Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award in General Education
Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award in General Education
Jack Kleiner
Deafness in Australia: Where to Go From Here
View Jack’s project online
This was a semester-long research project analyzing Deaf culture from a country or region of our choice. I chose to write about Australia, and specifically wrote about deafness in its relationship with the medical community, language acquisition, and a particular focus on cochlear implants, making sure to use sources and suggested interventions from d/Deaf people of Australia. Using a “C-Map,” and per the project guidelines, I chose one intervention I thought would be best for the Australian Deaf community based on this research.
What is your major and expected year of graduation?
My major is gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, and my minor is in LGBT studies. I currently plan to graduate in the spring of 2024.
What inspired you to pursue your project?
This project was assigned to me by Dr. Matt Hall in the General Education course “The World of Sign Language and the Sign Languages of the World” (Honors). This project, as well as the course in general, allowed me to study Deaf cultures from many regions of the world in-depth and with an intersectional lens. Focusing on one country/region allowed me to get a better understanding of the intricacies of Deaf culture and how it interacts with the medical system of Australia specifically.
What does winning this award mean to you?
As someone who wants to pursue writing in the future and is currently on track to start a research-based Honors thesis, this award gives me confidence in my abilities to do those things well. I’m honored to have been chosen for this award, especially for a project I put lots of effort and consideration into, and learned a great deal from.
How did the Libraries support your research?
Temple Libraries was instrumental in my ability to complete this project. The online library allowed me to easily search for information on Australia, deafness, cochlear implants, and more. I was able to find a variety of sources (studies, analyses, papers, dictionaries, etc.) that helped diversify my references, and many of the sources I found led to more authors or sources that were relevant and helpful. The website listed the table of contents for many of the works I looked at, which saved me a lot of time in determining whether the resource would be useful for this project.
Like most of the students in this course, Jack started off with very little knowledge about Deaf people or sign languages anywhere in the world. But it didn’t take long before Jack began to recognize parallels between the experiences of Deaf people and those of other minority groups that experience various forms of oppression. For their culminating assignment, Jack developed a concept map that identified the primary barriers to flourishing among the Deaf Australians, identified two potential opportunities for intervention, and offered a nuanced argument in support of bimodal bilingualism for Deaf children. The understanding expressed in this project flows from a deeply-rooted sense of justice and a commitment to create positive change. I am delighted to see this work being recognized by the broader university community!
—Matt Hall, Assistant Professor, College of Public Health
This category honors exemplary work completed in a General Education Course at Temple University
This award is generously sponsored by Gale, a Cengage company.
