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Hopkins, Jenny (2026) INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF MARKETISATION ON LOCAL DEAF CHARITIES IN ENGLAND, INCLUDING THE IMPLICATIONS FOR DEAF EDUCATION: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY. PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire. doi:10.46289/OZUJ2412
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16389 Hopkins, J. (2026) INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF MARKETISATION ON LOCAL DEAF CHARITIES IN ENGLAND, INCLUDING THE IMPLICATIONS FOR DEAF EDUCATION.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (10MB) | Preview |
Abstract
This thesis examines how marketisation has reshaped the work of local deaf charities in England, with consequences beyond competition and performance metrics. These include impacts on deaf education, such as changes in support for deaf children, and on deaf identity, including shifts in how deafness is understood within communities. Drawing on interviews with seventeen leaders from local and national deaf charities, it adopts a critical realist grounded theory approach to explore the material and cultural effects of market-driven change. The research presents a complex picture. Bidding for health and social care contracts has led to greater professionalisation and opportunities for some charities. However, it has also undermined collaboration and fostered mistrust towards organisations perceived to have prioritised market-oriented ways of working over deaf cultural values. Policy mechanisms centred on controlling financial sustainability, contractual delivery, and measurable outcomes have at times pulled charities away from core priorities, including support for deaf children and young people. This matters for a generation whose ways of communicating, learning, and finding their place in the world are increasingly fluid and diverse. By combining critical realism with Foucauldian concepts of governmentality, the thesis develops an analytical framework for understanding how materialpressures and policy discourses interact to shape organisational priorities. It shows how the emphasis on partnership, innovation and growth operates as a subtle form of control, directing commissioners’ expectations and influencing how deafness and deaf populations are understood and managed. The study demonstrates that deaf charities are not powerless in this context. Many have responded by positioning themselves differently within the sector, reflecting their histories, constituencies, and relationships with policymakers. Since 2010, these differentiated positions have become more visible and consequential within a marketised environment. The thesis concludes that this uneven landscape limits the sector’s capacity to act collectively. Local charities serving diverse deaf populations risk marginalisation within policy and commissioning environments when characterised as aligned with particular narratives. Moving beyond the constraints of marketisation will depend less on resolving ideological disagreements than on developing shared priorities that accommodate diversity and enhance collective influence.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | L Education > LC Special aspects of education | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education, Health and Sciences | |||||||||
| Depositing User: | Kamila Niekoraniec | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 25 Jun 2026 12:42 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 15 Jul 2026 09:24 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/16389 |
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