Attitudes of Deaf and Hearing Adults in Israel Toward Deaf People’s Career Suitability

This study investigated the expressed attitudes of deaf adults as well as hearing parents and teachers of deaf children in Israel toward career choices for deaf and hearing people by asking the participants to rate the suitability of 14 professions for deaf and hearing people. The results, in general, were consistent with those of other studies in the United States, England, Italy, South Africa and India with hearing teachers and parents of deaf children, which indicated that the hearing status of imagined advisees selectively influenced attitudes toward the suitability of certain professions. Deaf adults in Israel gave significantly lower ratings for deaf advisees on 10 out of 14 professions and did not find any of the professions to be more suitable for a deaf advisee when compared to a hearing advisee. These results are in contrast to those found by Parasnis, Samar and Mandke (1996) with deaf adults in India. Implications of these findings are discussed