Entrepreneurship Education and Regional Inequality in China

Entrepreneurship education is often presented as a route to employability and innovation, yet its transformative capacity depends on the regional and institutional conditions through which it is enacted. This comparative case study examines Hangzhou Normal University (HZNU) and Chongqing Normal University (CQNU), two teacher-education institutions located in contrasting innovation ecosystems. Drawing on regional political economy, critical policy analysis, and Fraser’s framework of redistribution, recognition, and representation, the article analyses 20 policy and institutional documents and 32 semi-structured interviews, supplemented by publicly available contextual information. The cases suggest that HZNU can connect entrepreneurship education to a dense digital-economy ecosystem, whereas CQNU works through a thinner network and a stronger orientation towards employability, local service, and community development. The normal-university mission further makes teaching, postgraduate study, and public-sector careers important reference points, while making education-related and community-oriented entrepreneurship especially salient. The comparison indicates that entrepreneurship education may reproduce regional inequality when resources, evaluation criteria, and entrepreneurial imaginaries privilege coastal high-tech models. It can contribute to education as change only when policy redistributes resources to strengthen substantive capabilities, recognises locally grounded forms of value creation, and includes less advantaged universities and communities in decision-making.