Welcome
Welcome to the website for the project “Unmasking educational inequalities: the impact of COVID-19 on deaf students in higher education”. This website has been set up to provide information and updates about the project and it’s progress. On this website you can find information about the aims of the project, the research team and advisory group, information about the pilot study and early findings. We will also provide updates and information about how you can get involved with the project. You will soon be able to complete the survey on the website too. We will also use the website to share information about our workshops, our publications, and the final report that we produce including the recommendations coming from the research.
Project Information
This is an ESRC funded research project that looks at the experiences of deaf students in higher education in the UK and at the same time looks at institutional responses to the pandemic and what considerations were given to deaf student experiences in the planning and implementation of the changes introduced. It will examine this at different stages of the pandemic and the findings will be used to helps identify best practice for future provision to deaf students in the changing context of higher education.
Definition of ‘deaf’
This project’s use of the term ‘deaf’ encompasses those who are deaf, deafened, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have some degree of hearing loss. Communication preferences will include using sign language, speech only, or both signing and speaking.
By using the term ‘deaf’ (with a small d) the project aims to cover all experiences of deafness/hearing loss and various communication modalities.
The project seeks to include a wide diversity of deaf students’ experiences, as well as diversity in the form of race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion, location, and educational subjects.
For the academic year 2018/19 there were 5,485 deaf students in higher education in the UK (HESA, 2020).