Perceptions of Global and Domestic Agricultural Issues Held by International Agricultural Journalists

The purpose of this study was to provide baseline knowledge of the prevalent global and domestic agricultural issues, ways to educate journalists about these issues, and sources of information used when reporting about agricultural issues, according to international agricultural journalists. The executives of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists served as this study’s population. The IFAJ is comprised of a membership of 31 countries that practice freedom of the press. A modified Delphi method with three rounds of data collection was utilized for this study. Qualitative feedback was provided by the executives in Round One. In Rounds Two and Three, quantitative feedback was used with the goal of forming consensus on the most important global issues and methods to educate journalists about these issues.A list of important domestic agricultural issues was supplied for 20 countries. The executives also generated a list of important global agricultural issues and ways to educate journalists about these issues. Important global agricultural issues included feeding a growing global population and water quality/quantity. Face-to-face methods of educating journalists were favored by the executives. The executives identified a wide variety of sources they use to report about global and domestic agricultural issues, including government agencies, farmers, universities, online sources, professional organizations, commodity group websites, and academic journals

EMPLOYMENT AND MARRIAGE: PATHWAYS OFF OF WELFARE?

Does the way women exit welfare affect their probability of returning to welfare? Using data drawn from the 1979 - 2000 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, I examine the effect of marital and employment transitions on recidivism rates. I find that women who combine employment and marriage after exiting welfare, in that order, have significantly lower risks of recidivism than other women. Women who marry but do not enter employment have higher recidivism rates than women who combine employment and marriage, but they are less likely to return to welfare than women who are only employed. The data suggest that simply encouraging marriage or women's employment may not reduce welfare recidivism. The best policy strategy to reduce welfare dependence and encourage healthy marriages may be to strengthen work support programs and improve the circumstances of employment (and opportunities for strong marriages) for low-income men and women

Developing Strong International Agricultural Education Programs by Understanding Cognition

International experiences provide culturally rich, complex situations for learners to process in both the affective and cognitive domains. By better understanding how learners process the information they receive in international settings, educators can develop quality international programs that encourage learners to more fully develop their cognitive abilities. The purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive relationships between participants’ learning styles, problem solving styles, and critical thinking dispositions in an international setting. Relationships were found between learning style preferences and critical thinking disposition, and learning style preferences and problem solving style. Given these results, instructors working in international settings should expect students to differ in terms of their cognitive processes and associated cognitive styles such as learning style. Instructors should be prepared to address these differences in style as they would in a traditional instructional setting. Further, instructors can use assessment tools to group students to work together most effectively and/or to achieve diversity in their thinking styles and approaches to solving problems

Bridging Borders: Organizing Short-Term Agricultural Communication Exchange Programs

This paper describes the efforts of the University of Florida (located in Gainesville, Florida) and the University of Guelph (located in Ontario, Canada, near Toronto) to jointly develop a unique pilot exchange program for undergraduate and graduate agricultural communication students. The program was designed to encourage students to think critically about agriculture, agricultural communications, and culture in each other\u27s countries. During this exchange, nine University of Guelph students traveled to Florida for one week during their winter breaks and six University of Florida students traveled to Canada during their spring breaks. The exchanges took place in back-to-back weeks. Students met with university administrators and agriculture industry representatives, toured agricultural facilities, and visited cultural locations. This paper details the planning process that culminated in the two-week program, provides students\u27 comments about what they learned during the study-abroad experience, and makes recommendations to faculty interested in organizing similar study-abroad programs