There are currently immense changes occurring in the agricultural sector, the effects of which are wide reaching and have the potential to impact all farms in some way. When planning the study, it was considered that this had the potential to be a major factor in the context in which lecturers were working. However, it has become evident that this is only one element of a much larger range of factors which influence pedagogy and the decisions individuals make about what and how to teach.
In basic terms, context can be defined as the circumstance or conditions in which something occurs, or the setting for an event. Lave (1988 p150) describes context as being composed of arenas and settings. The arena is the contextual aspects, which are “physically, economically, politically and socially organised and not directly negotiable by the individual”. The setting is created by the individual during interaction with the arena and with other individuals as they experience it.
