In a nutshell
Nordic countries take entrepreneurship education seriously — and it starts with how they train teachers. By embedding entrepreneurial pedagogy in teacher education, they cultivate classrooms that value creativity, risk-taking, and autonomy.
If you think entrepreneurship education (EE) is just about getting kids to pitch lemonade stand ideas, the Nordics would like a word. This literature review by Schild, Håkansson Lindqvist, and Seikkula-Leino surveys EE across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, with a broad focus on both school-level education and teacher training.
While much of the analysis centres on primary and secondary education, it’s the Nordic approach to teaching the teachers that’s especially worth highlighting. Because if there’s one takeaway for those working in higher education, it’s this: how we train educators matters just as much as what we ask them to teach.
Across the Nordics, EE is not primarily about preparing students to launch businesses. Instead, it’s framed as a pedagogical approach for developing competences such as creativity, initiative, and problem-solving — the kinds of capacities that matter across all disciplines and careers. To make this work, teachers themselves need to be equipped with the mindset, tools, and autonomy to model these qualities in practice.
Finland has led the way, incorporating EE into national curricula in the 1990s and publishing comprehensive guidelines that emphasise cross-curricular integration and student agency. Teacher education there reflects this shift, positioning teachers as facilitators and mentors rather than content transmitters. Sweden and Norway have followed with national strategies that support real-world, collaborative learning experiences, including partnerships with external actors. Denmark and Iceland add their own spins, the former blending entrepreneurship with broader civic goals, and the latter emphasising innovation and creative problem-solving.
Publication Date: April 2025
Authors: Katharina Schild, Marcia Håkansson Lindqvist, Jaana Seikkula-Leino
Institutions: Europa-Universität Flensburg; Mid Sweden University
Study Type: Semi-systematic literature review
Sample Size: 39 peer-reviewed articles
Research Focus: Entrepreneurship education in primary, secondary, and teacher education in the Nordic countries
Research Methodology: PRISMA-based semi-systematic review with reflexive thematic analysis
Main Findings: Entrepreneurship education in the Nordics is understood as a didactic, cross-curricular approach. Teachers are trained to act as guides and intrapreneurs, using methods like problem-based and experiential learning. A unified concept of “Nordic entrepreneurial pedagogy” is proposed to consolidate diverse national terminologies.
Citation: Schild, K., Lindqvist, M. H., & Seikkula-Leino, J. (2025). What We Can Learn From Entrepreneurship Education in the Nordics — A Literature Review. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 0(0). Link
Despite using different terms — such as “innovation education,” “entrepreneurial learning,” or “enterprise education” — the Nordic countries share a consistent approach to how entrepreneurship is taught. What the authors call “Nordic entrepreneurial pedagogy” refers to a way of teaching that prioritises hands-on, real-world learning, where students are encouraged to take initiative, work collaboratively, and reflect on their experiences. This approach also recognises that in order to make such learning possible, teachers need both the freedom to adapt their methods and the training to develop these facilitative and responsive teaching practices. Teaching, in this view, becomes a creative and entrepreneurial process in itself.
For educators and researchers working in entrepreneurship education, the takeaway here is simple but often overlooked: the way teachers are prepared shapes what kind of teaching is possible. Content and curricula matter, but so do the conditions that help educators try new things, respond to their students, and rethink their own roles. In a university setting, this might influence how doctoral training is structured, how courses are designed, or how teaching is supported across departments. The Nordic model shows that encouraging entrepreneurial thinking isn’t just a matter of adding more programmes — it’s about creating space for new ways of teaching to take hold.
Related insights appear in
Rethinking Who Fits the Mould in Entrepreneurship Education,
The Actual Skills You Need for Sustainable Entrepreneurship,
and
Untangling the Threads of Entrepreneurship Education Research.
Read the full article in Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy (SAGE).
