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AbstractYou can if you want to – Teachers’ thoughts on enterprise educationThe overall purpose of this dissertation is to better knowledge and understandingof enterprise education and investigate how such can be expressed in a schoolenvironment. The study’s research objective focuses on what teachers think andvalue about enterprise education and how they feel they are able to supportstudents in their development towards an enterprising initiative.In the study’s theoretical background description, enterprise education,which was introduced into the Finnish national curriculum in 1994, isinvestigated outgoing from six so-named paths: linguistic, economic,educational-political, cultural, psychological, and the pedagogical, which is themain focus of the study. In the theoretical background, different characteristicshave been identified; these are functional, social, and individual enterprise.The study’s empirical foundation consists of interviews with thirtyteachers working at comprehensive and upper secondary schools. Two researchefforts are combined: a phenomenographic and a phenomenological. In bothefforts, a hermeneutic analysis takes place. Five principles that facilitateinterpretation are presented and used: the indispensability of pre-understanding,the indispensability of the dimension of time, the indispensability of totality, theindispensability of negativism, and the indispensability of rationality.One study result is that teachers understand enterprise education asimmanent, technical, and/or cooperative activity. The majority of teacherschoose to emphasize that the purpose of activity is comprised of individual andsocial activity that is directed towards personal development, in contrast tofunctional enterprise, which is directed towards a technical form of activity andbusiness-related, entrepreneurial knowledge. The question of how teachersunderstand the phenomenon is of significance for how they value it. The resultsalso show that teachers’ abilities to reassess and change their manner areinfluenced by their knowledge/skills and awareness that they have of theinterpretive possibilities that enterprise education manifests. In order to stimulatestudents to enterprising initiatives, teachers stress activity-promoting methods,authenticity, and an auspicious atmosphere in educational activities.Key words: Enterprise education, entrepreneurship, enterprising, learning,societal development, hermeneutics.