Insights from Second Generation Agriculture Teachers on Career Choice and Identity

Abstract

The recruitment and retention of agriculture teachers has been a persistent problem for several decades, requiring unique approaches to solving this issue. This study sought to garner a unique prospective of why and how one enters the profession by understanding why second generation agriculture teachers (SGATs) chose to enter the profession after growing up with a parent who was an agriculture teacher. Through semi-structured interviews three themes emerged. The first theme was experiencing the profession and impact through the SGAT’s father influenced SGAT’s career decision. SGATs felt they were ahead of their high school peers, having learned content knowledge by growing up with their agriculture teacher parent. Second, SGAT’s fathers were role models to them, and they based their own teaching and life strategies off their experiences growing up. SGATs were better able to structure their classroom and lives off both the good and bad experiences growing up with their agriculture teacher parent. Third, SGATs unconsciously inherited identity and beliefs from their fathers. We recommend continued research into the retention of teachers and to recommend teacher recruitment campaigns from students’ points of view regarding teacher impact as that perspective had an impact on the SGATs.