Examining the Presence of Youth-Adult Partnership in Secondary Agricultural Educations: A Longitudinal Study

The CROPS project began seven years ago with the intent of saving the lives of farmers and changing the behavioral safety intentions of teenage farm youth, through secondary agricultural education. Participating teachers from the ten-state region engaged in a three-day training that prepared them for content delivery through the tenets of the Youth-Adult Partnership (YAP) Theory. The purpose of the longitudinal qualitative study was to explore if the teachers a part of the CROPS project were engaging youth in the principles of YAP and to determine what elements of the theory of Authentic Decision-Making (Natural Mentors, Reciprocal Activity, and Community Connectedness) were present, through the interviews of randomly selected participating students (n = 263), over a six-year period, within 69 focus groups. After a thorough coding process, the students revealed 253 examples of YAP present. Natural Mentoring was determined to be the most prevalent and Authentic Decision-Making was deemed to be deficient. The interviews revealed growth in the presence of YAP over the six-year period, which is due to the modifications made in the training process; however, recommendations are provided to further elevate delinquencies and areas where YAP should be improved.