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Marjetka Kulovec is a Deaf Slovenian sign-language researcher and special education teacher who, in 2018, became the first Deaf person in Slovenia to earn a doctoral degree. She has worked as a sign-language teacher at the Ljubljana Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Zavod za gluhe in naglušne Ljubljana, ZGNL).
Quick Facts
Early life
Kulovec was diagnosed as deaf at nine months of age, a deafness she has attributed to complications during a forceps delivery. At around age four, she was placed for a period in foster care, during which she came to understand she was different from her peers and subsequently attended a school for deaf children in another town[1].She was educated at the Institute for the Training of the Hearing- and Speech-Impaired in Ljubljana (today the ZGNL), attending kindergarten, primary school, and vocational school there; instruction was conducted in spoken language, with sign language used informally among Deaf peers and, at the time, formally discouraged by the institution on the belief that it would hinder deaf children's speech development[1].
She trained and initially worked as a graphic technician, the vocational field available to her at the institute, before deciding to pursue further academic study as an adult, completing secondary education by correspondence[1].
Education and Doctorate
Kulovec went on to study at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, where she earned the professional title of teacher of defectology for deaf and hard-of-hearing children[1].In late December 2018, Kulovec publicly defended her doctoral dissertation, titled "Analiza strategij tolmačenja znakovnega jezika v Sloveniji in njihovega vpliva na razumevanje" ("Analysis of sign-language interpreting strategies in Slovenia and their impact on comprehension"), becoming the first Deaf person in Slovenia to receive a doctoral degree[1][3].
The dissertation compared the acquisition of language skills among deaf and hard-of-hearing pupils prior to school enrollment and examined how interpreting strategies used in mainstream versus specialized deaf education affected pupils' comprehension of subject material. Her research found that around 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents and tend to face the greatest educational difficulties, since —unlike deaf children born to deaf parents— they typically acquire neither sign language nor spoken language in early childhood; her findings indicated that despite their cultural and linguistic diversity, deaf pupils in mainstream schools achieved somewhat better comprehension outcomes than those in schools dedicated to deaf education[1].
Career and Views
At the time of her doctorate, Kulovec worked as a sign-language teacher at the Ljubljana Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, where she has focused on improving educational opportunities for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adolescents[1].She has emphasized the importance of early sign-language acquisition for deaf children's cognitive, social, and emotional development, and has advocated for greater awareness of bilingual (inter-linguistic) competence in the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students, citing research indicating that deaf and hard-of-hearing children can achieve academic success when given the opportunity to acquire sign language from early childhood[1].
Reflecting on her own path, she has described her decision to pursue higher education as a deliberate break from the limited vocational options historically offered to deaf students in Slovenia, most of which centered on manual trades such as carpentry, metalworking, printing, and textile work[1].
Videos
References
- Štravs, S. (2019, May 9). Marjetka Kulovec: Prva gluha doktorica v Sloveniji [Marjetka Kulovec: The first Deaf female doctor in Slovenia]. Govori.se (Metropolitan/Adria Media Ljubljana). Originally published in Jana. thttps://govorise.metropolitan.si/zanimivosti/marjetka-kulovec-prva-gluha-doktorica-v-sloveniji/
- Kotnik, B. (2018, December 22). Slovenija dobila prvo gluho doktorico znanosti Marjetko Kulovec [Slovenia gets its first Deaf female doctor of science, Marjetka Kulovec]. onaplus.delo.si. https://onaplus.delo.si/partnerstvo/druzba/slovenija-dobila-prvo-gluho-doktorico-znanosti-marjetko-kulovec/
- Delo. (n.d.). Na filozofski fakulteti dobili prvo gluho doktorico znanosti v Sloveniji [The Faculty of Arts gets Slovenia's first Deaf female doctor of science]. delo.si. https://www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/na-filozofski-fakulteti-dobili-prvo-gluho-doktorico-znanosti-v-sloveniji
