Date of Award

5-17-2021

Document Type

Masters Project

Abstract

Military spouses live a frequently changing lifestyle filled with unpredictability that requires a great deal of sacrifice and support for their service member spouse. Many individuals who become military spouses have no prior knowledge of military culture or traditions and in turn find it difficult to integrate their outside personal identities with those oftheir military spousal roles and expectations. This study aimed to determine how military culture is communicated to incoming Air Force spouses and whatfactors impact military identity formationfor Air Force Spouses. The qualitative approach to research was done so through 10 in-depth interviews and analyzed through the lens of grounded theory and social constructionism. The research uncovered a correlation between perceived roles, expectations, and behaviors of a military spouse and identity dissonance. Findings from this analysis suggests that the social norms of military culture do in fact influence how a military spouse forms their identity or rejects their identity as a military spouse. The current findings from this study highlight some areas for Air Force leadership to be more proactive in how military culture is introduced to incoming military spouses. There are some clear barriers to military identity integration due to identity rejection. There is a need for better integration of military identity and outside civilian identities. There is a need for sharing military culture norms and breaking down the negative stereotypes seen in the media.

Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/11122/14562

Download

Share

COinS