Understanding job satisfaction, stress, and burnout within agricultural education has the potential to impact the profession's future. Studying these factors through the theoretical lens of social comparison takes a cultural approach by investigating how agriculture teachers interact with and compare themselves to others. The purpose of this study was to determine if relationships existed between social comparison and job satisfaction and/or burnout among secondary agriculture teachers representing six states. Findings indicated that teachers were satisfied with their jobs and tended to engage most frequently in upward assimilative (UA) comparisons, leading to inspiration emotional outcomes. According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators (MBI-E), teachers experienced low levels of burnout related to personal accomplishment (PA) and depersonalization (DE), and moderate levels related to emotional exhaustion (EE). Seven moderate relationships were found between dimensions of social comparison and either burnout and/or job satisfaction.

The goal for this research synthesis was to introduce the concept of resilience to agricultural education and determine if further research is warranted on resilience and positive psychology as they relate to the agricultural educator. The current environment of public schools coupled with the ever-burgeoning responsibilities placed upon the shoulders of educators makes resilience an increasingly vital characteristic to the classroom teacher. Teachers who are resilient are able to persevere through adversity and overcome stress to find success. The study of resilience has a theoretical base in positive psychology (Snyder & Lopez, 2009). Effective coping behaviors used to manage daily stress are essential to teacher retention and job satisfaction for teachers (Carmona, Buunk, Peiro, Rodriguez, & Bravo, 2006). Based on this synthesis of research, a conceptual framework visualizing the relationship between teacher resilience and agricultural educator stress and burnout was developed as well as a list of recommendations for further research.

This phenomenological study of early career agriculture teachers sought to determine the meaning early career agriculture teachers ascribe to their time. Seven teachers with a range of experience from midfirst year to beginning of sixth year were chosen. Interviews were used to make meaning of their time. Five themes were found in the information: (a) the day consists of patterns that vary depending upon the time of the year; (b) there is a conscious allocation of work time; (c) the process of managing time adapts and evolves over time; (d) personal and social time for the teacher is woven into or around work ; and, (e) tensions exist between how teachers would like to spend their time and how they actually spend their time. Recommendations include taking stock of workload and personal time, identifying times that are most productive and adjusting their schedule to accommodate, developing a rhythm to their work, making decisions about how to spend time and realizing it is an evolving process.

The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the reasons students, identifying as non– White, made the decision to pursue a career in agricultural education. This phenomenological study allowed the researchers to obtain the overall phenomenon of the thought processes that encompass decisions of students of color when selecting an academic major in college. Participants described having external and internal value orientations toward college major choice. When a value orientation increased toward a major prior to college, participants tended to be more apt to pursue a specific degree program. It was concluded that in addition to particular value orientations, distinct barriers to the decision–making process also inhibit the choice of agricultural education.

The term ‘reflection’ is defined as a contemplation of one’s teaching craft with the view to improving it (Edwards & Thomas, 2010). Reflection is supported by a number of theories and is considered a key component of RTLB work. A community of practice (CoP), when used as a space for reflection, provides the potential for multiple and critical lenses to examine practice and enables a deeper, clearer understanding of casework. This article discusses some of the theory relating to reflection, positions reflection within a community of practice, and illustrates how it can be applied in the RTLB context.