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Performing agriculture education reflections from women who teach agriculture in Australian secondary schools798.29 kB
Published Version (Advanced Access)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Performing agriculture education: reflections from women who teach agriculture in Australian secondary schools
Teachers and Teaching, Vol.32(1), pp.23-38
2026
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
This paper explores how women who teach agriculture in Australian secondary schools encourage girls to pursue a career in agriculture and bolster the pipeline of future agriculture professionals into this critical sector. The research aimed to better understand the potential influence of women who teach agriculture and how role models in schools can show girls the way into a male dominated industry. Data were drawn from teachers' reflections during a professional development programme which included a peer focus group, semi-structured interviews with teachers about industry engagement and teacher journals. An exploratory case study methodology was selected for this study and Butler's (2020) concept of gender performativity utlised to explore how female agriculture teachers construct their identities in the context of their work. Our analysis found that these teachers intended to 'break the cycle' of misinformation that informed stereotypes that excluded women from agriculture, both in the classroom and in the field. They (circum)navigated systems to ensure equitable access for girls to the worlds of agricultural work. This study showed how women who teach agriculture grapple with professional identity and how subtle acts of resistance built their confidence and competency to guide girls to aspire to careers in agriculture.
Details
- Title
- Performing agriculture education: reflections from women who teach agriculture in Australian secondary schools
- Authors
- M. Sullivan (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesB. Harreveld - Central Queensland UniversityJ. Manning - Central Queensland UniversityA. Cosby - Central Queensland University
- Publication details
- Teachers and Teaching, Vol.32(1), pp.23-38
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1080/13540602.2025.2489385
- ISSN
- 1470-1278; 1354-0602
- Copyright note
- © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- Data Availability
- The data that support the findings of this study (in addition to the data provided in the paper) are available on request from the corresponding author, M.S. The data are not publicly available due to information in the data set that could compromise the privacy and anonymity of research participants.
- Grant note
- The work was supported by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Australian Government [Women in STEM]
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991127095802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
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