Entrepreneurship education as a liminal experience: balancing uncertainty and safety in a student team

Purpose This paper presents a close-up study of how a student team experiences and responds to uncertainty in experiential entrepreneurship education (EE), arguing that these dynamics can be fruitfully analyzed through the lens of liminality. Design/methodology/approach The study follows Team 1: a group of six postgraduate students through a five-month course, using ethnographic fieldwork (participant observation, interviews and document analysis) to explore their experiences through phases of separation, liminality and reaggregation. Findings The study shows how the team faced uncertainty from the disruption of familiar educational norms and the need to embrace a both/and logic where a range of oppositions were brought together and de-differentiated in the entrepreneurial learning setting. As ambiguity heightened uncertainty, the team sought temporary comfort in unambiguity and either/or thinking, which affected their learning. Originality/value The study argues that experiential EE creates transformative experiences in students through devised uncertainty like a rite of passage. Applying liminality as a theoretical lens, enhances our knowledge of how students learn “through” entrepreneurship as they experience and address uncertainty through active initiatives and collective sensemaking. In that way, the study contributes to the ongoing discussion of student engagement and disengagement as well as the teacher’s job in EE, creating entrepreneurial learning environments that balance uncertainty with safety.