Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identity Formation in the Military

过去十年的政策变化？比如女人？以及为少数民族和宗教少数群体提供新的便利——这些都使有关军人身份的问题成为全国讨论的焦点。这些政策允许士兵表达他们的个人身份；然而，他们也挑战了人们对士兵的普遍看法，引发了担忧和可能的冲突。这个项目考察了重新社会化和适应的大趋势如何在新兵的日常生活中发挥作用。该项目调查了美国西点军校预备学校（USMAPS）即将入学的学员候选人的经历。该项目研究了USMAPS如何将学员候选人（重新）社会化，使其成为士兵和未来的军官，以及学员候选人如何重新塑造个人的自我定义和日常生活，这些学员的平民身份受到严格的制度背景的限制。该项目将研究学员在为未来的军事服务做准备时如何解释和应对这种再社会化。研究结果将有助于理解军队和其他现代机构如何使新参与者社会化，以开发适合新机构角色的人力资本。本项目采用民族志田野调查、深度访谈和定量文本分析来解决有关社会化进入军队的问题。实地考察包括参加学员候选人的学术、体能、性格和军事发展训练。该项目将与来自不同社会背景的学员候选人进行100多次面试，并与工作人员进行额外面试。该项目还将包括40个家乡访问，以观察学员候选人在机构环境之外的行为，参观他们的社区，并采访家庭成员，了解他们如何看待学员候选人的职业选择以及他们注意到的行为变化。该项目还采用定量文本分析来研究与西点军校和美国军队中妇女和少数民族融合有关的当代和历史文献。项目发现将有助于组织、多样性和文化的社会学文献，特别是当它们涉及到美国关键机构的再社会化时。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Policy changes in the past ten years ? such as women?s admission into combat roles, and new accommodations for ethnic and religious minorities-- have brought questions about military identity to the forefront of national conversation. These policies allow for soldiers to express their individual identities; however, they also challenge popular conceptions of soldiers, raising concerns and possible conflict. This project examines how larger trends of resocialization and accommodation play out in the day-to-day lives of new soldiers. The project investigates the experiences of incoming cadet candidates at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School in West Point (USMAPS). The project examines how USMAPS works to (re)socialize cadet candidates into soldiers and future officers, and how cadet candidates, whose civilian identities are constrained by a regimented institutional context, re-fashion personal self-definitions and routines. The project will study how cadets interpret and respond to this re-socialization as they prepare for future military service. The findings will contribute to understanding of how the military and other modern institutions socialize new participants to develop human capital suitable to new institutional roles. This project uses ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and quantitative text analysis to address questions regarding socialization into the military. The fieldwork involves participating in cadet candidate academic, physical, character and military development training. The project will conduct over 100 interviews with cadet candidates from a variety of social backgrounds, as well as additional interviews with staff. The project will also include forty hometown visits to observe cadet candidate behavior outside of the institutional setting, to see their neighborhoods, and interview family members about how they perceive the cadet candidate career choices and any changes they have noticed in behavior. The project also employs quantitative text analysis to study contemporary and historical documents related to the integration of women and minorities at West Point and in the U.S. military. Project findings will contribute to sociological literatures on organizations, diversity and culture, particularly as they relate to re-socialization into critical U.S. institutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.