Social entrepreneurship education: a reflexive approach through the prism of capitals

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in the field of social entrepreneurship education, this sub-field remains under-theorised. In this paper we demonstrate the value of engaging with Bourdieu’s theory of capitals in examining the social entrepreneurship education sub- field and generate empirical insights to the subject by illuminating the interrelationships between the disciplinary roots, key pillars of education programmes and associated pedagogical content and strategies. Drawing on the above, we offer a ‘reflexive’ approach to the study of social entrepreneurship education, which acknowledges the importance of learning processes involved in developing multiple forms of capital and transforming them to each other in the pursuit of educational goals . This reflexive framework has implications for future inter-disciplinary research and social entrepreneurship education practice.