Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Armed Forces & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ender, M. G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Military Brats

Film Representations of Children from Military Families

Morten G. Ender

United States Military Academy lm2643{at}usma.edu

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.

Key Words: film • military children • teenagers • military family • self-concept

Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 32, No. 1, 24-43 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X05277887
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Armed Forces & SocietyHome page
C. R. Kemble
Mutations in America's Perceptions of Its Professional Military Leaders: An Historical Overview and Update
Armed Forces & Society, October 1, 2007; 34(1): 29 - 45.
[Abstract] [PDF]