From agricultural education to the environment New challenges, new identities …

Abstract For agricultural colleges, the environmental issue is an external challenge which comes from outside colleges as well as the professional agricultural world. This raises the question of what conditions would be required for agricultural colleges to face this challenge. As this requires the study of the manner in which secondary agricultural education integrates environmental questions, a three-fold approach has been adopted: - A study of the historical development of teaching in this area, including the history of each institution, based on its own archives. - A series of interviews with everyone in a position of responsibility in these institutions concerning the present situation and prospects for the future. These first two approaches are based on traditional methodology. - A third approach proposed was a “research action”: a group of teaching staff from various establishments were put together on a voluntary basis. With help from the researchers, this group organized a series of training days...