Michael C. Edwards

co-author of Educational Leadership: Global Contexts and International Comparisons (Volume 11: International Perspectives on Education and Society) and Preparing and Advancing Teachers in Agricultural Education

November 4, 2015

Edwards serves as professor and director of student teaching in the Department of Agricultural Education, Communications, and Leadership at Oklahoma State University. Prior to joining Oklahoma State University, he served as a faculty member at the University of Georgia and Texas A&M University. He earned a doctoral degree in agricultural education from Texas A&M University, and M.Ed. in vocational education and B.S. in agriculture degrees from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. Before entering academia, Edwards taught secondary agricultural education for 15 years in Texas. His research interests include student learning and achievement in agricultural education, preparation and early-careerinduction needs of agriculture teachers, student teacher-cooperating teacher relationships, and special needs and challenges of agricultural educators in post-socialist societies. He has worked on agricultural and rural development projects in Kenya, Mali, and Mozambique.

This volume of International Perspectives on Education and Society investigates the changing face of educational leadership from comparative and international perspectives. Various definitions of leadership have transformed the way that educators around the world think about teaching, administration, and policy in recent years. Yet, there is relatively little known about how educational leadership works in many specific systems, cultures and societies around the world. And, much of the published research and literature on educational leadership focuses on only a handful of countries and cultures even though empirical research suggests that leadership is differently contextualized by society, culture, and organizational environment. The chapters in this volume ask and answer two main questions: What is the difference between theoretical definitions of leadership and what works in different systems, cultures, and societies around the world? And, more importantly, how are both ideas about and evidence of educational leadership either the same or different across different national and cultural contexts?

Preparing and Advancing Teachers in Agricultural Education is a compilation of chapters written by 31 highly qualified teacher educators. However, it is also intended as a source for readership beyond just teacher educators. It serves as a collective knowledge of the steps the profession should take to prepare and advance teachers of agricultural education today. Within its pages, faculty members who specialize in agricultural education recognize the past, describe the present, and explore the future for their responsibility (and the responsibility of their universities) to prepare and advance teachers of agricultural and environmental sciences in the public schools, particularly public secondary schools.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2011-honorees/michael-edwards

Last Updated: 14 January 2022