Comparison of United States and Latin American undergraduate students’ understanding, attitudes and perceptions of global agricultural issues and their attitude to engage as global citizens

Abstract

Global trends are demanding from agricultural students to have a broader perspective of agriculture, competitiveness and to be responsible citizens of the world. This has pushed academic institutions around the world to take actions and steps to internationalize their undergraduate curricula to keep up with global trends in the world, including study abroad programs, internships, international courses, international students, foreign faculty members, and others. Furthermore, the world is demanding for global citizens, people who feel part and responsible of a world without borders. The purpose of this study was to compare United States (U.S.) and Latin American (L.A.) students’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs toward international agricultural issues and their attitudes to engage in society as global citizens. Overall students’ results indicated lacking knowledge in both academic institutions, only 3.6% of the population obtained a passing score above 60%. Regarding the students attitudinal conditions, students score positive attitudes and beliefs of international agricultural issues but mix feelings regarding attitudes toward global citizenship. Nonetheless, scores by U.S. and L.A. students on all constructs (knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of international agricultural issues, and attitude toward global citizenship) were found to be significantly different (p < .05). Furthermore, the stepwise multiple linear regression indicated the predictors of university of enrollment, and students’ attitudes and beliefs of international agricultural issues were significantly related to the students’ global citizenship, F (3, 1194) = 83.04, p = .01, and explained 17% of the variance in the multiple linear regression model. The dependent variables of knowledge and gender were excluded as their contribution was minimal. Global citizenship attitudes and behaviors are built from the person attitudes, beliefs and knowledge. These results suggest that positive and open-minded attitudes and beliefs of international agricultural issues should be balance by academic institutions with the needed knowledge to prepare U.S. and L.A. students’ for the demands of the agricultural industry, locally and globally, especially to build a better world in developing and developed countries in the upcoming years as global citizens.

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Keywords

International agricultural issues, Knowledge, Global Citizens

Citation