Identity Of Deaf College Students

Deaf people's psychosocial development shows particular characteristics, which is due to the different living environment; and the vital cause associated to this development are the deafness and the handicap of communication with the hearing people. The psychosocial development of deaf people is encircled with the deafness. The results of overseas past researches showed that whether or not deaf people accept deaf identity, such as fact of deafness, attitude and choice on communication methods, acceptance of deaf people, etc, were the main aspects of their psychosocial development. Currently, research on deaf identity has become one of the focused works in the psychosocial development of deaf people in western countries. And the research Deaf Culture is the basement of to study Deaf Identity. Based on the overseas related research on deaf community, deaf culture and deaf identity, the purposes of this paper is to confirm the existence of deaf community and deaf culture; to probe the deaf people 'cultural identity from the view of deaf community and deaf culture; and to distinguish types of deaf identity; and to analyze and explore which factors influencing deaf people's cultural identity. In the first study, through widely investigation of real living status of deaf people, the deaf people's particular life style in different fields was revealed, and the existence of deaf community was confirmed. It indicated the basic and main characters of deaf culture, explored deaf individuals'identity to deaf community and culture. In the second study, based on the first study, a questionnaire to detect the type of Deaf Identity of deaf college students would be developed. In the third study, based on the questionnaire of Deaf Identity of deaf college students and of their background, an analysis of what affect Deaf Identity was done. Several essential factors are discussed. They are loss of hearing, educational placement, and family environment. The way of analyze was one-way ANOVA and MANOVA. In the fourth study, we explore the relation between deaf identity of deaf college students and their self-esteem. The major findings in the above four studies are as following: 1. the existence of deaf community and deaf culture is objective. Deaf people have a variety of different life habits in comparison to hearing people, which is mainly due to their special communication. Some people do not believe that Deaf people have a different culture and life style comparing to hearing people. However, the results of this survey prove that Deaf people have a different culture and approach to life. The conclusion is that the existence of a deaf culture and life style is clear and obvious. Particular characteristics of deaf culture are: 1) Sign language is the core of deaf culture; 2) distance between the deaf and the hearing which both sides realize the same experience; 3) attitude to deafness and being deaf are main contents of deaf culture. 2. Deaf Identity is essential to psychological development of deaf people. Deaf individual's identity to deaf culture is very obvious in the investigation. Without any research background in China, at first the main topic and the theory of Deaf Identity was discussed, then we attempted to set up a investigation tool to explore varieties type of Deaf Identity of deaf college students. Our discussion on theory of Deaf Identity is below: (1) the definition of Deaf Identity is that the deaf individual admit and accept to deaf culture and being a Deathere contains deaf culture in Deaf Identity.(3) there are four types of Deaf Identity: Hearing(shortly H); Deaf(shortly D); Marginal(shortly M); and Bicultural(shortly B). Questionnaire is much helpful to probe deaf identity of deaf college students. Based on plenty of observation and investigation, the questionnaire of Deaf Identity of deaf college students was made. It can be used to look into the facts of deaf identity of deaf college students with statistic results. However, it still needs get great improvement. 3. The educational placement is the critical factors, which influence Deaf Identity of deaf college students in the social life. And the status of hearing lost is also influential to Deaf Identity of deaf college students. 4. According to the results of this study, the correlation between deaf college students ' acceptance and integration for the deaf and hearing culture and their self-esteem is significant. However, it is not showed that the others three models of identity are significant correlated to the development of self-esteem. Deaf college students ' acceptance and integration for the deaf and hearing culture are helpful to the fulfilling of self-worth.