Deaf Epistemology, Sign Language and the Education of d/Deaf Children

Abstract

One of the traditional areas of concern in educational foundations has been philosophy of education, and within philosophy of education, a central focus has been epistemology. Defined as the branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge, in the past half-century approaches to the study of epistemology have evolved in significant ways. The rise of ethnoepistemology is perhaps one of the clearest examples of such changes. After a brief overview of the concept of ethnoepistemology, we argue for the existence of a distinctive deaf epistemology. We then offer a discussion of some of the ways in which this deaf epistemology is reflected in American Sign Language (ASL). The article concludes with a discussion of the ramifications of deaf epistemology for deaf education.