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Satisfaction at WorkKyle and Woll (1985) report that Deaf people were generally happy at work even given the fact that very few had another Deaf person in the same factory or division. Nevertheless, the statistics tend to hide the great gulf in the quality of working life between Deaf and hearing people. Foster(1986) in an examination of graduates of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in the USA found many areas of problems when she interviewed Deaf workers. Although all felt competent in the carrying out of their job, communication difficulties were often a major barrier. Most of the workers were lonely at work spending most of their free time on their own. Their career goals tended to be lowered after initial contact with the workplace - supervisory roles were usually ruled out. Over half described situations in which they felt they had been treated unfairly. Very few deaf people are supervisors. The majority work under other people. When we asked the Avon people (1980-2) where they worked, the majority worked in areas where there were more than 20 people. This means that deaf people who do not communicate are surrounded by hearing people at work - only a proportion had any deaf workmates - 41%. Although we find deaf people having less access to hearing people they do not feel separate. They were likely to try to communicate and they used a mixture of signs, gestures, speech and lip-reading. However, they are seldom likely to be involved in discussions at work(82% said never). the most significant finding was that when we asked if they were likely to gain promotion in the next two years, 63% said it was impossible - while only 16% of the hearing group we interviewed had the same response. Despite all this deaf people tended to be happy at work and thought that their workmates were helpful. There were also positive attitudes expressed about involvement at work. |
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