What Barriers do Deaf Undergraduates face in acquiring Employability Skills in Higher Education? :

This article explores the lived experiences of deaf undergraduates’ acquisition of employability skills whilst at university, as reported through a series of semi-structured one to one interviews. In particular, this report focuses on the specific themes of generic skills, emotional intelligence, communication skills, career development learning and work experience. Data provided by the interviewees shows that whilst some of the generic skills were easily attainable, other significant career development learning and job-seeking skills are more difficult for deaf students to acquire. It is evident that the acquisition of these skills is also hampered by a lack of tutor and/or peer awareness and support. This study also discusses the importance of work placement opportunities for gaining employment, and how various barriers preclude many deaf students from gaining this experience. Not least of these is the lack of funding – either from Access to Work (ATW) or Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) – which would facilitate the employment of interpreters in the voluntary work sector. In light of the increasing number of disabled students failing to find employment upon graduation (AGCAS, 2018) it is imperative that measures are taken to break down the barriers which prevent deaf students from gaining the skills and experiences which would enable them to more readily secure employment. Unless and until this is done, deaf university students will still not be able to gain the maximum benefit from the increased opportunities available to them from undergraduate study

Who wants to be able to do reference properly and be unemployed? STEM student writing and employer needs

The issue of graduate writing is one that has attracted much focus and debate in higher education, particularly around maintaining ‘academic standards’ at a time of expansion in this sector. The need to develop academic skills, including writing, for higher education study has increasingly been linked to the skills that graduates need to gain employment (Davies et al., 2006). This raises the question of whether the type and purpose of writing within university programmes is different to, and possibly in tension with, writing required for employment after university. This is a point raised by recent research (Day, 2011) which shows that students studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) subjects are more confident with oral rather than writing skills. The material discussed in this article is part of a two-year mixed method study looking at literacies, including writing, which undergraduate students develop at university, and the relationship of these literacies to employability. This article focuses on six first-year STEM students studying Forensic Science and Computing Science within the larger study. The qualitative data, gathered through repeat interviews, is discussed in relation to a small sample of employers and alumni working in science-based industries describing writing for transition into work and for on-going employment. The project therefore provides a useful Appleby et al. Who wants to be able to do references properly and be unemployed? student insight into writing, comparing this with employer expectations and the experience of alumni who have made the transition into work. What emerges from our study is the need to see writing at university as part of a wider communicative repertoire supported by a social and cultural approach to situated writing. This approach is more than simply skills based and is one that encourages and develops social as well as academic learning. We argue that such an approach, added to by technical skills support, enables greater engagement and success with learning in addition to enhancing employability

The effect of labelling practices in an adolescent facility

This paper presents and discusses the implications of labelling for patients who are part of a diagnostic group. Nurses not only allocate patient groups to a ‘bed space’ according to their illness, but they also allocate the individual by their past history, as well as by that patient’s previous level of surveillance, giving the act of labelling not only a structuring effect on patient care and diagnosis, but also a historicity. These beliefs are unthinkingly applied to both cohort and individual patient. The outcomes of such a practice led to group distinctions bestowed upon individuals regardless of whether such classification and organisation fit the patient or not. The effect of labelling left patients cared for the same way regardless of individual differences and left nurses relying on indirect mechanisms of control to look after these patients

Employment and Employability: The Experiences and Perceptions of Deaf Graduates

Research illustrates that deaf and hard of hearing people generally experience more unemployment, are often underemployed and have lower incomes than the hearing population (MacLeod-Gallinger, 1992; RNID, 2006; The Papworth Trust, 2014). However, whilst there are increasing numbers of deaf students entering Higher Education (HESA 2014/15, 2013/14), there is a dearth of literature regarding the employability experiences of deaf graduates. This thesis presents an exploration of deaf graduate employability within the context of successive government policies designed to encourage HEIs to enhance the employability skills of their graduates. This qualitative research study focusses on the lived experiences of eight deaf graduates whilst at university, and their subsequent search for employment upon graduation. Semi-structured interviews, followed by a thematic analysis of the data, were employed to explore the graduates’ employability journeys. The key themes that emerged from the data included accessibility to the wider university curriculum, acquisition of employability skills, additional challenges which deaf graduates face when seeking employment, social networking and the significance of employment within the deaf community. This thesis provides some insight into the little-researched areas of the deaf undergraduate experience and deaf graduate employment. It uncovers some of the inherent challenges of being deaf and seeking work, including the ‘interpreted interview’ and disclosure. It highlights gaps in the provision of support for both deaf students whilst at university and deaf graduates upon graduation, and it seeks to understand the prevalence of employment outcomes within the deaf community. Finally, this study begins a discourse on how support for deaf students and graduates must be enhanced if they are to compete with non-deaf job-seekers in entering the workplace

DeafMuseums - Exhibition

This exhibition was created as part of an Erasmus+ project entitled ‘Deaf Museums’ (www.deafmuseum.eu). Seven European partners have worked together to produce a series of Deaf Exhibitions and to amass a wealth of resources online for anyone thinking of setting up a Deaf Museum or Exhibition. The main Project aim is to preserve Deaf Heritage and Deaf History. Our exhibition is centred around three themes: Deaf Access, Deaf Place – specifically, the Deaf Workplace and Deaf Space. We have then divided each theme into The Past, The Present and the Future. The idea is to see how Deaf lives were in the past; how they are now and how we envisage them to be in the future. For the data, we interviewed a wide cross-section of Deaf people and asked them about their Deaf lives. It is interesting to see how the lives of Deaf people have differed over the generations and how different people foresee the future lives of the Deaf community

‘Our Breadcrumb Trail through the Woods’: Reflections on the Use of a Secret Facebook Group as a Strategy for Surviving and Thriving on the Doctoral Journey

This article explores the value of attending to the emotional side of the doctoral journey by focusing on the use of a ‘secret’ Facebook group amongst a cohort of EdD (Professional Doctorate in Education) students at one English university. Presented as a piece of action research in which the participants created an intervention to address a perceived problem and then reflected on its effectiveness, it is co-authored by the cohort of six students and their tutor. The stresses and loneliness of the doctoral journey have been well documented and constitute the ‘problem’ addressed by this cohort of students. Their inception and use of a Facebook group was a response to challenges experienced in their studies, with the expectation of facilitating peer support. As will be shown this aim was successfully met with enhancements in academic, social, and emotional support. However, unexpected benefits arose from the interactions within the group including a normalization of the challenges of the doctoral quest and the advantage of being able to follow the ‘breadcrumb trail’ found in the group postings as group journal and aid to reflection. Further, both tutors and students have noted the development of a strong sense of ‘cohortness’ and inclination to work collaboratively. Through a process of individual and group reflection on experiences of the intervention, combined with analysis of the content of the postings, this article examines the characteristics of the Facebook intervention and considers some ethical implications. We suggest that key characteristics that have contributed to its success include the student ownership, the protection of the secret format, and the combination of emotionally supportive, academic, and irreverent exchanges between group members. It is hoped that these insights may be useful to future doctoral candidates and their tutors as they negotiate their own way through the doctoral woods

Characterisation and expression of SPLUNC2, the human orthologue of rodent parotid secretory protein

We recently described the Palate Lung Nasal Clone (PLUNC) family of proteins as an extended group of proteins expressed in the upper airways, nose and mouth. Little is known about these proteins, but they are secreted into the airway and nasal lining fluids and saliva where, due to their structural similarity with lipopolysaccharide-binding protein and bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein, they may play a role in the innate immune defence. We now describe the generation and characterisation of novel affinity-purified antibodies to SPLUNC2, and use them to determine the expression of this, the major salivary gland PLUNC. Western blotting showed that the antibodies identified a number of distinct protein bands in saliva, whilst immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated protein expression in serous cells of the major salivary glands and in the ductal lumens as well as in cells of minor mucosal glands. Antibodies directed against distinct epitopes of the protein yielded different staining patterns in both minor and major salivary glands. Using RT-PCR of tissues from the oral cavity, coupled with EST analysis, we showed that the gene undergoes alternative splicing using two 5' non-coding exons, suggesting that the gene is regulated by alternative promoters. Comprehensive RACE analysis using salivary gland RNA as template failed to identify any additional exons. Analysis of saliva showed that SPLUNC2 is subject to N-glycosylation. Thus, our study shows that multiple SPLUNC2 isoforms are found in the oral cavity and suggest that these proteins may be differentially regulated in distinct tissues where they may function in the innate immune response