Reframing parentification as fedakârlık: Turkish CODA adolescent experiences in collectivist culture.

Abstract

Responding to Palmer's call to dismantle deficit-based frameworks, this qualitative study examines how Turkish hearing children of deaf adults adolescents (ages 12-17, n = 20) navigate parentification. A mixed-positionality team analyzed semi-structured interviews via thematic analysis. Findings reveal participants reframe language brokering and caregiving not as Western narratives of "childhood loss" or "developmental burden" but as fedakârlık (filial devotion) and hürmet (filial piety), emphasizing accelerated maturation within a collectivist context. This reframing coexists with bicultural identity negotiations, peer exclusion, and heightened sensory awareness shaped by navigating silent versus auditory-dominant environments, while family support, especially from grandparents, serves as a key coping resource, interpreter shortages and structural audism intensify vulnerabilities. Building on Napier's reconceptualization of sign language brokering as a relational asset, this study extends scholarship to a non-Western context, advocating culturally responsive interventions that address systemic barriers and recognize parentification as a developmental resource.