Abstract
This chapter compares two workshops that focus on training cultural competencies in a gendered context in culturally complex situations. The workshops used the same cases on gender and culture, but one course was given in the Netherlands and the other in Argentina. After running the workshops, the effect on cultural competencies was measured with FORCIT, a scale that measures, among other qualities, flexibility, openness, respect, curiosity, and trust. The results from the two countries are compared in order to determine the best practices for teaching gender and culture and to establish what contexts and situations impact cultural awareness and cultural competences. Culture training does indeed enhance awareness, but it does not automatically enhance competences or influence behavior. We find that awareness was enhanced in the Netherlands while students in Argentina developed both awareness and competences. In this chapter, we conclude with explanations and lessons learned.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The United Nations acknowledges the importance of gender. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) was the first to recognize the importance of gender mainstreaming and that armed conflict intensifies gender inequalities. Since then, seven resolutions have been adopted on women, peace, and security (1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122, 2242).
- 2.
According to the authors’ definition, “Political armies are military institutions that play an active and often decisive role in national politics, justifying this as a legitimate extension of their professional role.”
- 3.
Indeed, in regression analysis “sex” is no longer significant because “nationality” explains the variation in the dependent variable.
References
Badaró, M. (2010). Militares o ciudadanos. La formación de los oficiales del Ejército Argentino. Prometeo: Buenos Aires.
Badaró, M. (2013). Historias del Ejército argentino. 1990–2010: democracia, política y sociedad. Buenos Aires: Edhasa.
Bhagat, R., & Prien, K. O. (1996). Cross-cultural training in organizational context. In D. Landis & R. S. Bhagat (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (2nd ed., pp. 216–230). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bloom, T. M. E. (1965). Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. In The classification of educational goals. New York: David McKay Company.
Burk, J. (2001). Theories of democratic civil-military relations. Armed Forces & Society, 29(1), 7–29.
Carreiras, H. (2006). Gender and the Military. Women in the armed forces of western democracies. New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (2009). Gender: In world perspective. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press.
Dandeker, C. (2003). Femmes combattantes: problèmes et perspectives de l’intégration des femmes dans l’armée britannique. Revue française Sociology, 44(4), 735–758.
Diamint, R. (2008). La historia sin fin: el control civil de los militares en Argentina. Nueva Sociedad, 213(enero-febrero), 95–111.
Frederic, S. (2013). Las trampas del pasado: las Fuerzas Armadas y su integración al Estado democrático en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Holmes-Eber, P., Tarzi, E., & Maki, B. (2016). U.S. marines’ attitudes regarding cross-cultural capabilities in military operations: A research note. Armed Forces & Society, 42(4), 741–751.
Kruijt, D., & Koonings, K. (2002). Fuerzas Armadas y política en América Latina: perspectivas futuras. Iberoamericana II, 8, 7–22.
Masson, L. (2010). La transformación del rol de las mujeres en las Fuerzas Armadas Argentinas: hacia la construcción de un espacio mixto. Security and Defense Studies Review. Interdisciplinary Journal of de Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, 11(4), 43–56.
Masson, L. (2015). Saberes académicos, experiencias y militancias. Buenas prácticas en políticas públicas con perspectiva de género. Equidad de Género y Defensa: una política en marcha, 9(marzo), 33–40.
McFarland, M. (2005). Military cultural education. Military Review, 85(2), 62–69.
Ministry of Defence of Argentina. (2019). Personal correspondence.
Ministry of Defense. (2019). Het verhaal van Defensie. https://www.defensie.nl/overdefensie/feiten-en-cijfers. Accessed 7 Oct 2019
Moelker, R., Op den Buijs, T., Van Doorn, E., & van den Langenberg, K. (2018). Vissen in een diepere vijver. Breda: NLDA.
Ng, K., & Earley, P. C. (2006). Culture and intelligence: Old constructs, new frontiers. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 4–19.
Ofman, D. (2001). Core qualities: A gateway to human resources. Schiedam: Scriptum Management.
Salmoni, B., & Holmes-Eber, P. (2011). Operational culture for the warfighter: Principles and applications (2nd ed.). Quantico: Marine Corps University Press.
Schut, M., & Moelker, R. (2015). Respectful agents, between the Scylla and Charybdis of cultural and moral incapacity. Journal of Military Ethics, 14(3–4), 232–246.
Scott, J. W. (2010). Gender: Still a useful category of analysis? Diogenes 225, 57, 7–14.
Tweehuysen, J., Moelker, R., Bosse, T., Beek, P., van der Cuijten, E., & Roosendaal, L. (2016). Cultura Een onderzoek naar de effectiviteit van serious gaming bij de verwerving van cultural awareness en culturele competenties in onderwijssituaties. Breda: Netherlands Defense Academy.
United Nations Security Council. (2000). Resolution 1325 S/RES/1325. New York: United Nations. Available from http://undocs.org/S/RES/1325(2000.
Van der Zee, K., & van Oudenhoven, J. P. (2001). The multicultural personality questionaire: Reliability and validity of self- and other ratings of multicultural effectiveness. Journal of Research in Personality, 35(3), 278–288.
Weber, M. (1991). The nature of social action. In W. G. Runciman (Ed.), Weber: Selections in translation (pp. 7–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Masson, L., Moelker, R. (2020). Teaching Gender, Teaching Culture: A Comparative Study of Gendered Dilemmas in Culturally Complex Situations. In: Enstad, K., Holmes-Eber, P. (eds) Warriors or Peacekeepers?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36766-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36766-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36765-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36766-4
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)