Entrepreneurial education for persons with disabilities

Abstract

Fostering entrepreneurship and inclusive societies are on top of EU policy agenda. This article is bringing together both aims by discussing a social innovation framework for inclusive entrepreneurial education for persons with disabilities. Similar to other disadvantaged groups, persons with disabilities can benefit from entrepreneurial skills for self-management or, on a next level, for starting own, opportunity-driven businesses. The framework suggests several building blocks considered necessary for successful entrepreneurial education for the beneficiaries. First, it is approaching the framework through a social innovation perspective. In doing so, it suggests a social innovation ecosystem perspective to operationalize all relevant stakeholders and contextual aspects relevant for the framework. Second, it suggests to build on socially innovative, hence novel, practices by starting from co-creation and co-production in order to meet individual demands and needs of learners. Furthermore, it takes the concept of universal design into account as it holds major implications for inclusive entrepreneurial education for persons with disabilities and underlines the need of different, more suitable practices in entrepreneurship education and beyond, toward an inclusive learning ecosystem.