Motherwork, Deafness, and the Role of Activism in Families

 

Cheryl G. Najarian

Department of Sociology and Women’s Studies

 

This qualitative study investigates the everyday lives of college educated deaf women in both their mothering and paid work experiences.  Through this life history research with ten deaf women in two different cities in the northeast, we are better able to understand the seemingly “invisible work” involved as these women negotiate places for themselves and resist various obstacles in their paid and unpaid work lives.  One goal of my study is to show how, through these experiences, the women develop strategies to negotiate being part of the deaf world, hearing world, or somewhere, as they describe, “in between.”  Another goal is to investigate how these women, despite being educated orally and many forbidden to learn sign language in their early years, are often tracked into working in deaf office environments, specifically into teaching professions.  I also explore the organization of work and how institutions such as schools, families, and workplaces, as well as geography shape the women’s work experiences and their identities as college educated deaf women.  Part of this discussion will also include some of the methodological challenges and promises which evolved out of this project and the implications of these for qualitative methodology.  By uncovering the seemingly invisible identity work of these deaf women, I later aim to show how these findings might influence our education programs and hiring procedures.