Young Singaporeans’ Perspectives of Compulsory Military Conscription: How They Manage the National Service Experience in Relation to Their Education, Development and Careers

The aim of this study is to generate a substantive theory concerning how Singaporean conscripts manage their national service (NS) experience in relation to their development, education, and careers. It addresses three main research questions: What are conscripts’ perspectives on NS in relation to their personal lives and careers and their education and development needs prior to enlistment? How do conscripts perceive and cope with the two-year conscription experience? In what ways, if at all, do conscripts believe the conscription experience will influence their subsequent personal lives and careers? A grounded theory methodology was adopted. Data were collected using face-to-face interviews with a group of 21 conscripts in the Army. Other data sources included participants’ reflection journals and performance records. The major outcome of the study was the generation of the Theory of Selective Commitment, which posits that commitment (with its associated features) to NS is the key factor that determines how conscripts manage, appraise, and assimilate their NS experiences. Among the major findings are that - how the conscripts internalised the significance of service in NS was dependent on how the conscripts coped during training, how they appraised their NS experience and how they assimilated their roles as citizen soldiers. This in turn determined their level of commitment in terms of time and energy devoted to serving NS. Accordingly, a typology comprised of five types of conscripts was identified: advocates, adventurers, careerists, play-safes and challengers. Major implications for policy formulation, practice, and future research are drawn from the study.