Navigating the Social Landscape of School-Based Agricultural Education: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Abstract

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.