This book fills a void in the literature around how urban agricultural education can be used to create opportunities to educate youth and citizens who live in urban areas about growing food. To date, very little has been written about program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes. In fact, most of the journal articles and research to date has focused on access, contextual factors, sustainability, relevance of urban agricultural education, and the intersection of science of agriculture. This book will cover such topics as how urban youth learn science while engaged in urban agriculture programs, how such programs support youth in becoming interested about healthy eating and science more generally, and how to design urban agriculture programs in support of STEM education. The chapters in this book are written by educational researchers and each chapter has been reviewed by researchers and practitioners.

This book will fill a void in the literature around research and program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes within urban agricultural contexts. In particular, this book will cover topics such as STEM integration, science learning, student engagement, learning gardens and curriculum design.

Struggling to navigate the complex landscape of agricultural teacher education, scholars face a daunting challenge: the need for a comprehensive research synthesis tailored to their specific needs. While valuable, existing resources often need to provide the focused guidance required to address this discipline's myriad issues. This gap leaves scholars needing a clear roadmap for advancing agricultural teacher education, hindering progress and innovation in the field. Emerging Research in Agricultural Teacher Education revolutionizes the field of education through agricultural research. Offering a comprehensive synthesis of current research and proposing crucial areas for future investigation, this book serves as the definitive solution to the challenges plaguing scholars in the field. Consolidating decades of research and expertise into a single accessible volume, it provides scholars with the tools they need to navigate the complexities of agricultural teacher education with confidence and clarity.

"A university/community partnership in Rochester, NY was the context for this research addressing the development of collaboration between local elementary School 45 and the community's agriculture education initiative. At the school and community's request, a possible partnership was researched to find the appropriate linkage that would address both the school and community's needs. Participatory action research was the framework for the qualitative research methodology. Data are presented from various sources including extensive participant observation, field notes, in-depth interviews, and document review. The findings indicated diverse implications for the consideration of a school-community partnership, and highlighted the importance of organizational and community dynamics, ownership of information for decision making, balancing competing assets, and appropriate school curricula. Ultimately, it was assessed that a partnership is currently not a viable action for the community or the elementary school to take. This research also supports a larger understanding of the importance of community involvement, school policy, and the importance of environmental science education."--Abstract.

Following on from the preceding volume in this series that focused on innovation and implementation in the context of school-university-community collaborations in rural places, this volume explores the positive impact of such collaborations in rural places, focusing specifically on the change agency of such collaborations. The relentless demand of urban places in general for the food and resources (e.g., mineral and energy resources) originating in rural places tends to overshadow the impact of the inevitable changes wrought by increasing efficiency in the supply chain. Youth brought-up in rural places tend to gravitate to urban places for higher education and employment, social interaction and cultural affordances, and only some of them return to enrich their places of origin. On one hand, the outcome of the arguable predominance of more populated areas in the national consciousness has been described as “urbanormativity”—a sense that what happens in urban areas is the norm. By implication, rural areas strive to approach the norm. On the other hand, a mythology of rural places as repositories of traditional values, while flattering, fails to take into account the inherent complexities of the rural context. The chapters in this volume are grouped into four parts—the first three of which explore, in turn, collaborations that target instructional leadership, increase opportunities for underserved people, and target wicked problems. The fourth part consists of four chapters that showcase international perspectives on school-university-community collaborations between countries (Australia and the United States), within China, within Africa, and within Australia. The overwhelming sense of the chapters in this volume is that the most compelling evidence of impact of school-university community collaborations in rural places emanates from collaborations brokered by schools-communities to which universities bring pertinent resources.

This book is about the transition from teacher preparation to teaching practice in urban school settings. It provides a clear presentation of the challenges, resources, and opportunities for learning to teach in urban schools; examples of the experiences, perceptions, and practices of teachers who are effective in urban schools and those who are not; a detailed account of the journey of a team of teachers who transformed their practice to improve learning in a low performing urban school; an approach that can be used by novice teachers in joining a teacher community and making the transition from preparation to practice; and perspective on leadership that can be used to create a context for transforming teacher professional development in an urban school district. Learning to Teach in Urban Schools offers rare insight into how teachers can transform their own practice and in the process, transform the culture of low performing urban schools.

The focus of this book is on the ways in which service learning and multicultural education can and should be integrated so that each may be strengthened and consequently have greater effect on educational and social conditions. It offers a significant attempt to forge a dialogue among practitioners of service learning and multicultural education. The overriding theme is that service learning without a focused attention to the complexity of racial and cultural differences can reinforce the dominant cultural ideology, but academic work that seeks to deconstruct these norms without providing a community-based touchstone isolates students and schools from the realities of the larger communities of which they are part. Although the chapter authors provide varied perspectives on the benefits and challenges of integrating multicultural education and service learning, they all are committed to a vision of education that synthesizes both action and reflection. None of the authors pretend to have all the answers to what this integration should look like, nor do they believe that today's social problems are easily ameliorated through education. Rather, they share theories, practices, failures, and triumphs in order to further the conversation about the importance of aligning what educators say about the world and how they act in and on it. These authors share the view that multicultural education is truly transformative for students only when it includes a community action component, and likewise, service learning is truly a catalyst for change only when it is done from a multicultural and socially just perspective. It is their hope that the ideas explored in this book will further the work of those who share a commitment to the integration of action and reflection.