PuLSE01 – Enterprise Education in Rural Schools: Organisational Practices, Pedagogical Innovation, and Educational Equity

Supervisors: Dr Sara Calvo (Department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise, The Open University Business School, Faculty of Business and Law) and Dr Fran Myers (Department of People and Organisations, The Open University Business School, Faculty of Business and Law)

Mode: Available for distance learning only.

Project description:

Enterprise and entrepreneurship education have become increasingly prominent within UK schooling over the past decade, commonly framed as mechanisms to enhance employability, creativity, resilience, and economic participation. Policy discourses frequently position enterprise education as a means of preparing young people for uncertain labour markets and fostering individual adaptability. However, existing research and policy frameworks largely reflect urban, metropolitan, or generic school contexts, paying limited attention to the distinct structural, social, and pedagogical realities of rural schools. This imbalance risks reproducing context-blind assumptions about how enterprise education operates and who it ultimately benefits. This PhD project addresses this gap by examining how enterprise education is conceptualised, implemented, and experienced in rural primary and secondary schools in the UK.

Rural schools operate within particular constraints and opportunities that differentiate them significantly from their urban counterparts. These include geographical isolation, limited access to external partners and resources, smaller school sizes, demographic change, staff recruitment challenges, and strong interdependencies with local communities. At the same time, rurality can enable distinctive forms of place-based learning, community entrepreneurship, social enterprise engagement, and locally embedded enterprise practices that draw on local knowledge, social capital, and community identity. Despite these specificities, rural schools are frequently marginalised within national education policy debates and remain under-represented in empirical research on entrepreneurship education. As a result, there is limited understanding of how enterprise education is shaped by rural contexts, how it is negotiated by educators and pupils, and how it interacts with issues of educational equity and territorial inequality.

The overarching aim of this project is to develop a theoretically informed and empirically grounded understanding of enterprise education in rural schools, with particular attention to issues of educational equity, pedagogy, organisational practice, and community engagement. The project seeks to move beyond narrow, skills-based approaches to entrepreneurship education by conceptualising enterprise as a relational, ethical, and place-based educational practice that is shaped by, and responsive to, rural contexts. In doing so, it will interrogate not only what forms enterprise education takes in rural schools, but also why particular practices emerge, whose interests they serve, and how they align with broader educational purposes.

The project will be situated at the intersection of entrepreneurship education, education studies, rural studies, and organisational theory. Theoretically, it will draw on critical perspectives in entrepreneurship education that challenge instrumental and individualised framings of enterprise and instead emphasise social embeddedness, values, and collective outcomes. These perspectives will be complemented by place-based and rural education theories, which highlight how learning is shaped by geography, community relations, and spatial inequalities. Organisational approaches to schooling will further inform the analysis by conceptualising schools as organisations navigating policy pressures, funding constraints, accountability regimes, and community expectations. Together, these lenses will allow the project to examine enterprise education not simply as a curriculum intervention, but as an organisational and pedagogical phenomenon embedded within wider socio-economic and territorial structures.

The project has the potential to make several important theoretical contributions. First, it will extend entrepreneurship education theory by foregrounding rurality as a critical dimension shaping educational practice, thereby challenging urban-centric and context-neutral assumptions prevalent in the field. Second, it will contribute to debates on educational equity by examining how enterprise education may either mitigate or exacerbate existing inequalities between rural and urban schools, and within rural communities themselves. Third, by integrating organisational and place-based perspectives, the project will offer a more nuanced conceptualisation of enterprise education as a collective, relational practice rather than a solely individual skill set.

In addition to its theoretical contribution, the project has clear potential for policy and practical impact. By generating robust empirical evidence on enterprise education in rural schools, it will inform education policy debates concerned with levelling up, rural sustainability, and inclusive education. The findings will be relevant to policymakers, academy trusts, local authorities, and school leaders seeking to design enterprise education initiatives that are context-sensitive, ethically grounded, and educationally meaningful. The project may also support rural schools in strengthening community partnerships and developing enterprise practices that align with local needs and values rather than externally imposed models.

Methodologically, the project will adopt a qualitative-dominant, mixed-methods research design suited to capturing the complexity of rural educational contexts. An initial phase will involve desk-based analysis of relevant UK education and enterprise education policies, alongside mapping of enterprise-related activities across a sample of rural schools. This phase will establish the policy and institutional landscape within which rural schools operate and inform case selection.

The core empirical component will consist of in-depth case studies of selected rural primary and secondary schools, chosen to reflect diversity in geographical location, socio-economic context, and school governance structures. Data collection is likely to include semi-structured interviews with school leaders, teachers, pupils, parents, and community partners; observation of enterprise-related activities; and analysis of curricular materials and school documents. This approach will allow for a rich, contextualised understanding of how enterprise education is enacted and experienced within rural settings.

A final analytical phase will involve cross-case comparison and theoretical synthesis, linking empirical findings back to the project’s conceptual framework. Ethical considerations will be central throughout, particularly given the involvement of children, small communities, and potentially sensitive power dynamics within rural contexts. Overall, this project will provide a rigorous and original contribution to scholarship on enterprise education and rural schooling. By combining theoretical depth with empirical richness and policy relevance, it will advance understanding of how enterprise education can be designed and delivered in ways that support educational equity, community engagement, and meaningful learning in rural schools across the UK.

References:

Banha, F., Coelho, L. S., & Flores, A. (2022). Entrepreneurship education: A systematic literature review and identification of an existing gap in the field. Education Sciences, 12(5), Article 336. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050336 

Kassean, H., Vanevenhoven, J., Liguori, E. W., & Winkel, D. (2015). Entrepreneurship education: A need for reflection, real-world experience and action. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 21(5), 690–708.