Traditionally, deaf education has been treated as the domain of special educators who strive to overcome the difficulties associated with hearing loss. Recently, the sociocultural view of deafness has prompted research and academic study of Deaf culture, sign language linguistics, and bilingual education. Linda Komesaroff exposes the power of the entrenched dominant groups and their influence on the politics of educational policy and practice in Disabling Pedagogy: Power, Politics, and Deaf Education.Komesaroff suggests a reconstruction of deaf education based on educational and social theory. First, she establishes a deep and situated account of deaf education in Australia through interviews with teachers, Deaf leaders, parents, and other stakeholders. Komesaroff then documents a shift to bilingual education by one school community as part of her ethnographic study of language practices in deaf education. She also reports on the experiences of deaf students in teacher education. Her study provides an analytical account of legal cases and discrimination suits brought by deaf parents for lack of access to native sign language in the classroom. Komesaroff confronts the issue of cochlear implantation, locating it within the broader context of gene technology and bioethics, and advocates linguistic rights and self-determination for deaf people on the international level. Disabling Pedagogy concludes with a realistic assessment of the political challenge and the potential of the “Deaf Resurgence” movement to enfranchise deaf people in the politics of their own education.

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Product Description: The deaf world is a complex one, divided by the allegiance of some to Deaf Culture, which emphasizes communication by sign-language, and by others to oralism, which emphasizes speech as the primary means of communication, and still others to a program called Total Communication, which stresses both signing and speaking...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Argues that deaf Americans consider English secondary to American Sign Language, and have hence developed their own culture of behavior, values, beliefs, and expression within mainstream culture. (view table of contents)

Discusses the culture of the modern deaf community, the oppression of sign language, and the failure of educational programs that rely exclusively on oral language to teach deaf children

Book by Bradford, Thomas H.

Explores the physical and psychological ramifications of deafness, assesses its impact on the individual and on family and friends, and considers the relative merits of lip reading and sign language (view table of contents)

Refusing to accept the limitations others have placed on the deaf, the authors--themselves deaf--argue for a deaf culture, one united by and expressed through the American Sign Language

Product Description: The articles in this book were written between the years of 1975 and 1979. They relate to the topics of the utmost concern for Deaf people; however, they have not been widely disseminated in the fields related to deafness. All four papers represent a development in research towards understanding Deaf society and culture in the U...read more

Product Description: The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), established in 1965, is the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. As one of nine colleges within the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, NTID provides academic programs, access, ASL in-class interpreters and support services-including on-site audiological, speech-language, and cochlear implant support...read more

Chronicles the social and educational problems that trouble deaf individuals from infancy to adulthood, noting recent discoveries concerning intellectual, language, personality, and ego development