- Title
- Social capital and adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing
- Creator
- Byatt, Timothy
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2023
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) in countries such as Australia and other developed countries experience superior outcomes in areas such as language, literacy, and access to education in comparison to previous decades. These improved outcomes can be linked to access to universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) programs widely available in developed nations, in addition to effective early intervention and access to superior assistive hearing technology. Nonetheless, outcomes for adolescents who are DHH are not always commensurate with their typically hearing peers in areas such as pragmatic language development and postschool outcomes. This research project presents a sequential explanatory mixed methodology design with the Stage One quantitative investigation utilising 17 adolescent survey respondents followed by a Stage Two qualitative investigation in which interviews were conducted with 10 adolescents and one of their parents. The Stage One survey ascertained the social capital reserves of the young participants and explored the associations with other variables such as pragmatic language, identity, wellbeing, and school connectedness. The second stage explored the experiences of 10 of the 17 adolescents who completed the Stage One survey. An additional parent of each of the 10 adolescents completed a separate interview, with the adolescent and parent dyads largely treated as single cases. Results of the survey revealed strong associations between social capital and a range of measures including pragmatic language, wellbeing, and school connectedness. Institutional social capital, which encompassed school-based social capital, was seen as particularly important in developing bridging social capital. Self-selected identity was seen as a statistically significant factor in the formation of social capital; however, the results are derived from a small sample and must be treated with caution. The findings of the Stage Two interviews supported the Stage One survey results with the adolescents and their parents generally discussing high reserves of bonding social capital. School connectedness, involvement in third space environments outside of school and the home, and possessing skills related to pragmatic language and discernment were identified as facilitators of social capital. Conversely, negative experiences such as school-related diminished social connections and negative perceptions were identified as barriers to social capital formation. Identity was also a major theme in Stage Two with the establishment of a d/Deaf identity and feeling ‘normal’ discussed by the adolescent participants and their parents. The results and findings support the conclusion that adolescents who are DHH in this sample generally held high bonding social capital which they received from family and close friends, however their bridging social capital may be diminished as they began school and developed social capital with peers and teachers at school. In part, this may be attributable to the unavailability of positive models of deafness to Australian adolescents. A successful school experience is pivotal in facilitating bridging social capital for adolescents, and this involves the adolescents themselves, parents, teachers, and school administrators.
- Subject
- social capital; identity; deaf; hard of hearing; thesis by publication
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1472930
- Identifier
- uon:48950
- Rights
- Copyright 2023 Timothy Byatt
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 243 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |