Forces Watch - 

WHY AND  HOW THE ARMED FORCES ENGAGE WITH SCHOOLS

The armed forces engage with schools and colleges in a wide variety of ways, from providing lesson plans and teaching resources, to presentation teams in assemblies, careers talks, away days, Cadet forces, etc.

For the armed forces, the primary purpose of providing resources and activities for schools and colleges is not to benefit the school.

A report published by the Ministry of Defence in 2007, called ‘Engagement with UK Schools’, stated that:

A ForcesWatch poster showing policy, cultural and other recent developments affecting the extent of military influence in young people's lives.

Rela Mazali -

A new movement of women is emerging in Israel, in interaction with an existing but unacknowledged movement of young people. The women are challenging the risks their state is prepared to take with lives. Among them, mothers and spouses are questioning the state’s use of their sons, daughters and partners in the military. Protesting the pervasive militarization of their society, they’ve begun to work on retracting the standing loan of Jewish Israeli lives to the military. The young people are intentionally avoiding enlistment in the Israel Defense Force. This composite movement is everywhere, destabilising the public/private, emotional/rational, male/female divides.

David Gee and Anna Goodman -

The risk of fatality in Afghanistan for recruits who enlisted into the British Army aged 16 and completed training has been twice as high as it has for those enlisting at 18 or above.

The increased risk reflects the disproportionately high number of 16 year olds who join front-line Infantry roles. This is the result of recruitment policies which drive young people with limited academic qualifications into the Army’s most dangerous roles. Those who enlist at 16 are effectively barred from entering many of the less risky support or technical roles due to lack of qualifications. Another probable contributing factor is the longer average career length of 16 year old recruits who successfully complete training, leading to more tours of duty in Afghanistan when compared with adult recruits.

Forces Watch -

This report investigates some of the main mental health effects of a career in the British armed forces during the last decade. It explores how widespread these effect are, whom they affect most, and why. It finds that harmful levels of drinking, as well as violent behaviour after deployment, are serious problems in the armed forces. Compared with the general population and with current personnel, former personnel are markedly more affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, harmful drinking, common mental disorders (types of anxiety and depression), and self-harming behaviour. Pre-enlistment adversity, exposure to warfare at close quarters, and loss of social support after leaving the forces are among the most potent risk factors. While many people in the armed forces have good mental health, some face substantially greater risks than others. The youngest recruits from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds are the group most at risk.

Brian McCarty -

WAR-TOYS: ISRAEL, WEST BANK, GAZA STRIP – Using principles of play and art therapy, children who have been affected by conflict become art directors for Brian McCarty’s photographs of toys found within warzones, placed and posed to recreate shared fears and witnessed events. The resulting images offer rare and fascinating insights into the contemporary experiences of girls and boys living on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

“My goal for WAR-TOYS is to change lives,” says artist Brian McCarty. The showing of work at Peanut Underground Art Projects and upcoming book release are the first volume in what will be a long-running project.

Daniel Bos was awarded ESRC +3 funding in 2011 to research the popular geopolitics of military video games. The research will specifically focus on the geopolitical and militaristic significance of commercial first-person shooter video games, such as ‘Call of Duty’. Furthermore, the project will use multiple, innovative methods to investigate players’ engagements with the games.
The research will contribute to current academic discussions by:

Hayley Dixon -

 Scientists are to spend £500,000 finding out if playing with toys like Action Man shape children's opinions on war and terrorism.

The two year study also plans to look at whether such dolls have a role to play in influencing the future of our armed forces.

The project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is the first analysis of the role of toys in the making of young people.

It's hoped the findings will be published in 2016 shortly after the expected withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, which itself will inform the research.

Professor Klaus Dodds, of Royal Holloway University in London, who insists the money is well spent, said: "We are not examining whether war toys are good or bad or the psychology of such play.