A Qualitative Look at Women Faculty in Joint Military Professional Education

This research is a qualitative phenomenology designed to discover the lived experiences of a minority but significant group, the women faculty associated with the intermediate and senior levels of Joint Military Professional Education (JPME). The theory guiding this study is from the social constructionism perspective of Berger & Luckman (1966). It consists primarily of data culled from semi-structured one-on-one interviews with female faculty members, carefully analyzed, and verified by the interviewees. In addition, a small focus group setting was utilized to collect data regarding specific topic areas identified in the interviews. Near simultaneously, common terms and phrases were collected from the research and culled into a visualization tool. While there is some existing research regarding women veterans and women students of JPME, the life experiences of these female faculty members are relatively unknown. Given the significance of women in the military and the significance of JPME to national defense these experiences are important to understand and learn from. This research is built around the central question: What are the lived experiences of female faculty members in the male normative organization of Intermediate and Senior JPME?