Evolving Standards
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Drivers of Entrepreneurship: The Role of Education in Latin American Countries View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maureen Snow Andrade, David Benson, Angela Schill, Ryan Schill, Ronald Miller
Entrepreneurship is associated with economic growth in developed countries. Education level, however, has different impacts on entrepreneurship. In some contexts, it has a negative impact due to educated individuals having greater job choice and awareness of risks and challenges in establishing a business. In other cases, low levels of education may drive the pursuit of entrepreneurship out of necessity. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data from 2016, this research sought to determine the role of education and related factors in entrepreneurial motivation. The study focused on the following Latin American countries: Panama, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize. Extending current research on entrepreneurship in the Latin American context, specifically related to opportunity and necessity motivations, the current study examined household income, education level, and work status. Findings indicate that higher levels of education corresponded with greater likelihood to pursue entrepreneurship out of opportunity. Similarly, individuals who were employed full time, homemakers, or students were more likely to be nascent entrepreneurs than those who were unemployed or had low levels of education. Income levels were also associated with entrepreneurship. The higher the level of income, the more likely individual were to pursue entrepreneurship out of opportunity. The study provides insights into factors driving entrepreneurial motivations in developing countries.
Standardized English, Global Englishes, and Education: Impacts and Empathy View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michelle Devereaux, Chris Palmer
Although language is codified by grammar and style books, it is not bound by these books. However, many tend to conceptualize languages as bound systems, typically defined by national and state boundaries. Yet language is a fluid, living thing; therefore, a global lens embraces a heteroglossic ideology, where languages aren’t seen as bound systems belonging to nation states. This paper considers how institutions, such as education, can adopt a global perspective on the English language. We share data collected on the topics of Global Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca delivered in a 10th-grade classroom at an International School in the U.S. The data illustrate how this curriculum productively complicated students’ understanding of global language standards and the use of English in global spaces. Our results show an increase in student recognition of the negative impacts of standard English on global languages and cultures; and yet, curiously, we also observed a parallel increase in students’ desire for everyone to use a standard lingua franca in their daily and professional lives. After exploring the multidimensional spaces of Global Englishes, we argue that critical empathy needs to play a larger role in understanding the spread of English, even outside of educational contexts. Rather than using a lens of traditional empathy, which may be uncritical and unconscious, we will consider empathy as translation. Such empathy examines the social, political, and historical contexts in which English moves through the world.
