneurship programme. Students work in groups to design and create their own businesses throughout the course of the year. The school's motto provides direction for the programme that integrates entrepreneurship and social impact, with its focus on ”empathy, hard work, innovation and tolerance”.

Web resources:

Social Entrepreneurship: 7 Ways to Empower Student Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Unit

Introduction to the Special Section on Social Entrepreneurship

Social Business: Alastair Wilson - Social entrepreneurship through action-based learning

Creativity and Intelligence through Entrepreneurial Learning

My new book: World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students

European Learning for Youth in Social Entrepreneurship

Creating a Culture of Social Entrepreneurship for Non-Economic Students: http://coneeect.eu/Content/Handbook/Frauke%20Godat.pdf

Application:

The Learnlife framework is in total alignment with the notion of social entrepreneurship and would aim to develop the necessary empathy and skills for all learners to experience work within a social entrepreneurship context.

Social Entrepreneurship approaches are especially useful in developing cross-disciplinary skills, such as those necessary to build effective and efficient business-based solutions to social problems.

Social entrepreneurship is one of the 25 learning methodologies in the Learnlife learning paradigm toolkit. Learn more about the different ways to engage learners through the different learning methodologies.