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Abstract
Together, this dissertation describes the combined importance of visuality, pedagogy, and forces like power in deaf education. It documents a multimethod qualitative research design with case study and grounded theory methods to examine conflicting issues about how and why vision is used in deaf pedagogy. Initially, deaf visual pedagogy (DVP) was synthesized to describe the situated pedagogical practices of deaf educators who use visual discourses and tools. Deaf multimodal visual pedagogies (DMVPs), emerged as a finding, which subsumes visuality under a broader framework of multimodality. The underlying axiology of DVP and DMVPs both reject deficit valuation or devaluation of deafness in preference of regenerative pathways for interdependent biological and social relationships in deaf education. Throughout, opportunities and problems in deaf research are interpreted through deaf-centric or strengths-based research on deaf students’ capabilities.
Deaf education research shows that visuality and multimodality are used in complex ways in learning and teaching; however, current research lacks sophisticated practical and theoretical knowledge about their dynamic interactions. Historically, dissensus about deafness and vision—disagreements about senses, cognition, language, and power—obscures research which connects them. The central problem I address is the lack of empirical theory about how and why deaf educators conceptualize and use visuality and multimodality in teaching. This is a practical concern for all deaf education stakeholders; however, I particularly write for teachers who have long called for research that addresses their specific needs. Along with my research participants, I claim that the identified gaps harm deaf students, exacerbate already complex issues related to their learning, and constrain both researchers and educators who seek to transform the field.
To address dissensus, I analyzed conflicts in deaf research related to axiology, including in the discourse ideologies that undergird the conceptual, theoretical, analytical, and methodological frameworks of deaf pedagogy and its research. These axiological dilemmas appear in both the methods and practical aspects of teaching and the theory and methods of research. The study’s goal was to generate credible, empirical grounded theories using case study research to productively draw upon problematic gaps and conflicts and offer contrasting, positive opportunities for research and practice. While my initial focus was visual, the resulting theory is multimodal, with a focus on issues of ethics and aesthetics.
Data were obtained from six individual case studies, where the cases were comprised of experienced faculty members, all of whom are deaf, who also profess to use visual teaching practices in deaf education. From them, I collected four types of data: classroom observations of teaching, interviews about visuality in deaf education, elicited responses (using video and images of their own teaching) and, analytic memos. I encouraged my participants to externalize their implicit theories, demonstrate their values, and reflect on their praxis. Extensive data collection was a result of the case study method. In analysis, including co-analysis alongside experienced deaf faculty, I generated a set of new theories using data from across the corpus; this data comprised the basis for the grounded theories that I generated. They are organized in four axis categories and a core category (analyzed in two parts) about forces like power, development, and change in deaf pedagogical interactions.
Constructivist grounded theory asks the researcher to be open to the lessons of the data. In the grounded theory tradition, the researcher is also an important instrument for data analysis. My fifteen-year career in deaf education—inclusive of teaching deaf students from preschool to grad-school—was a significant analytical asset. Member checking was used to reduce bias, improve my accuracy in interpreting data, and ensure that my theories represent the individual cases and the class of cases more broadly. Via constant comparisons and abductive reasoning, my findings were clarified through an analytic and interpretive framework that privileges the importance of educational axiology and multimodal theory centered on deaf ontologies and epistemologies. To summarize, I synthesized research at the site of convergence between deaf pedagogy and visuality, enacted a methodology to explore novel research questions, then produced a set of case studies and explanatory theories, grounded in empirical evidence, about the ethics and aesthetics of forces concerning visuality and multimodality in interactions of deaf education.
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