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The primary purpose of this study was to identify the emerging trends in education and agriculture and to determine their implications on the secondary agricultural education program. For this study, the researchers did a national solicitation for nominations with 1,160 national agricultural education leaders, state agricultural education leaders, university agricultural educators and agriculture teachers. Fifty education experts and 50 agricultural experts were identified and invited to participate in the study. Three rounds of a Delphi survey were used to identify the emerging trends. This study identified 12 emerging educational issues and six emerging agricultural issues. Educational issues included: finance and budget, teacher recruitment, teacher education, curriculum, educational leadership, teacher recognition and reward, teaching and instructional strategies, standards, legislation and policy, professional development, teacher attitude, and state leadership. Agricultural issues included: environmental influences on agriculture, technology and innovation in agriculture, food supply and safety in agriculture, trade issues in agriculture, youth in agriculture, and urban sprawl/impact on agriculture. It was concluded that many of the educational issues have not changed dramatically over the years. Agricultural issues seemed to have broadened from a production focus to issues that deal with agriculture's relationship to society.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the level of integration of academic education into agricultural education programs and to determine agriculture teachers' opinions regarding integration of academic and vocational education. Agriculture teachers who had Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) grants (N=32) to integrate academic and vocational education and those who did not have SREB grants (N=32) were compared. The level of integration of academics into the agricultural education programs was low. Teachers who had SREB grants to integrate academic and vocational education did not have more positive attitudes toward integration of academic and vocational education than teachers who did not receive SREB grants. Types of integration activities conducted, advantages of integration, and barriers to integrating academic and vocational education were also examined.

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