Identifying International Agricultural Concepts for Secondary Agricultural Education Curriculum

Abstract

The globalization of the agriculture industry has created an emerging need for agricultural education in the United States to take a more globalized approach to prepare students for future careers in agriculture. The purpose of this study was to identify international agricultural concepts for secondary agricultural education curriculum. A Delphi study was used to obtain a general consensus by a panel of experts, and 24 overarching concepts were identified to incorporate into an internationalized secondary agricultural curriculum within the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Career Cluster. The overarching concepts were placed into five categories including: (a) production, (b) business, (c) culture, (d) environment, and (e) global awareness. We recommend the 24 concepts be used by curriculum specialists to internationalize secondary curriculum for school based agricultural education (SBAE). Future research should investigate the utility of the concepts and best practices for teaching international content in SBAE.