Challenges of and Barriers to Entrepreneurship Education for Children of Labor: A Phenomenological Study

The aim of the present study was to explore educators’ lived experiences about the challenges of entrepreneurship education to children of labor. This qualitative research was performed using descriptive phenomenological approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. For this purpose, 15 educators experienced in teaching children of labor were interviewed, and the obtained data were analyzed by Strabert and Carpenter (2002) method. The analysis of the interviews led to the emergence of five main themes, namely personal and environmental challenges, content and procedural challenges, structural challenges, methodological challenges, and economic challenges and 25 subthemes including attitude change, peer influence, lack of attention to psychological characteristics, mistreatment of children of labor, parents’ resistance, lack of equipment, educators’ lack of familiarity with the life of children of labor, imaginative educational programs, failure to attend to children’s needs, short-term outlook on entrepreneurship education, invisible achievements of entrepreneurship education, placement problems, lack of attention to experienced educators, poor planning, mass education, legal and regulatory conflicts, weakness of tools related to teaching entrepreneurship to children of labor, failure to attend to the age of children of labor, lack of practical training, excessive emphasis on educator, lack of attention to participatory methods, lack of budget, severe financial needs of children of labor for daily wages, lack of social-financial support and short-term economic outlook.