Defining Academia Influences on Mobility, Identity, and Culture of Deaf Scholars in Higher Education

• In Event: 25.074 - Deaf and Hard of Hearing Research Paper Session

Abstract

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to understand experiences and define factors that work for, or against, a Deaf faculty’s academic mobility and culture. Data were gathered from 55 Deaf faculty who taught in various colleges and universities in America through a survey and from interviews. The data results from the survey were inconclusive and made it difficult to test for specific research questions, so frequencies were reported instead to show the range of answers by the participants. The qualitative questions from the survey were coded with the qualitative interview data. The coding process resulted in four themes, Cultural Competence, Economic Issues, Elitism, and Collaboration and four subthemes which were under cultural competence – Accessibility, Burden, Audism, and Proxy.

Authors

• Trisha Jane Houston, California State University - Fresno

• Nancy Akhavan, California State University - Fresno