Morten G. Ender

The Effects of Military Affiliation, Gender, and Political Ideology on Attitudes toward the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

The United States armed-forces-and-society intersection is explored comparing attitudes toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan among West Point, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), and civilian undergraduates. A survey was administered in January and February 2003 to determine if military affiliation is associated with attitudes toward sending troops into Afghanistan after the war started and Iraq before sending troops. Majorities of all students supported both war efforts, though United States Military Academy at West Point and ROTC cadets are somewhat more supportive of both wars compared to civilian students. However, most differences are explained by students’ gender and political affiliation, suggesting that differences between groups result from selection effects rather than cultural differences. The authors contend a fourth wave in civil-military affairs potentially has emerged in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 through a civil-military attitude fusion complicated by a gender-politics gap.

Expectations, Use, and Evaluation of Communication Media among Deployed Peacekeepers

As part of an experimental unit, over five hundred active- and reserve-component (AC, RC) soldiers deployed to the Sinai Desert in 1995 on a peacekeeping mission. While most junior enlisted personnel were reservists, leadership positions were shared between components. Before their departure, most soldiers had high expectations regarding their ability to use a variety of communication media to reach their families. While their reported use of communication media was less than what they had expected, almost all soldiers did use the telephone or other means to communicate with home during their deployment. Contrary to our hypotheses, communication media use was not strongly related to rank or component (AC, RC), though junior enlisted personnel were somewhat less likely than other ranks to use some communication media. As expected, married soldiers were somewhat more likely to use telecommunications than unmarried soldiers. While all forms of communication media were deemed useful for conveying information, more interactive forms of communication (e.g., telephone) were preferred for communicating with family and friends, especially with respect to time-sensitive or other more difficult issues.

Role of Group Affiliation and Gender on Attitudes Toward Women in the Military

The current study examined attitudes of West Point cadets (N = 218), Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets (N = 509), and non-military-affiliated students from civilian colleges (N = 598) toward a variety of roles that women may serve in the military. Respondents were queried whether a woman “should” or “should not” serve in the following military jobs: jet fighter pilot, truck mechanic, nurse in a combat zone, typist in the Pentagon, commander of a military installation, hand-to-hand combat soldier, jet transport pilot, air defense gunner, and crew member on a combat ship. A metric based on a sum of approval across all jobs indicated that women were significantly more approving than men; civilian college students were more approving than ROTC cadets; and West Point cadets showed the lowest overall approval.

Sociology in Military Officer Education

This essay introduces a special issue of Armed Forces & Society examining sociology at military academies around the globe. Articles represent nine countries—Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, the United States. We begin with a brief history of sociology and the military and growth of military sociology as a subfield, followed by the development of military academies in general and sociology at military academies more specifically. The essay concludes with six trends found across the nine nations and ten academies—the stigma of sociology; the cannibalization of sociology courses; co-optation of sociological concepts; charismatic leadership; radical social change; and revitalization.

Greedy media : Army families, embedded reporting, and war in Iraq

Abstract Embedded reporting in Operation Iraqi Freedom provided real-time coverage of soldiers in war that was viewed and read by publics around the globe. Most constituents, such as the military, media, and the larger U. S. public perceived this coverage as positive; however, live television coverage had an intense and uncalculated impact on some U.S. Army wives and others on a military post at the individual, community, and institutional levels. This study provides a qualitative perspective on U.S. Army wives (N = 23) and their children on a military post whose soldiers deployed in the earliest phase of the war in Iraq in 2003. Live coverage created three types of viewing for Army wives and their children—compulsive, controlled, and constrained—and hastened use of other types of communication media. Live coverage also contributed to the expansion of the traditional definition of the military family and extended the reach of the Family Readiness Groups and the role of the Rear Detachment Command. We argue for an extension of Mady Segals “greedy institution” application to the military family to include the mass media—specifically live television coverage of war.

Search Not for the Core in the Knowledge Frontier: A Reply to Schweingruber

Teaching Sociology, Vol. 33, 2005 (January:90-94) 90 IN HIS COMMENT on our paper, David Schweingruber argues that introductory textbooks do not adequately reflect the disciplinary core because the authors of such texts employ terms that extend beyond disciplinary boundaries. Moreover, he offers evidence purporting to show that the terms included in introductory texts do not appear frequently in the recently published articles of the discipline’s most prominent journals. But near the end of his commentary, he appears to cast aside both of these positions in favor of a belief that the core is to be found not in the concepts used in the discipline but in a particular way of thinking, one essentially defined by the indefinable. We are of one mind in reference to this last point but probably not in the way Schweingruber intended. Our contention has been consistent: the discipline fails to possess a core body of knowledge commonly recognized by all who study it that serves as the foundation upon which cumulative work will be based. In support of this conjecture we offer evidence drawn from our article (Keith and Ender 2004), which rests on an analysis of 35 introductory texts (16 published in the 1940s, 19 in the 1990s). Four findings of this work appear particularly noteworthy in light of the present discussion. The total number of concepts included only once (solitary concepts) did not decline between the 1940s and 1990s. The ratio of solitary-to-total concepts did not decline between the 1940s and 1990s. The ratio of solitary-to-core (commonly referenced) concepts did not decline between the 1940s and 1990s. The variability in the total number of concepts cited did not decline; both time intervals are characterized by a very low degree of consensus among concepts included in the texts.

Military Brats Film Representations of Children from Military Families

Thousands of films coverwar and the military, but fewhighlight military family life. This study reports a systematic content analysis of forty-six films between 1935 and 2002 that spotlight children, adolescents, teenagers, and adults from military-service-related families. The results show a diverse range of portrayals across military branches, wars, genders, races, ages, military ranks, roles, and familial relationships. Furthermore, cinematic demands of military family life are portrayed inconsistently with real life experiences reinforcing a modest civil-military gap. Finally, six patterned characteristics emerge from the content analysis including intergenerational military occupational linkages, social deviance, precociousness, social mobility, youth romance, and parent-child conflicts. The present study partially confirms studies of civilian youth in film suggesting a diverse cinematic experience at the teenage stage of the life course. The results highlight a struggle in the negotiation between self-conceptions and self-images of children from military families where a reinforced stereotype of “military brat” is constructed in American cinema.

Authorship and Affiliation in Armed Forces & Society: Volumes 1-25

Armed Forces & Society (AF&S), is a major scholarly outlet for social scientists interested in military subjects, and in 1999 completed 25 volumes of continuous publication. This article presents data on authorship and affiliations for volumes 1-25 of AF&S and compares the findings to studies of other scholarly journals. Topical areas of analysis include (co)authorship, sex configurations of (co)authors, and academic, regional, and institutional affiliations of authors. Results show the journal to be fairly international and highly interdisciplinary. Overall, AF&S is both similar and dissimilar along a number of sociodemographic dimensions compared with other sociology and specialty area journals.

Role conformity and creativity: Soldiers as administrators and caregivers after loss

Abstract Previous studies of loss in a military social context have focused on organizational and military unit responses to death and serious injury and bereavement among family members. Integrating structuralist and symbolic interactionist approaches, this study describes the demanding occupational role of army casualty assistance officers (CAOs). This unique military position has the concomitant obligations of administrator and caregiver to surviving family members following death, missing, or captured status of U.S. soldiers in both peace and wartime. The research design involved a qualitative content analysis of the role requirements described in CA 0 handbooks and responses to an open-ended questionnaire (N = 188) by CAOs who served the families of U.S. Army soldiers killed in three unrelated air disasters in Gander, Newfoundland; Lockerbie; Scotland, and Arizona, U.SA., between 1985 and 1990. CAOs are generally preoccupied with instrumental demands associated with their role. The role transcends th...

Cadet and Civilian Undergraduate Attitudes toward Transgender People A Research Note

We explore American military academy, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and civilian undergraduate attitudes toward transgender people in general, in the workplace, and in the military. Earlier this decade, the US military experienced both the repeals of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the exclusion of women from combat, yet transgender people are prohibited from serving openly in the military. This study explores tolerance toward perceived gender nonconformity by military affiliation, race/ethnicity, sex, religious affiliation, and political leaning. Most members of our sample, regardless of military affiliation, do not report that having a transgender person in the workplace would impact their job. At first glance, military academy and ROTC cadets are least tolerant of transgender people in the military and in society more generally. Further analyses shows that the impact of military affiliation is reduced substantially by controlling for background characteristics, especially political ideology and religious affiliation.