| Summary: | Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
October 2017 === The aim of this case study is to explore and understand how the school leadership of a school
for the Deaf, through the principal and School Management Team (SMT) experiences and
understands and assists the process of transformation to South African Sign Language required
for the implementation of CAPS SASL curriculum and sign bilingualism. Secondly, how teachers
of the Deaf change and re-imagine themselves as sign bilingual teachers of the Deaf within the
new pedagogical space of CAPS SASL. Thirdly, how the researcher’s autoethnography
contributes towards the sign bilingual narrative of Deaf epistemology research.
A theoretical framework of narrativity of SMT and teachers identity is used to understand the
post-colonial, transformation. Literature around the concepts of post-colonialism, audism,
bilingual education, sign bilingualism (as second wave dynamic bilingualism), context of South
African Deaf Education, ontological and conceptual metaphors, identity and space are reviewed.
A model of cognitive transformation (i-PTSD) is proposed and used to interpret teacher’s mental
transformation (border crossing, Martin, 2010) to a new paradigm and discourse of sign
language and sign bilingualism. In addition, the transformational leadership model of Fullan
(2004) is used to interpret school leadership’s narrative of transformation.
This case study collected narrative data from three focus groups, three key interviews and
sixteen journals of teachers at a school for the Deaf in the Western Cape Province pioneering
the transforming to SASL. A modified phenomenographic research method is used to interpret
the narratives of teachers to understand the architecture of transformation within hearing and
deaf teachers and within school leadership. The researcher’s blogs provide a parallel reflective
autoethnographic narrative.
The findings show that school leadership’s (SMT) alignment with the five person-centred,
practical and visionary transformational leadership principles: re-culturing through re-languaging
of minds to and through SASL, developing people as signing, bilingual teachers of the Deaf as
‘bridges’ and supportive teams (SMT), the principal as critical thought leader on SASL language
policy and pedagogy and implementation of sign bilingualism, the moral purpose of
transformation to support teacher’s growth of sign language for equality and educational access
of learners through an epistemology of empathy and the leadership identity of the principal as a ‘servant leader’ (Greenleaf, 2003) through critical dialogue. This meso-level (Fullan, 2004) narrative of transformation was both instrumental and essential in supporting teacher’s cognitive (micro-level) transformation and implementation of SASL and sign bilingualism.
Teachers’ professional identity was changed and re-imagined around the epistemological metaphor as educational (learner-centred) ‘partners’ through their nearness and connection with sign language and sign bilingualism.
Through post-audism, sign bilingual is recognised as a valid post-colonial identity space. Post-audism is a powerful lens for interpreting post-colonial narratives of sign bilingual Deaf epistemology and ontology.
Similarly, the autoethnographic narrative provides a subaltern voice to an unexplored post-audist Deaf epistemology of a deaf sign bilingual researcher. === MT 2018
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