From Combat to College: Making and Unmaking the Soldier/Student

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Constructing Student Identities in Policy Contexts

Abstract

In the current all-volunteer U.S. military, many low-income recruits enlist primarily for educational benefits. Yet many ex-soldiers often find that military training and combat complicate their ability to function in civilian schools. Using Lave’s (1991) analysis of apprenticeship, and Willis’ (1981) frame of cultural production, this qualitative research explores identities and practices of U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as they re-enter community colleges and university classrooms. In-depth interviews, classroom observation and analysis of everyday discourse of veteran support NGOs show disjunctures between soldiers’ lived reality and the discursive constructions of ‘warrior/hero’ and ‘baby-killer’. Student/veterans not only must contend with the rigid polarity of these identities, they also encounter educational institutions that do not easily respond to them as students.

Author

• Ellen Moore, University of California - Berkeley