The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers implement competition within their programs. A quantitative instrument was designed to carry out the four research objectives of the study. The instrument was distributed to a non-probability convenience sample of 72 SBAE instructors…

The traditions of the National FFA Organization (FFA) are grounded in agrarianism. This ideology focuses on the ability of farming and nature to develop citizens and integrity within people. Agrarianism has been an important thread of American rhetoric since the founding of country. The ideology has morphed over the last two centuries as the…

This research aimed to test a novel methodology to help raise awareness amongst one target audience (women in the New Zealand dairy sector) about the importance of coming forward for leadership positions and being inspired to develop their leadership. In so doing, tacit knowledge gained by leaders involving their leadership achievements was mined…

Educational achievement in rural America is one of the country's great overlooked challenges. Rural students achieve below the U.S. average on national tests, and high school dropout rates are higher and college attendance lower than they are in cities and suburbs. When the U.S. Department of Education asks low-achieving schools to be turned…

Horizontal evaluation combines self-assessment and external evaluation by peers. Papa Andina, a regional network that works to reduce rural poverty in the Andean region by fostering innovation in potato production and marketing, has used horizontal evaluations to improve the work of local project teams and to share knowledge within the network. In…

The national reclamation program was to encourage people to settle on the land, to enable them to own the land they farmed, and to spread the benefit of subsidized irrigation water to as many independent farm families as possible. The San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project, the largest pumped water diversion and water storage project, was…

This paper assesses the impact of the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in terms of its implications for the discipline of rural studies. In particular, it focuses on the position of agriculture in rural economy and society, the standing of the government after its management of the outbreak, and the performance of the new devolved regional…

A review of the literature indicates that individual ownership enterprises (projects) have been the dominant type of supervised occupational experience (SOE) program for agricultural students historically and up to the present time. These projects thrive most in small rural communities inhabited by farmers and small business owners. All the…

The 12 states comprising the North Central Region have been affected in similar ways by the farm crisis of the 1980s. Statewide surveys show sizeable proportions of farm operations that are experiencing moderately high levels of financial stress. The problems caused by chronic stress on family structure and functioning, the loss of mainstreet…