Susan Foster

• PhD Special Education and Rehabilitation
• Professor (Full) at Rochester Institute of Technology

The underrepresentation of women faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has been studied for several decades. Many programs have been developed with a bottom-up approach toward addressing this underrepresentation. While these bottom-up approaches are an important component in addressing the underrepresentation, the quest...

The roles and responsibilities of itinerant specialist teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students were examined. Data were collected through surveys of practicing teachers, interviews, and school observations. Questions focused on tasks itinerant teachers perform most often in their jobs, where they learned these tasks, and whether they would be...

This paper focuses on the assessment of communication among deaf and hearing persons within work settings. The paper is organized into two sections. In the first section, findings are presented from an ethnographic study of deaf professionals who have achieved relative success in their employment. The results from this study provide the foundation...

Definitions of inclusion, as well as models for how best to implement the agreed-upon definitions, may vary from one country to another, reflecting the unique characteristics of the society and culture. On the other hand, elements of inclusion may be universal, reflecting similar goals, functions, and experiences across countries. The purpose of th...

This article explores the ways in which deaf college students who are members of minority racial groups think about and describe their identities. In-depth, semistructured interviews with 33 deaf students of Asian American, Hispanic American, and African American background were analyzed for themes regarding the self-reported identities of responde...

This article explores how students who are deaf and their instructors experience mainstream college classes. Both quantitative and qualitative procedures were used to examine student access to information and their sense of belonging and engagement in learning. Instructors were asked to discuss their approach to teaching and any instructional modif...

Communication involves sending and receiving signals. However, it is also a form of social engagement. Constraints on communication between deaf and hearing persons often result in strained interactions as well as los of "full" information. In this paper, a meta-ethnographic approach is used to describe the impact of "spoiled" communication on soci...

Integrative motivation was found to correlate significantly with sign language proficiency for adult learners at a post-secondary program for deaf students. Instrumental motives, however, were perceived as less important. Higher achievement in ASL was also associated with a positive cultural attitude toward deaf people. Learning of ASL as a second...

This study focuses on factors that motivate and demotivate professionals to learn American Sign Language (ASL). Using a qualitative approach known as the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), faculty and staff were asked to reflect on their sign language learning expericences, and their responses were examined for motivational patterns. Principal moti...

The depiction of physical impairments in popular culture reflects as well as shapes public attitudes towards persons with disabilities. Scholars have begun to document images of disabilities (the ‘what’) in venues such as literary fiction, motion pictures, advertisements, and television programming but there has been less attention directed toward...

This book is a qualitative study of two perspectives on employment of deaf persons. First, it involves interviews with twenty hearing supervisors of deaf employees; topics covered included hiring and training employees, communication, interactions with co-workers, management potential, and roles and responsibilities. Second, three deaf professional...

In most areas of special education, Public Law 94-142 has been hailed as a breakthrough. By stipulating that children with disabilities be educated within the least restrictive environment, the law promotes schooling of these children with their nondisabled peers. However, interpretation of the impact of this law has taken a different turn in the c...

This study had two purposes: (1) to learn how hearing students in a mainstream college setting perceive deaf students as classmates, and (2) to discover how those perceptions influence the integration of deaf and hearing students on campus. Thirty full-time students at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, were interviewed u...

Deaf students are enrolling in postsecondary educational institutions in the United States in greater numbers than ever before. However, attrition rates remain high. Models for explaining persistence in college link success to student integration within the informal and social fabric of their institution. The research reported in this paper is the...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the meaning of communication to deaf college students and to explore with them the range of skills and conditions that they consider important for communication. Ethnographic interviews with 23 first-year students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology (NTID...

While almost all scholars of the deaf community acknowledge the role of shared experience in the development of that community, few have made it a focus of study. This paper is about the experiences which lead deaf people to seek interaction with each other, and the difficulties they have encountered with the "hearing world," including family, frie...

The purpose of this study was to learn about mainstream and residential school programs for deaf students in the United States from the perspective of the deaf person, and to present the experiences of clients of educational services in their own words. Data for this paper were collected through open-ended, in-depth interviews with 25 graduates fro...

Interviewed 15 deaf 1st-yr college students on their experiences with mainstreaming in high school. Interview topics included classroom experiences, interactions with teachers, participation in school activities, and relationships with other students. Ss encountered challenges to their academic success in mainstreamed classes, ranging from teachers...

Twenty-five graduates of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf were interviewed concerning their mainstream and residential school experiences. Respondents had an average age of 27 at the time of the interviews. Topics of discussion included classroom experiences, social interactions with other students, and participation in extracurricular...

This paper explores the role of social rejection and peer identification in the development of deaf community, by analyzing interactions through which deaf people are alienated from hearing people and identify with other deaf people. Life history interviews were conducted with 25 graduates of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The respo...

The qualitative study examined characteristics of 25 deaf graduates of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Findings are discussed for finding a job, learning the job, communication at work, relationships at work, expectations for the future, discrimination in the workplace, reasons for leaving the job, and strategies for managing difficult work...

In 1981, there were thirteen admissions to the Weston Center, a public residential facility for people diagnosed as "mentally retarded" in the United States. This was interesting because it happened at a time when the trend was to keep people out of institutions, and the Weston Center was very active in the deinstitutionalization movement. This stu...

Twenty students were interviewed after transferring to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) from colleges that offered no specialized programs for hearing-impaired students. The students reported that previous teachers were not aware of their learning needs, reading materials were difficult to comprehend, classes were too large and...

Deaf and hard-of-hearing postsecondary graduates from a national technical college were surveyed to identify who among them were supervisors of primarily hearing employees. The sample was selected based on past job information they provided and referrals solicited from the college community. Questions about current job title, span of responsibilit...