In recent years, School-Based Agricultural Education has been facing a shortage of secondary teachers, due in part to low retention rates of these valuable educators. In light of this shortage, a multitude of research has been conducted throughout the country on challenges faced by agricultural educators, some as indicators of intent to leave the profession. This thesis sought to synthesize the research conducted on job satisfaction, retention, and attrition of School-Based Agricultural Educators order to identify prevalent problems facing these teachers which may contribute to the decision to leave the classroom. From the research, seven themes emerged as job-related factors contributing to agriculture teacher job satisfaction, retention, and attrition: Work-Life Balance, Workload, Time Management, Student Discipline, Administrative Support, Salary, and Student Motivation.

Farmers have traditionally depended on their families or paid employees to cover their extensive labor needs. Today, non-waged labor models are gaining popularity, especially among small, ecologically-oriented farms. Apprenticeships and internships can be a primary form of training for a population of new and beginning farmers, many of whom are entering the field without farming backgrounds. However, many question the sustainability and justness of these arrangements. As a new phenomenon, very little research examines the relationship between non-waged labor models like agricultural apprenticeships and alternative food movements. In this exploratory study, the author surveyed nearly 250 farmers growing for local markets in the Southern Appalachians to better understand their rationales for using waged or non-waged labor, and to explore how those decisions impact the local food movement developing within the region. The author finds that farmers using non-waged labor are smaller, less profitable, and more likely to be new to farming than their wage-paying counterparts, and that they choose to host non-waged laborers for both economic and noneconomic reasons. Ultimately, non-waged labor models create incremental steps towards changing the food system by educating new farmers and food systems advocates, increasing the transparency of agricultural labor practices, and giving small-scale farmers a chance to grow their business and get more products into the local economy. However, the non-wage labor model may not be sustainable in the long run, and it perpetuates injustices, such as the exclusion of those who can't afford to train without pay, and it should evolve as the food system evolves.

Agricultural education, originally the province of land grant institutions, has recently entered the liberal arts curriculum. This represents a profound shift from the origins of agricultural education, when it was intended primarily as vocational training for future farmers, and has important implications for the future of the American food system. The first chapter of this thesis addresses the history of agricultural education: what was it originally like, and why did it come to be heavily criticized in the late twentieth century? Formal agricultural education changed significantly in response to these criticisms, making it more environmentally sustainable and bringing it into liberal arts institutions. The Pomona College Organic Farm is representative of a broader student farm movement that has gained momentum since the late 1990s, and offers the chance to evaluate agricultural education in the liberal arts. This thesis includes a curriculum in sustainable agriculture that was led as a group independent study at the Pomona College Organic Farm in fall 2013 and reflections on the process of curriculum design and implementation.

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This three-article dissertation examined the perceptions of school-based agricultural education teachers in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama on self-efficacy and professional development activities since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first article was an examination of teacher self-efficacy in delivering instruction in three classroom settings: face-to-face, remote, and hybrid, which is a combination of face-to-face and remote simultaneous instruction. The second was a descriptive study of teacher experiences and perceptions of professional development activities related to instructional technology over the past two years. The third article examines the correlation between each of the teacher self-efficacy instructional setting constructs and perceptions of professional development experiences. The last chapter ties the three research articles together, concluding that teacher self-efficacy is stronger in face-to-face instruction and weakest in remote instruction. Key areas of low efficacy are in managing the hands-on components of an SBAE program, such as managing an agricultural mechanics laboratory and a greenhouse. When teachers receive follow-up and individual feedback from professional development leaders, higher self-efficacy is possible.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1959. / Extension Repository Collection. Typescript (carbon copy). eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [175]-177).

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Please refer to full text for abstract