Against Entrepreneurship

Our guest today is Professor Kirsty Morrin. Rather than view entrepreneurship as a uniformly positive concept/practice, something that is beyond the need for investigation and evaluation, Professor Morrin critically examines a subject matter and approach that has become a movement (if not rage) in higher education. Today, colleges and universities worldwide offer entrepreneurship majors, minors, and programs. However, analysis reveals (as Dr. Morrin puts it) that "entrepreneurial agendas conceal precariousness and reproduce inequalities." She argues against the current discourse for entrepreneurial initiatives in education and suggests the need for a critical conversation about its repeated failures. Professor Morrin is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Liverpool, England. Her research explores social inequalities and focuses on public-private partnerships in state education. Kirsty has published on many issues, including educational inequalities, entrepreneurship education, social inequalities (race, class, and gender), and critical social theory. She is a co-author with Christy Kulz and Ruth McGinity of Inside the Education Lab: Critical Ethnographic Perspectives on the Academies Experiment (Manchester University Press, 2022). Dr. Morrin is also the author of the forthcoming Academies, Entrepreneurship, and Inequality: The Politics of Successful Failure, scheduled to be published by Bristol University Press in 2024. Joining Professor Morrin today is Professor Rubén O. Martinez, professor emeritus of sociology and director emeritus of the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University, and FutureU’s founder. Professor Martinez is today's program host. Dr. Nathan Rousseau, professor of sociology at Indiana University Purdue University Columbus and frequent FutureU contributor, will serve as the session discussant. Today's program was produced by Emeritus Professor Frank Fear for FutureU, Conversations about Values and Change in Higher Education.