Shifting the Dialog, Shifting the Culture

Pathways to Successful Postsecondary Outcomes for Deaf Individuals

Stephanie W. Cawthon, Carrie Lou Garberoglio

• Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781944838126
• eBook ISBN:
  9781944838133
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In this volume, Stephanie W. Cawthon and Carrie Lou Garberoglio discuss the individual and systemic factors that both facilitate and inhibit the attainment of postsecondary education, training, and career goals for deaf individuals. Real-life examples and current research are combined in this consideration of the interactions between individuals and the many layers of the overall system in which they navigate.
               In addition to using a systems theory approach, the authors employ resiliency models that emphasize how deaf individuals persist through the transition process amidst the barriers that reside within larger educational and social systems. Employment, independent living, and community involvement are a few of the postsecondary outcomes that are covered. Shifting the Dialog, Shifting the Culture addresses critical issues that influence how deaf individuals reach their postsecondary goals and is designed for a diverse audience that includes professionals who work (or are training to work) with deaf individuals, policy makers, as well as federal and state personnel.

Introduction

1

Key Points

• The current picture of how deaf individuals reach their postsecondary goals is incomplete.

• Using a systems approach to analysis, this book will help to “unpack” what we know about the path to postsecondary outcomes for deaf individuals.

• Resiliency models help frame our conversation in a way that honors the strengths of deaf individuals as well as acknowledges the barriers that reside within larger educational and social systems.

THIS BOOK provides an in-depth discussion of issues that impact post-secondary outcomes for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing (deaf individuals),¹ including further education, training, employment, independent living, and community involvement. Although there are several effective books that relate to the postsecondary transition process for deaf individuals, Shifting the Dialog, Shifting the Culture looks more systemically at the factors associated with positive postsecondary outcomes.² This book is designed for a diverse audience, including professionals who work (or are in training to work) with deaf individuals, as well as federal and state personnel. Without a strong understanding of the current research, policy-makers cannot make informed decisions about the types of programs or services that may best facilitate postsecondary success for deaf individuals. We hope that this book can provide some needed perspective on what supports are already available as well as the types of barriers that reduce access to postsecondary opportunities for deaf individuals.

This chapter lays the groundwork for what we know about post-secondary education and employment for deaf individuals. We introduce key theoretical perspectives and share current national data about post-secondary outcomes, including enrollment in and graduation from training and education programs, entry into the workplace, and independent living. We identify some knowledge and skills gaps many deaf individuals share and describe how this book seeks to fill some of those missing puzzle pieces in understanding what happens in the journey from high school to postsecondary experiences. This book brings together current research, along with stories from the field, to help readers understand important factors that influence postsecondary outcomes for deaf individuals. The stories from the field that are interwoven throughout this book in quotes, but are otherwise unattributed, come from a national needs assessment that our research team conducted in 2012 (Cawthon & the PN2 RES Team). More than 1,500 deaf individuals, their parents, and affiliated professionals participated in surveys, interviews, and focus groups across the nation. The full report of this needs assessment, available online, provides more detail on the data collection methods.

This book views the postsecondary transition process and outcomes for deaf individuals through two lenses. We use a systems theory approach to explore important themes in the transition process, explaining the purpose of this theory as well as ways in which using an ecological approach influences the structure of the book. We also emphasize a resiliency (vs. deficit) perspective, which stresses how deaf individuals persist through the transition process. Both of these perspectives are described in further detail at the end of this chapter.

What Do We Know about Postsecondary Education and Employment Outcomes for Deaf Individuals?

Many researchers in the field start the conversation about deaf education with basic demographics: descriptive statistics that provide an overview of processes and outcomes for deaf individuals. However, from a numbers perspective, large-scale data collection approaches provide different perspectives on what is happening with deaf individuals during transition—the journey of moving from youth to young adult and the academic, vocational, and personal outcomes resulting from the process.

• Deaf individuals tend to do well with high school completion, with recent estimates indicating that the majority, more than 70%, of students successfully received a complete high school diploma or certificate (Newman et al., 2011).

• Postsecondary training, known to be essential to higher employment rates and promotion later in life, has increased in recent years, with an estimated 75% of deaf individuals enrolling in some kind of post-high school education or training (Newman et al., 2011).

• Postsecondary degree completion is a critical step in successful transition; without credentials, it can be challenging to gain entry into some career fields. About half of deaf young adults completed some type of postsecondary training, with just over a third completing degrees from either a two- or four-year degree program (Newman et al., 2011).

• Employment outcomes for deaf individuals are also on the rise, yet still show a great deal of variability across state contexts and career clusters.

• Extracurricular involvement and community membership continues to be an important part of the lives of deaf individuals. At rates higher than that of many other disability groups, 34% of deaf young adults volunteered or participated in a community service activity (Newman et al., 2011).

A person’s journey from adolescence to young (or older!) adulthood also has meaning beyond a set of statistics. Definitions of successful outcomes can include literacy attainment, academic outcomes, and job placement; however, it is also about more than that. Consider the following perspective:

. . . and these kids never cease to amaze me in their full acceptance of who everyone is and their own limitations and the abilities to succeed at whatever range that looks like without putting one another down. (Professional in higher education)

What Is the Gap That This Book Is Seeking to Fill?

The literature has, to date, focused on individual components of the developmental process. What this book hopes to do is to look holistically at the journey toward postsecondary outcomes for deaf individuals in a way that considers the interaction between individuals and the many layers of the overall system in which they navigate. Each chapter in this book delves into the factors that affect postsecondary education and workplace attainment for deaf individuals in further detail, drawing upon evidence from across different perspectives. Furthermore, this book seeks to bring together our “right brain” and “left brain” knowledge, expanding our understanding to include both the emerging data from the research field and the stories and experiences of individuals, families, and professionals. We are also mindful of those things that are perhaps not measurable, or not a part of our evidence base for transition with deaf individuals, as follows:

what you guys are doing there to break down those sorts [of ] . . . attitudinal barriers. Build up expectations, not only of the students themselves, so they cannot be limited, but also of the environment; [the] postsecondary environment in particular. Employers maybe. Erase some of the artificial constructs that stand in their way because of people’s attitudes about deaf and hard of hearing. (Professional in higher education)

What this quote offers us is both an opportunity and a word of caution. First, the opportunity: Circumstances affect an individual’s journey, and “nailing down” what is actually constructive in each individual’s situation can be both challenging and complex. We seek to understand commonalities among all young adults as well as those characteristics that are unique to deaf individuals.

This book is designed to offer opportunities for reflection as well as deepening one’s understanding of transition for deaf individuals. The chapters begin with a brief synopsis, a kind of road map, with some key points to look for when reading the chapter. We discuss the rationale for including this focus within the book, illustrating its importance or function within the postsecondary transition process for deaf individuals. Where relevant, we provide stories from the field or vignettes that capture dimensions that we intend to expand upon in the primary narrative. The chapters include a discussion of demographics: Who are the individuals, and where are the institutions that are involved in preparing deaf individuals for their futures? Throughout the book, we include elements, such as definitions of key concepts, case law, historical context, research summaries, and available data from both within and outside of the field.

Starting with Chapter 1, the book moves through different layers of the ecological system, going from individuals, to families and communities, to schools and the workplace, to state and federal systems, and to specific times and places in history. We encourage readers to proceed chronologically through the chapters, as they necessarily build upon each other, as we move through the system layers. The Conclusion pulls together the shared themes discussed in individual chapters, highlighting places where advances may need to be made, or analyzing what is known and what needs to be known about supporting positive postsecondary outcomes for deaf individuals.

Theories That Guide This Book

Theories are ideas that we have about how the world works or ways to organize our thinking about a behavior. Theories can feel lofty, out of reach, and disconnected from our daily practice. Some theories are broad and explain how we, as humans, function on a very basic level. For example, we may be familiar with science-based theories, such as the theory of gravity that explains how we remain tethered to the earth. Some theories are more specific and focus on a particular behavior or phenomenon. When studying people, we often draw upon theories about why people act a certain way or have different kinds of life outcomes. For example, there are theories about the relationship between exercise and weight loss or about what instructional strategies can help students learn mathematics content. These theories may be less dramatic than explaining gravitational pull, but they are useful in helping us understand ideas about cause and effect between current actions and future events.

This book utilizes two primary theoretical frameworks in its discussion of postsecondary outcomes for deaf individuals: systems theory and the resiliency model of development. Although there are several theories or paradigms that are active in the field, we feel that these two approaches capture both the complexity of the topic and the disposition that we hope to emphasize in this discussion.

Systems Theory

Ecological systems theory (shortened to systems theory) comes from the fields of biology and ecology but has applications in many other fields, including education, sociology, and human development. Because transition is a developmental process, one that includes not only achieving specific tasks, but also developing identity and leveraging internal and external resources, this discussion benefits from a theory that acknowledges that not only is an individual’s journey influenced by outside factors, but it is also elicited by the individual’s unique characteristics.

One primary premise of systems theory is that there is an interaction between the individual and many people, policies, and institutions during the course of development. An advantage to using systems theory to study the transition process is that it is specifically designed to get people thinking about complex issues. Systems theory is not prescriptive, in that it does not say specifically how different factors affect an individual’s development; however, it does provide a way to describe, organize, and integrate influences both on a local level and at a broader societal level.

Systems theory was first summarized in The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design (1979), the seminal work of Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner, who led much of the work related to the theory and the study of human development throughout the lifespan. He spent many years researching the effects of early childhood experiences on later developmental outcomes. Dr. Bronfenbrenner was also deeply interested in the cultural factors that contributed to an individual’s outcomes. He looked extensively at children’s experiences in the United States and in (what was then called) the USSR. His work inspired many to think about how larger government policies, cultural and linguistic factors, and historical contexts trickled down into our more proximal context, thus influencing our development.

In the later iterations of his framework, Bronfenbrenner conceptualized development as having four components: Process-Person-Context-Time (or the PPCT model) (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Process emphasizes the importance of daily interactions that become the foundation for our development and understanding of the world. Person explores how we, as individuals, shape our own experience in ways that result in unique developmental pathways. Context honors the social and historical context in which individuals, families, and institutions operate in their interaction. Time emphasizes not only the time in history, but also the length of time and the developmental nature of experiences that we have as we age. In sum, the PPCT model captures not only the influences that we directly experience, but also the influences that we are not always aware of in our day-to-day living.

Empirical studies of human development utilizing PPCT are challenging and complex, just like the model itself. PPCT is a theoretical approach that is very flexible, allowing researchers to think about development across many domains and settings. Full applications of more recent iterations of PPCT have been used in a number of areas related to education, family functioning, and allied fields (e.g., Adamsons, O’Brien, & Pasley, 2007; Riggins-Caspers, Cadoret, Knutson, & Langbehn, 2003; Steinberg, Darling, & Fletcher, 1995). Because full implementation of PPCT within a single study is so challenging, and because there are few studies that fully capture this dynamic, these applications not only draw upon systems theory, they have helped it to evolve and grow (Tudge, Mokrova, Hatfield, & Karnik, 2009).

Although some authors draw upon the entire systems framework, others choose to focus only on parts of the overall systems theory, using the components that are most relevant to their work (Tudge et al., 2009). In this book, we draw mainly upon the two primary components of PPCT—Person and Context—with some overlap from the other remaining aspects. Our choices reflect the emphasis on the importance of both the individuals and the social and historical context in which they live (Darling, 2007). The first focus is the idea of system layers as a way of organizing contextual factors that influence development for deaf individuals (the C in PPCT). Although terminology and organization varied over the course of Bronfenbrenner’s long career, the following list (from Bronfenbrenner, 1979) characterizes his approach to understanding developmental context:

• Self: These are factors related to individuals—their personalities, genetic characteristics, or predispositions, as well as factors related to their identities.

• Microsystem: These are factors related to one’s immediate context, typically one’s family, roommates, or other individuals one sees on a daily basis.

• Mesosystem: These are factors related to peers, community, school, and workplace, which vary with the developmental stage of the individual.

• Exosystem: These are factors that provide infrastructure or laws that affect what resources or opportunities an individual has. Some examples of exosystem include legal polices, educ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Individual Characteristics
• 3 Family
• 4 Community
• 5 School Systems
• 6 The Workplace
• 7 State and Federal Systems
• 8 Cohort Effects
• 9 Conclusion
• References
• Index