2019 Annual Conference

Military Education

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

This session examines the contradictions military women experience today working within a male-dominated organization and its impact on their ability to learn and contribute. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we will examine elements that inhibit gender inclusivity and spotlight contradictions that can lead to expansive transformation and new learning.

This session targets higher and adult education faculty, as well as adult learning practitioners who are interested in having a discursive interchange regarding the barriers that impact adult learners who are in the gender minority and how these barriers can impact what and how they learn and participate.

Learners will become familiar with how women manage their gender behaviors within the military and how this ever-present consideration serves to add unnecessary burdens on women and their ability to learn and contribute to male-dominated organizations. Learners will also be able to describe how CHAT defines the activity of “becoming a soldier” through the subject lens of women and the contradictions within the system that arise from this activity.

Even though the military has worked to establish policies enforcing equality and accommodation, women continue to experience contradictions and bias in the workplace. To examine how an organization operates one must scrutinize more than its established policies but also look at its culture to find enabling and disabling elements that govern its actions. Within this culture may lie interpretations, perspectives and meaning-making from underrepresented groups that may go unnoticed by the majority. If given a voice, these valuable inputs could help expand and transform perspectives held by the majority. With that in mind, how does being a woman impact their ability to learn, contribute and lead within the male-dominated, military organization? What specific elements within the military organization inhibit their learning and involvement?

To answer these questions, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory will be employed to examine potential contradictions that may exist between gender-inclusive policies and gender-exclusive practices within the military. By examining military mediating tools, as well as the impact of rules, community, and the distribution of work and power within the military to foster (or inhibit) gender-inclusivity, the presenter hopes to reveal contradictions that could lead to learning and transformation within the activity system.

This session will start with a brief synchronous survey to assess participants’ experiences with gender bias, culture beliefs and values within an organization. There will be a short presentation of gender issues within the military today. This will be followed by a brief review of CHAT (3rd generation) as well as a demonstration of CHAT employed in the context of women in the military. Lastly, the presenter will discuss future research and will open the forum up for Q&A.