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Aspiring Minds: ‘A Generation of Entrepreneurs in the Making’

Author

Listed:
  • Dinah Rajak

    (University of Sussex, UK)

  • Catherine Dolan

    (SOAS University of London, UK)

Abstract

This article examines how corporate, state and donor interests have converged in attempts to craft South Africa’s youngsters into an army of entrepreneurs as the last frontier for creating growth in a post-job world. We investigate the apparatus designed to engineer this entrepreneurial revolution and the actors hoping to seed enterprising aspirations in school-age kids. Our ethnographic findings show that while the ideology of entrepreneurial education enrols kids in anticipation of an entrepreneurial future, it falls short of both its enticing promise and its transformative intentions. As enterprise education fails to deliver on the New South African Dream, we argue, the aspirations it propagates withers, generating disaffection rather than a generation of entrepreneurial subjects faithful to the neoliberal creed of making it on your own.

Suggested Citation

  • Dinah Rajak & Catherine Dolan, 2022. "Aspiring Minds: ‘A Generation of Entrepreneurs in the Making’," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 27(4), pages 803-822, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:27:y:2022:i:4:p:803-822
    DOI: 10.1177/13607804211042905
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olawale Ismail, 2016. "What is in a Job? The Social Context of Youth Employment Issues in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(suppl_1), pages 37-60.
    2. Catherine Dolan & Dinah Rajak, 2016. "Remaking Africa’s Informal Economies: Youth, Entrepreneurship and the Promise of Inclusion at the Bottom of the Pyramid," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(4), pages 514-529, April.
    3. Grace Muthoni Mwaura, 2017. "Just Farming? Neoliberal Subjectivities and Agricultural Livelihoods among Educated Youth in Kenya," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 48(6), pages 1310-1335, November.
    4. Brixiová, Zuzana & Ncube, Mthuli & Bicaba, Zorobabel, 2015. "Skills and Youth Entrepreneurship in Africa: Analysis with Evidence from Swaziland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 11-26.
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