132-6 Disrupting ableism in geoscience communication and education: a language equity lens

Session: Diversifying Geoscience Education Across the Academic Playing Field: Using Creative Methods to Foster the Current and Next Generations of Geoscience Professionals, Part II

Presenting Author:

Author:

Abstract:

What do the following have in common: lectures, conference presentations, webinars, meetings, poster sessions, round tables and research group meetings?  These are all critical venues for communicating science, collaborating and advancing our science.  These venues also typically use spoken language, occasionally with real-time captions.  Geoscientists whose identities include being deaf or hard of hearing (DHH+) do not have equal access to science.

Who is responsible for communication access? The typical accommodations system requires DHH+ persons to anticipate our communication needs, request or provide accommodations so that we can participate and make necessary adjustments. Additionally, accommodations do not provide true inclusion because the communication still centers on spoken language. This is called disability tax, or deaf tax. We can disrupt this ableist model if instead of using accommodations to squeeze the DHH+ people into a hearing model of communication, we instead adjust the language norms of geoscience education and communication.  Language equity provides a framework for re-evaluating how we communicate science; my colleagues and I have been using a language equity lens to look at the effectiveness of earthquake early warning systems.

What could education and collaboration look like if we disrupted the audism of spoken language science communication?  Open captions benefit DHH+ (and others) and provides a record of the discussion. Conversation pauses help interpreter accuracy and benefit everyone.  If each speaker states/signs their name before their comment everyone knows who is speaking and does not talk over one another. Idea generation does not require oral discussion. Real time group brainstorming within shared documents allows for collaboration and quiet reflection that yields deeper insights that are recorded. Periodic summative comments also help all participants. The sum effect of these and other disruptions to audistic assumptions, is to slow down communication. Like slow science, slow communication goes against the productivity-focused culture of academia but allows for greater inclusion and language equity.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

© Copyright 2025 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved.