Research has shown that agricultural education graduates are hesitant to enter the profession and seemingly quick to leave, often citing long work hours as a main contributing factor. As the shortage of agricultural teachers continues, there is concern over the balance of career and family and its effect on the profession. The purpose of this study was to examine the issue of career and family balance for Georgia agricultural teachers by gender. It was determined that Georgia agricultural teachers were working an average of 57 hours per week and 39 days per summer, with both genders being similar in the amount of time spent on the job. Teachers carried out traditional gender roles in family responsibilities, with females handling the majority of the housework and childcare and males handling the majority of farm and yard work. One third of respondents reported that it was always difficult or impossible to balance career and family.

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In North Carolina, secondary agricultural education programs can now offer a state adopted integrated biotechnology course entitled Biotechnology and Agriscience Research. Empirical evidence was needed to identify and describe factors related to the intent of agricultural educators to adopt this curriculum in order to assist teachers during this transition. North Carolina agricultural educators were randomly surveyed to determine their self-perceived level of knowledge, actual level of knowledge and perceived importance of integrated science competencies in the course. This descriptive correlational study described how agricultural educators perceived the course in fulfilling program needs, perceived barriers to teaching the course, and the likelihood of agricultural educators in North Carolina adopting the course. Exploratory research was conducted to identify factors that best predicted the intent of agricultural educators to adopt the course. Agricultural educators accurately perceive that they lack biotechnology knowledge but they support its importance and recognize the benefits of integrated curriculum in agricultural education. Agricultural educators perceive that funding, equipment and teacher knowledge are the largest barriers to adopting integrated science curriculum. Agricultural educators most likely to teach biotechnology have less years of teaching experience, have attended some biotechnology training, and perceive that the curriculum will fulfill their program needs.