This project looks at the impact that exposure to deaf role models has on the self-esteem of deaf students. Deaf students were asked to respond to two questions in writing following a lecture presented to them about successful deaf men and women in science, math and engineering, their responses were analyzed for evidence that the lecture had an impact on these student\u27s selfconcept. The responses will be categorized into five criteria which imply that the information in the lecture had an impact on the students\u27 self-esteem. The five criteria are as follows: 1) a fascination or interest in the information on deaf men and women in the sciences; 2) learning something new about deaf men and women in the sciences and mentioned a specific fact; 3) interest in science as a career; 4) learning that deaf people could do things he/she previously thought not possible; and, 5) realizing the importance of facing challenges and being persistent in order to accomplish a career goal. From the results of this study, I will draw conclusions about the effect of exposure to deaf role models on the self-esteem of deaf students and make suggestions on how to incorporate role models into math, science and engineering curricula
