This article concerns the rise of young entrepreneurship education programs in 1980s Sweden, which entered schools surprisingly early and quickly, backed by organized Swedish business. The increased popularity of entrepreneurship education toward the end of the twentieth century in many European welfare states is usually associated with a shift toward neoliberal, market-oriented, policies. It is argued here that an important reason for young entrepreneurship’s success was its ability to connect with the Swedish tradition of cooperation and democratic decision making, in combination with values such as individualism and competition. A case in point is the surprising compatibility between progressive pedagogical ideas and “neoliberal” entrepreneurialism. The article is based on a study of Ung Företagsamhet (Young Entrepreneurship, henceforth UF), the Swedish version of the American organization Junior Achievement, and the ambition of the consumer cooperative movement’s think tank, Koopi, to offer a different kind of entrepreneurship education. In the analysis, the concept of “the entrepreneurial self” is applied to these two different programs, and the results show how they clashed, but also overlapped, in ways that help explain the success of UF. The article is a contribution to our understanding of how entrepreneurship discourse emerged and manifested itself in everyday environments in the late twentieth century, and as such also contributes to the history of Nordic neoliberalism.

本文关注的是 20 世纪 80 年代瑞典青年创业教育项目的兴起，这些项目在有组织的瑞典企业的支持下进入学校的时间出人意料地早且快。二十世纪末，创业教育在许多欧洲福利国家日益普及，通常与向新自由主义、市场导向的政策的转变有关。本文认为，青年创业成功的一个重要原因是其能够与瑞典合作和民主决策的传统相结合，并结合个人主义和竞争等价值观。一个典型的例子是进步的教学理念和“新自由主义”创业主义之间令人惊讶的兼容性。本文基于对 Ung Företagsamhet（青年创业精神，以下简称 UF）（美国青年成就组织的瑞典版）的研究，以及消费者合作运动智库 Koopi 提供不同类型创业教育的雄心。在分析中，“创业自我”的概念被应用于这两个不同的项目，结果表明它们是如何冲突的，但也有重叠，这有助于解释用友的成功。这篇文章有助于我们理解二十世纪末创业话语如何在日常环境中出现和表现，因此也对北欧新自由主义的历史做出了贡献。