Teaching values in agricultural education

The major purposes of this study were to: (a) determine perceptions of agricultural education teachers nationwide as to what values should be taught to students enrolled in high school agriscience courses; (b) identify in which component of the agricultural education program should these values be taught; and (c) identify if differences existed in perceptions of teachers according to selected demographic variables and teacher behavior.;The design for the study was descriptive survey, using a mailed questionnaire to gather data. The target population for the study was secondary agricultural teachers who taught in public secondary schools in the United States during the 1997-98 school year. Two-hundred teachers were randomly sampled from the population. The sample was also proportional and stratified by state. A 71% response rate was obtained.;Most of the agriculture teachers in the United States who taught in 1997-98 were middle-aged, white males who taught agriculture for an average of 14 years. The average school size where these agriculture teachers taught was 750 students, and enrollment in agriculture represented nearly 20% of the total school population.;As a group, agriculture teachers in the U.S. agreed that the 21 values identified in this study were important characteristics which should be taught to young people studying high school agriculture. They perceived the most important values were responsibility, honesty, courtesy, and respect. The least important values to be taught were friendship, generosity, and freedom.;Agriculture teachers perceived that the most appropriate component for teaching many of the values was the FFA organization. This was evidenced by the finding that over three-fourths of the teachers perceived all of the values (except freedom) could be appropriately taught in this component.;Although agriculture teachers perceive that the FFA organization was the best component for teaching many of the values, a number of the values can be taught in the classroom, laboratory, and SAE program. Teachers tended to agree on the importance of the 21 values regardless of teacher characteristics.;In general, teachers who perceived that they exhibited a certain behavior tended to have a positive perception toward including that value (or a related one) into the agricultural education curriculum.