The Interaction of Academic and Professional Identities
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Abstract
The Military Academy of Lithuania is one of the youngest higher educational establishments where professional military studies are combined with academic ones. The aim of the article is to analyse the process of the creation of a new type of collective identity, observing the main factors and peculiarities of the process. The attention is focused on value orientations of the military and their influence on organizational identity of the Academy.
The Armed Forces, as an organization, has experienced a lot of transformations in its structure and mission. Despite this, the identity of the military has been formed, in essence, on a masculine background. Considering the peculiarities of the aim and composition, the collective identity of the military has been created on the basis of specific values, such as duty, responsibility, discipline, courage, loyalty, power, etc. The academic identity has been set up on the basis of its different social roles, presuming other priorities in the system of values: i. e. respect, tolerance, truth, justice, freedom, creativity and critical thinking. Thus, framing of the united identity of the Academy is a complex and dissonant process.
Postmodern societies face global political transformations and new threats that have brought about new military missions and tasks of the present Armed Forces, introducing changes into their structure with the aim of forming professional military troops that are ready to participate in different international military operations. The paradigm of the postmodern military predetermines qualitative transformations in the system of values in shaping the new military identity. The new identity of the military should be based on universal human virtues that have brought about changes in the system of military education.
The Military Academy of Lithuania was established when the issues of national identity and the purpose of national security policy became very important, as well as the issues of international cooperation and the creation of the civic society. The national identity and the identity of military started to be constructed on different social backgrounds: those of modern, late modern and postmodern societies. Moreover, the collective identity of the Military Academy of Lithuania is an interaction between both military and academic identities where the first is still the dominant one. A postmodern paradigm of the military presupposes the development of the traditional military identity on the basis of human values that will inevitably result in the increasing role of academic identity in this creative process.
The Armed Forces, as an organization, has experienced a lot of transformations in its structure and mission. Despite this, the identity of the military has been formed, in essence, on a masculine background. Considering the peculiarities of the aim and composition, the collective identity of the military has been created on the basis of specific values, such as duty, responsibility, discipline, courage, loyalty, power, etc. The academic identity has been set up on the basis of its different social roles, presuming other priorities in the system of values: i. e. respect, tolerance, truth, justice, freedom, creativity and critical thinking. Thus, framing of the united identity of the Academy is a complex and dissonant process.
Postmodern societies face global political transformations and new threats that have brought about new military missions and tasks of the present Armed Forces, introducing changes into their structure with the aim of forming professional military troops that are ready to participate in different international military operations. The paradigm of the postmodern military predetermines qualitative transformations in the system of values in shaping the new military identity. The new identity of the military should be based on universal human virtues that have brought about changes in the system of military education.
The Military Academy of Lithuania was established when the issues of national identity and the purpose of national security policy became very important, as well as the issues of international cooperation and the creation of the civic society. The national identity and the identity of military started to be constructed on different social backgrounds: those of modern, late modern and postmodern societies. Moreover, the collective identity of the Military Academy of Lithuania is an interaction between both military and academic identities where the first is still the dominant one. A postmodern paradigm of the military presupposes the development of the traditional military identity on the basis of human values that will inevitably result in the increasing role of academic identity in this creative process.
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Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
