Expanding the lens: Language, identity, and access in deaf education

Статья посвящена проблеме доступности высшего образования для инвалидов по слуху – глухих и слабослышащих людей. Показана ситуация с высшим образованием лиц с потерей слуха до введения инклюзивного образования и те изменения, которые произошли после введения закона об инклюзивном образовании. Эмпирическим материалом послужили результаты фокусированных групповых бесед с глухими и слабослышащими, опросов, экспертных интервью с работниками образования и общественных организаций глухих. Материал анализировался в измерении «возможностей и барьеров». До введения инклюзии образовательные возможности были ограничены по количеству принимающих вузов крайне узким набором специальностей и географически – 85 % мест для обучения были сосредоточены в Москве. Ключевым фактором доступности образования для лиц с потерей слуха выступает наличие перевода образовательного процесса на жестовый язык. После введения инклюзии открылись более широкие возможности для поступления абитуриентов-инвалидов, однако на текущий момент совсем небольшое чисто вузов готово обеспечивать перевод на жестовый язык в ходе получения образования. Для образовательного процесса важную роль играет квалификация переводчиков жестового языка и их специализация, но профессиональная подготовка переводчиков находится пока в начальной стадии. Дополнительными барьерами для глухих и слабо­слышащих людей являются: низкий уровень школьной подготовки и отсутствие довузовской подготовки; слабое информирование о наборе инвалидов по слуху в вуз; низкие шансы получить работу по специальности, снижающее мотивацию к обучению; неготовность вузов к работе с глухими и непонимание специфики восприятия такими студентами информации. Названные ограничения несут риск создания «формальной» инклюзии, исключающий инвалидов по слуху из практик получения высшего образования. По истечении шести лет законодательного введения инклюзии, ситуация с получением высшего образования глухими и слабослышащими изменилась незначительно и тяготеет к состоянию до введения инклюзивного законодательства.

Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir sobre a educação bilíngue para crianças surdas a partir de uma aposta: olharmos para a surdez enquanto experiência e para a infância como potência. A educação bilíngue ocupa lugar de destaque no debate de como lidar com a diferença linguística e cultural dos surdos, servindo como bandeira de luta da comunidade surda brasileira e merecendo, portanto, nossa especial atenção. Esta pesquisa trata-se de um estudo de caso em um Centro Municipal de Educação Infantil, no município de Vitória, no Estado do Espírito Santo, sendo esta escola referência em educação bilíngue para surdos no projeto maior do município. Assim, modificamos a linguagem da educação e, consequentemente, a educação bilíngue como um desejo de realidade para crianças surdas na educação infantil. Destacamos que a política bilíngue representa mais do que a utilização de uma língua, ela deve possibilitar aos estudantes surdos espaços educacionais que os levem a provocar o pensamento, estimulando suas capacidades. Deve considerar uma política educacional que respeite a singularidade linguística, revelada mediante a coletividade, a partir de outras pessoas com surdez. Ou seja, é necessário proporcionar espaços que contribua para que as crianças surdas tenham contato com seus pares linguísticos.

IntroductionNew digital technologies hold promise for equalising access to information and communication for the Deaf community. SMS technology, for example, has helped to equalise deaf peoples’ access to information and made it easier to communicate with both deaf and hearing people (Tane Akamatsu et al.; Power and Power; Power, Power, and Horstmanshof; Valentine and Skelton, "Changing", "Umbilical"; Harper). A wealth of anecdotal evidence and some recent academic work suggests that new media technology is also reshaping deaf peoples’ sense of local and global community (Breivik "Deaf"; Breivik, Deaf; Brueggeman). One focus of research on new media technologies has been on technologies used for point to point communication, including communication (and interpretation) via video (Tane Akamatsu et al.; Power and Power; Power, Power, and Horstmanshof). Another has been the use of multimedia technologies in formal educational setting for pedagogical purposes, particularly English language literacy (e.g. Marshall Gentry et al.; Tane Akamatsu et al.; Vogel et al.). An emphasis on the role of multimedia in deaf education is understandable, considering the on-going highly politicised contest over whether to educate young deaf people in a bilingual environment using a signed language (Swanwick & Gregory). However, the increasing significance of social and participatory media in the leisure time of Westerners suggests that such uses of Web 2.0 are also worth exploring. There have begun to be some academic accounts of the enthusiastic adoption of vlogging by sign language users (e.g. Leigh; Cavander and Ladner) and this paper seeks to add to this important work. Web 2.0 has been defined by its ability to, in Denise Woods’ word, “harness collective intelligence” (19.2) by providing opportunities for users to make, adapt, “mash up” and share text, photos and video. As well as its well-documented participatory possibilities (Bruns), its re-emphasis on visual (as opposed to textual) communication is of particular interest for Deaf communities. It has been suggested that deaf people are a ‘visual variety of the human race’ (Bahan), and the visually rich presents new opportunities for visually rich forms of communication, most importantly via signed languages. The central importance of signed languages for Deaf identity suggests that the visual aspects of interactive multimedia might offer possibilities of maintenance, enhancement and shifts in those identities (Hyde, Power and Lloyd). At the same time, the visual aspects of the Web 2.0 are often audio-visual, such that the increasingly rich resources of the net offer potential barriers as well as routes to inclusion and community (see Woods; Ellis; Cavander and Ladner). In particular, lack of captioning or use of Auslan in video resources emerges as a key limit to the accessibility of the visual Web to deaf users (Cahill and Hollier). In this paper we ask to what extent contemporary digital media might create moments of permeability in what Krentz has called “the hearing line, that invisible boundary separating deaf and hearing people”( 2)”. To provide tentative answers to these questions, this paper will explore the use of participatory digital media by a group of young Deaf people taking part in a small-scale digital moviemaking project in Sydney in 2009. The ProjectAs a starting point, the interdisciplinary research team conducted a video-making course for young deaf sign language users within the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University. The research team was comprised of one deaf and four hearing researchers, with expertise in media and cultural studies, information technology, sign language linguistics/ deaf studies, and signed language interpreting. The course was advertised through the newsletter of partner organization the NSW Deaf Society, via a Sydney bilingual deaf school and through the dense electronic networks of Australian deaf people. The course attracted fourteen participants from NSW, Western Australia and Queensland ranging in age from 10 to 18. Twelve of the participants were male, and two female. While there was no aspiration to gather a representative group of young people, it is worth noting there was some diversity within the group: for example, one participant was a wheelchair user while another had in recent years moved to Sydney from Africa and had learned Auslan relatively recently. Students were taught a variety of storytelling techniques and video-making skills, and set loose in groups to devise, shoot and edit a number of short films. The results were shared amongst the class, posted on a private YouTube channel and made into a DVD which was distributed to participants.The classes were largely taught in Auslan by a deaf teacher, although two sessions were taught by (non-deaf) members of Macquarie faculty, including an AFI award winning director. Those sessions were interpreted into Auslan by a sign language interpreter. Participants were then allowed free creative time to shoot video in locations of their choice on campus, or to edit their footage in the computer lab. Formal teaching sessions lasted half of each day – in the afternoons, participants were free to use the facilities or participate in a range of structured activities. Participants were also interviewed in groups, and individually, and their participation in the project was observed by researchers. Our research interest was in what deaf young people would choose to do with Web 2.0 technologies, and most particularly the visually rich elements of participatory and social media, in a relatively unstructured environment. Importantly, our focus was not on evaluating the effectiveness of multimedia for teaching deaf young people, or the level of literacy deployed by deaf young people in using the applications. Rather we were interested to discover the kinds of stories participants chose to tell, the ways they used Web 2.0 applications and the modalities of communication they chose to use. Given that Auslan was the language of instruction of the course, would participants draw on the tradition of deaf jokes and storytelling and narrate stories to camera in Auslan? Would they use the format of the “mash-up”, drawing on found footage or photographs? Would they make more filmic movies using Auslan dialogue? How would they use captions and text in their movies: as subtitles for Auslan dialogue? As an alternative to signing? Or not at all? Our observations from the project point to the great significance of the visual dimensions of Web 2.0 for the deaf young people who participated in the project. Initially, this was evident in the kind of movies students chose to make. Only one group – three young people in their late teens which included both of the young women in the class - chose to make a dialogue heavy movie, a spoof of Charlie’s Angels, entitled Deaf Angels. This movie included long scenes of the Angels using Auslan to chat together, receiving instruction from “Charlie” in sign language via videophone and recruiting “extras”, again using Auslan, to sign a petition for Auslan to be made an official Australian language. In follow up interviews, one of the students involved in making this film commented “my clip is about making a political statement, while the other [students in the class] made theirs just for fun”. The next group of (three) films, all with the involvement of the youngest class member, included signed storytelling of a sort readily recognisable from signed videos on-line: direct address to camera, with the teller narrating but also taking on the roles of characters and presenting their dialogue directly via the sign language convention of “role shift” - also referred to as constructed action and constructed dialogue (Metzger). One of these movies was an interesting hybrid. The first half of the four minute film had two young actors staging a hold-up at a vending machine, with a subsequent chase and fight scene. Like most of the films made by participants in the class, it included only one line of signed dialogue, with the rest of the narrative told visually through action. However, at the end of the action sequence, with the victim safely dead, the narrative was then retold by one of the performers within a signed story, using conventions typically observed in signed storytelling - such as role shift, characterisation and spatial mapping (Mather & Winston; Rayman; Wilson).The remaining films similarly drew on action and horror genres with copious use of chase and fight scenes and melodramatic and sometimes quite beautiful climactic death tableaux. The movies included a story about revenging the death of a brother; a story about escaping from jail; a short story about a hippo eating a vet; a similar short comprised of stills showing a sequence of executions in the computer lab; and a ghost story. Notably, most of these movies contained very little dialogue – with only one or two lines of signed dialogue in each four to five minute video (with the exception of the gun handshape used in context to represent the object liberally throughout most films). The kinds of movies made by this limited group of people on this one occasion are suggestive. While participants drew on a number of genres and communication strategies in their film making, the researchers were surprised at how few of the movies drew on traditions of signed storytelling or jokes– particularly since the course was targeted at deaf sign language users and promoted as presented in Auslan. Consequently, our group of students were largely drawn from the small number of deaf schools in which Auslan is the main language of instruction – an exceptional circumstance in an Australian setting in which most deaf young people attend mainstream schools (Byrnes et al.; Power and Hyde). Looking across the Hearing LineWe can make sense of the creative cho

Much have been written about Deaf Education and Sign Language, however little is known of the experiences and perceptions of teachers of the Deaf themselves, and the issues they perceive as crucial in Deaf education. This article presents the findings of a qualitative investigation into the perceptions and experiences of Deaf adults and teachers of the Deaf of Deaf education in South Africa. The majority of teachers of the Deaf in South Africa are not trained and even less are skilled users of South African Sign Language. Deaf education appears to be failing Deaf learners as the majority of Deaf learners leave school functionally illiterate. The aim of this study was to rigorously and methodically analyse and describe the emic views of teachers of the Deaf and Deaf adults in South Africa in order to assist in developing a teacher training programme to sufficiently equip teachers of the Deaf in South Africa. This is proposed as the first step in improving the levels of Deaf education in South Africa. The central finding of this investigation was that both teachers of the Deaf and Deaf adults themselves saw Sign Language as the quintessence of Deaf education. Both the practical and theoretical knowledge of SASL was emphasised as well as the impact of language on cultural and identity development. This paper proposes to present the Sign Languages' aspect of the study that emerged from the grassroots practitioners.

This empirical qualitative study aims (1) to understand the Chinese context in promoting accessible high-quality education for deaf communities and (2) to create an opportunity for deaf experts to contribute to sign language research, instruction, interpreting programmes, and deaf education in China. Using a focus group methodology, we gathered data from 48 participants from four different stakeholder groups (10 teachers, 16 administrators/researchers, 6 interpreters, 16 community members) identifying concerns and solutions to achieving educational access. Video recorded discussions were transcribed, analysed and consolidated into themes. Results show a fragile trust between deaf and hearing professionals, a need for continued investigation on sign language standardisation and preservation, and a desire for worldwide collaboration and inclusion of deaf and hearing scholars in establishing a deaf university in China. This participatory, community-based research method yielded insights toward improving deaf education and sign language training within Chinese special education and toward the design, implementation and establishment of a future university serving only deaf students in China.

Coaching Via Telepractice

Our first guest-edited issue for Vol. 6 (2018) will address itself to the politics of space, language and identity in higher education, in Africa and globally. The contributions in the guest-edited issue will singularly and collectively grapple with the nuances attendant to the intersections amongst space, language and identity in higher education. Key topics to be pursued in this issue include: • Higher education spaces and the politics of space in higher education • Space and identity, symbols and signs in the post-colonial university • Politics of identity: student protests, language, institutional culture • Institutional policies and their impact on (the politics of) practice (e.g. language policies) • Social cohesion, diversity and citizenship • Intersections of language, curriculum, educational access and transformation • Curriculum, decolonisation, and epistemic injustices | freedoms • Student experience, student identity, and student politics of diverse student groups (e.g. LGBTIQ+ students).

This article will explore the impact of various language education policies and their measures on Irish Sign Language (ISL) in Irish deaf education. The focus will be on how previous and current policy decisions regarding language education have affected the use and recognition of ISL as a legitimate language in the education system. The article will discuss both deaf schools and mainstream schools. The article will briefly provide an overview of ISL's history in Ireland, including its recognition as a language in 2017 by legislation (ISL Act 2017) and the current policies regarding its use in education. The impact of these policies on the development and use of ISL in deaf education will be concisely examined, including issues of access to education, teacher training, and curriculum development. Additionally, attitudes towards ISL will be briefly examined. The article will conclude with the ongoing challenges and opportunities for improving the status of ISL in Irish deaf education through policy reform and community advocacy.

This chapter considers the appropriateness of the theoretical model of colonialism in relation to the education of learners who are d/Deaf.1 Deaf academic and activist Paddy Ladd has argued that Deaf people have been oppressed by hearing people through the discourses of oral-ism, and that this oppression has been a similar process to the oppression experienced by indigenous peoples in colonized countries.2 Ladd makes this connection to colonialism on the basis of the imposition on the Deaf of hearing people's language (speech) and the repression of their native language (Sign). In this argument the ideological site of this oppression is deaf education, through the emphasis on spoken language in education. Ladd suggests that as a result of this colonial oppression Deaf people might benefit from the application of post-colonial thinking, in the same way that the situation of other indigenous people has been addressed. Ladd touches on the ideological importance of deaf education but does not present a sustained analysis of deaf education from the perspective of post-colonialism, so this chapter will evaluate the merits of this approach, asking: should deaf education be 'de-colonized', and what does it mean to ask this question?

This paper presents the linguistic plan for Brazilian Sign Language, also known as Libras (Língua Brasileira de Sinais), which has an impact on deaf education in Brazil. A set of actions for the recognition of Libras has been established given the development of research in the field of deaf education, sign language linguistics and sign language translation and interpretation through the involvement of the National Deaf Education and Integration Federation, FENEIS (Federação Nacional de Educação e Integração de Surdos). Documents created by the deaf and scientific publications have contributed to establishing a law that recognises Libras, as well as political actions that legitimise deaf education. However, some educational policies prevent the deaf from access to education. This paper presents the actions that contributed to the recognition of sign language and deaf education and discusses the educational policies that make deaf access to education difficult given their linguistic and cultural specificities. It also presents the subsidies associated with the bilingual linguistic policy in deaf education – Libras and Portuguese –, thus, indicating the need for the implementation and application of Libras and Portuguese teaching in Brazil. In addition, an analysis of the developments of this public policy is presented, considering some crucial concepts that potentially influence decisions and referrals based on linguistic policies and on the rights of deaf people, which are based on the concepts of‘ diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ (Kusters, et al., 2015).

In closing a keynote presentation at a recent international conference on deaf education, the speaker noted that ‘‘There has never been a better time to be a deaf child . or a parent or educator of one.’’ That suggestion is consistent with our intuitions and reflects significant strides that have been made recently in a variety of domains relevant to the development and education of deaf children. Investigations into language acquisition, the foundations of literacy, new educational methods, familyand child-oriented support services, and the cognitive underpinnings of learning are all helping to increase the opportunities and achievements of students who have significant hearing losses. There also have been major technological developments including newborn hearing screening and diagnostics, digital hearing aids and cochlear implants, and instructional technologies. Two recent international conferences have examined ways in which this progress is influencing our understanding of deaf learners and how it will change the face of deaf education in the coming years. ‘‘Language and Deaf Education: Into the 21st Century’’ was held in Dunblane, Scotland, in celebration of the life and work of Mary Brennan, who died in 2005 (see Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education [JDSDE], Volume 11, No. 1). That meeting explored interventions that can maximize language and communication development (both signed and spoken) as well as educational success for deaf children. The ‘‘Cochlear Implants: Educational Implications Conference,’’ held in Nottingham, England, focused on the broad implications of cochlear implants for school-aged children. Volume 12, Nos. 2–4, of the JDSDE contain papers written by presenters at these conferences and other authors, charting some of the future directions made possible by recent discoveries and innovations. The meetings sought to evaluate the current state of knowledge in these areas and allied fields with the hope of bridging research and practice and optimizing future achievement in the lifelong learning of children with significant hearing losses. More generally, investigations of the sort presented in these three issues offer exciting new insights into the strengths and needs of deaf children while developing tools and methods for ensuring that they have full access to academic, social, and employment opportunities. As coeditors of this series, we hope that these collected articles will help to engender new discussions and perspectives that further advance the frontiers of learning and academic success for all deaf children. In order to facilitate broad participation of the various stakeholders and deaf education, Oxford University Press also will create two electronic special issues of the JDSDE to be available at http:// www.jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/. One of the issues will be on cochlear implants in the development and education of deaf children; the other will describe recent progress in understanding and enhancing the links among language, literacy, and education, an area of investigation that owes much to the pioneering work of Mary Brennan. We hope that these collections will extend the impact of the research described here and by other investigators to explore the applied potential of basic research and develop research methods to validate and extend current educational practices.

A Sustainability Perspective on the Potentialities of Being Deaf:Toward Further Reflexivity in Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Goedele A. M. De Clerck (bio) Sustainability and a Reconceptualization of the Potentiality of Being Deaf The emphasis on potentiality needs to be understood in relation to the evolution of deaf education and the place of sign language in deaf education. We can look upon this evolution from a rational perspective. However, this can only be understood and adequately addressed while also taking into account the emotional chord that is struck in deaf people and deaf communities around the world, and in their partners, when it comes to the impact of educational practices of excluding accounts of deaf people's lives (see also De Clerck, 2015).1 The notion of potentiality relates to this process of "realized and unrealized possibilities" (Pratt, 2007, p. 403): being deaf in the past, present, and future. This is captured in the last point of the Accord for the Future, which was issued at the 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED), in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada: "[We] call upon all nations of the world to recognize and allow all Deaf citizens to be proud, confident, productive, creative, and enabling citizens in their respective countries" (Jamieson & Moores, 2011, p. 26). Sustainability is fundamentally about reflexivity on these realized and unrealized possibilities of being deaf, especially in times of transition and in response to challenges which, in their complexity, extend us as individuals, communities, and societies and need to be addressed on multiple levels (see also De Clerck, chapter 1; De Clerck, 2016). The perspective on human beings as learners is an epistemological and ontological perspective of subjectivity: Human beings are active subjects who shape their selves, relations with others, and material and sociocultural worlds and also give meaning to these selves, relations, and material and sociocultural environments. This perspective enables us to understand how these frameworks of human rights and of the Accord for the Future have been created through intense negotiations among a diverse group of people and can be learned and discussed, and inspire future practice, research, and theorizing (De Clerck & Pinxten, 2012, 2016). This stance of subjectivity and of human beings as learners also provides room for the making of meaning. The meaning-making [End Page 480] activity is related to Patricia Hermann-Shores's theoretical framework of language learning (chapter 6). She draws on Bruner (1999): Meaning making involves situating encounters with the world in their appropriate cultural contexts in order to know "what they are about." Although meanings are "in the mind," they have origins and significance in the culture in which they are created. It is this cultural situatedness of meaning that assures their negotiability and their communicability. (p. 149) We can then connect this human activity of meaning making with the question What does it mean to be deaf? which is discussed by Alys Young (chapter 3). She presents a focus on being deaf as an alternative to a focus on deafness: To force oneself to consider being deaf rather than deafness forces attention on the onto-logical—the experience of being deaf both in terms of how the self experiences the surrounding environment and how this environment is influenced by the deaf self. (p. 33) What it means to be deaf refers to the relationship a person can have with his/her identity (Young, chapter 3) as a multilayered, dynamic, and complex entity or with one or more aspects of it (De Clerck & Pinxten, 2012). It is in this relationship that subjectivity is expressed: More broadly in respect to others who might be deaf but not sign language users, the overarching point is that there are many ways to be deaf or Deaf (Taylor & Darby, 2003). This is not just about how much one might hear or what language(s) one uses. It is also about the host of other characteristics unrelated to being d/Deaf that might constitute diversity, such as culture, ethnicity, faith, class, sexual orientation, gender, and so forth. Being d/Deaf is about the whole person that may include her or his relationship with her or his...

Deaf education in Chile has made important progress during the past 30 years, particularly during the past decade. However, many of these achievements have brought new problems and challenges. This chapter gives an overview of the paths followed by educational policy, school practices, and research in deaf education. The authors’ review of official documents and published research was enriched by the voices of eight key informants connected to deaf education. From the analysis of all the material gathered, they identified several important issues, such as the tension between policies that promote the education of deaf students in regular schools and those that acknowledge the importance of sign language in deaf education. They also included some proposals for further research and for moving forward in educational policy and practices, with a focus on the important role deaf adults can play in these processes.

Deaf education in Croatia still continues to use a predominantly auditory-speech approach, spoken Croatian only, and simultaneous communication (SC). In the last few years a few changes in tradition have been made: most importantly, educational interpreting is now available in high schools and at the university level. Given the lack of bilingual deaf education and early sign language exposure, deaf children make very slow progress in literacy, compared with deaf children of deaf parents. Benefits of early sign language acquisition can be seen in deaf children of deaf parents not only in better social adaptation skills, but also in their better academic achievement compared with other deaf children. The cultural approach to deaf education views sign language as the most natural linguistic form of deaf people, and a powerful means of communication for all purposes and in all circumstances. Here, we discuss case studies of Sweden and Denmark, with 20 years of tradition in deaf bilingual education; the Netherlands, with about 10 years of deaf bilingual education; and Spain, where deaf bilingual education is in the process of implementation. These examples (Sweden, Spain, Netherlands) demonstrate the processes of policy changes and the shift to deaf education that is aimed at taking care of the needs of deaf children and their families, as well as implementing the human rights protections for linguistic minorities.

Deaf education in Croatia still continues to use a predominantly auditory-speech approach, spoken Croatian only, and simultaneous communication (SC). In the last few years a few changes in tradition have been made: most importantly, educational interpreting is now available in high schools and at the university level. Given the lack of bilingual deaf education and early sign language exposure, deaf children make very slow progress in literacy, compared with deaf children of deaf parents. Benefits of early sign language acquisition can be seen in deaf children of deaf parents not only in better social adaptation skills, but also in their better academic achievement compared with other deaf children. The cultural approach to deaf education views sign language as the most natural linguistic form of deaf people, and a powerful means of communication for all purposes and in all circumstances. Here, we discuss case studies of Sweden and Denmark, with 20 years of tradition in deaf bilingual education; the Netherlands, with about 10 years of deaf bilingual education; and Spain, where deaf bilingual education is in the process of implementation. These examples (Sweden, Spain, Netherlands) demonstrate the processes of policy changes and the shift to deaf education that is aimed at taking care of the needs of deaf children and their families, as well as implementing the human rights protections for linguistic minorities.