Empowerment of women military spouses in higher education pursuits: A narrative inquiry.
Abstract
There are a number of challenges associated with being a military spouse. Military
culture prioritizes the needs of service members over those of military spouses. The cost
of traversing this path is the sacrifice of personal goals and aspirations to tend to the
needs of their service member and other family members. The cultural expectation of
military spouses extends to the higher education realm, an area where ample provisions
and extensive scholarly research exist on the needs and desires of service members and
veterans. Colleges and universities typically have programs and policies geared towards
assisting military and veteran students, they place little emphasis on understanding the
needs or aspirations of the military spouse student demographic. Furthermore, the
majority of military spouses are women, so military and higher education culture
perpetuate a systemic inequity based on gender.
Subject
Military spouses
Education, higher