Sign language, the deaf and the epistemic violence of mainstreaming

Abstract

Abstract This study of the relationship between the Deaf 1 , their native sign languages, and the encompassing dominant hearing societies and their cultures, within the context of schooling, demonstrates how the discourse on sign language within education is a vital ingredient in the assertion of symbolic power by the hearing establishment over the Deaf community. The use of Australia as a case study exemplifies, with a few notable exceptions, in particular Denmark and Sweden, the educational processes at work throughout the Western world as individual Deaf communities, each with their own distinct sign language, grapple with the dominance of the hearing culture within which they find themselves. The discursive assertion that education can only proceed through the dominant language, either in an oral or manual mode, rather than the use of native sign languages, will be shown to be an act of symbolic violence which restricts the access by the Deaf to education while ensuring that control over access to edu...