Abstract
The chapter explores identity negotiations by signed language learning students in a video-only mediated environment (VME). The focus is on understanding how mainstreamed deaf students can reach the goal of learning signed language to a level at which it can form the basis of a positive subject formation and identification with positive aspects of the signing community in Norway. Investigating a “friendship” teaching plan and the invitation of hearing non-signing classmates to the distance education virtual classroom, the findings presented in this chapter demonstrate how the embodied interactional organization of participation is cooperatively crafted and sustained by simultaneous co-occurring influences. The study reveals the dynamic, changing, and complex ways in which identity negotiations are accomplished by the participants in a VME, and how the identity of “deaf” becomes re-negotiated in quite extraordinary ways. A number of implications arise in relation to issues of identity development, the role of technology, and inclusive education.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
Bob Dylan—Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)
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I use the term “deaf” in this chapter to refer to persons with any degree or kind of hearing loss consequential for participation in “audiologically oriented” (Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015) learning activities. While I am sympathetic to the deaf/Deaf distinction used by many researchers, is not commonly reflected in Norwegian or Norwegian Sign Language usage (the languages of the data). Rather, I use “deaf” both when referring to individuals or groups of people with “hearing loss” or “hearing impairment” and when referring to people who are members of the deaf community, belonging to a (signing) linguistic and cultural minority (which implies some “deaf” who are fully hearing). I also avoid using the audiological categories (mild, moderate, severe, and profound). Neither do I use the more widely accepted “deaf and hard of hearing.” Exceptions are made in cases when I cite or otherwise refer to other researchers who apply any of the terms noted above. I choose this practice because my interest is not in being deaf, but in becoming deaf (culturally), and the aim of the study is to explore the participants’ own identity negotiations. Thus, it is important to avoid assigning them unsolicited membership categories. However, because the study investigates a school setting, the most relevant category is “student”; this means that “deaf” often comes with “student.” I am well aware of the “non-handicapping language” convention of always putting the impairment after the noun. However, since the topic of this chapter is active encouragement of the positive aspects of developing a deaf identity, such a practice can actually reinforce the idea that the “differently abled” category is always undesirable. Therefore, I often write “deaf students,” stressing that this does not imply that deaf is a more (or less) important category than “student” (or “boy,” “son,” “ice hockey player,” and so on), but that this is always situational. However, since the VME is muted, it is for the studied virtual classroom interaction simply not relevant if and how much the students hear. Thus, I refer to the participating students as “signed language learners,” because this refers to the purpose of their participation in the distance education. While all students in the dataset were deaf, kodas (kids of deaf adults) who are fully hearing also participate in the distance education program. I would also like to add that not all deaf students use signed language or are particularly skilled in visually oriented ways of communicating.
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Hjulstad, J. (2017). Identity Negotiations in a Visually Oriented Virtual Classroom. In: Bagga-Gupta, S., Hansen, A., Feilberg, J. (eds) Identity Revisited and Reimagined. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58056-2_12
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