Forbilder og danning i profesjonsutdanningene: Casestudie – Krigsskolen

This research paper investigates the meaning of role models in higher education. As a case, the Norwegian Military Academy (NMA), which educates military officers for the Norwegian army, is used. Particularly investigated is how role models can be seen as resources in the “learning landscape” surrounding the army officer cadets through their 3 years of learning and Bildung processes. Data used in this work stem from an ethnographic fieldwork following a class of cadets at the NMA through their practical training, off-campus. Officer cadets in interviews report both intentional and unintentional use of role models as a resource in their learning landscapes. By critical educational interpretation of this ongoing practice, using the frame of Wolfgang Klafkis Bildungstheory and “the perfect action principle”, the relationships between this practice and the NMA’s own Bildungideals are questioned. Role models are at the NMA linked to their own leaders, culture and practice. This narrows what is valid practice and can enforce a self-driven power structure and a one-dimensional understanding of how leadership should be performed, where only people within this culture can be seen as participants. We argue that the risks of this NMA practice are related to organisational narcissism and a possible distorted reality orientation, where the NMA fails it’s given educational tasks related to the need of the society and future demands of war.