Traini, H., Stewart, J., & Velez, J. (2021). Navigating the social landscape of school-based agricultural education: A hermeneutic phenomenology. Journal of Agricultural Education, 62(1), 61-76. http://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2021.01061
Despite decades of research about the agriculture teacher shortage problem, we still know little about
the ways in which secondary agriculture teachers assume their roles and responsibilities as members
of social and cultural communities. Expanding how we have historically researched this problem is
crucial, especially if we hope to mitigate the teacher shortage problem. Therefore, the purpose of this
study was to use a hermeneutic phenomenology to explore the experiences of secondary agriculture
teachers as they navigate, manage, and attend to the landscape of practice in which they live and work.
Our specific research questions included, 1) how do agriculture teachers conceptualize the social
landscape of SBAE? and 2) how does the landscape influence the way they go about their work? When
interpreting the findings through the theoretical lens of Landscapes of Practice, five themes emerged:
1) multiple accountability partners, 2) different people, different expectations, 3) no room for error, 4)
arms race, and 5) validation. Our findings illuminate the struggles agriculture teachers encounter as
they manage the different people and practices of their work. As a result, we offer implications and
recommendations to help propel the profession forward and pose critical questions to further critique
current systems in SBAE.
 62.1.5.pdf | [ ] | 348 kB |