The Entrepreneur in Youth: An Untapped Resource for Economic Growth, Social Entrepreneurship, and Education

by Marilyn L. Kourilsky, Andrew Thomas, William B. Walstad

"The Entrepreneur in Youth" offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of African American, Latino, and white high school students' aspirations, knowledge, opinions and educational views related to entrepreneurship and philanthropy. A key strength is its longitudinal approach to analysis and interpretations, made possible by extensive surveys of over 11,000 respondents from high school youth and other groups, including adults and business owners. The key findings exhibit an extraordinarily high level of interest in entrepreneurship among youth as well as a strong desire to give back to their communities. However, they lack the knowledge and experience to achieve their aspirations.The book's major recommendations and guidelines include challenges to education and other policymakers to expand and enhance opportunities to access entrepreneurship education and early entrepreneurship mentoring shadowing experiences - especially for those who demand it the African Americans and Latinos. Meeting these challenges not only will contribute to economic growth and social reform initiatives but also will increase economic and social mobility and access to opportunity for a still largely untapped pool of future entrepreneurs. This book will appeal to academics in entrepreneurship, economics, business and education, as well as policymakers, educators and business leaders.

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 26, 2007