Multicultural Issues in Deaf Education in U.S. Classrooms

Introduction and Background

The United States has long ceased being a "melting pot" and has emerged in the 21st century as more of a "salad bowl" characterized by increasing multiculturalism in society and in the nation's classrooms. In this changing environment, understanding how deaf students from different cultural backgrounds experience the educational process has assumed new relevance and importance. As Marschark and Spencer emphasize, "A history of the education of deaf persons is by its very nature a study of societal and cultural change" (p. 9). To this end, this paper provides a critical review of the peer-reviewed and scholarly literature to identify relevant multicultural issues involved in the education of deaf children in the United States today.

The number of deaf children in need of quality educational services is great, but estimates vary concerning the actual numbers of students involved. Depending on the criteria used, approximately one out of every one thousand to five thousand people will experience a hearing loss from birth or early life such that they do not acquire the spoken language of their environment; moreover, a significant percentage of these deaf learners will not acquire spoken language at a level useful for communication (Broesterhuizen, 2005). According to this author, these young learners "run the risk of marginalization in hearing society and of becoming outsiders who can maintain themselves only by forming self-contained communities of Deaf people. Most of them prefer Sign Language for communication" (Broesterhuizen, 2005, p. 304). It is not surprising that deaf students would seek out others like themselves — those who are deaf first and share the same cultural background second. According to Powers (2005), "For students who try to articulate 'their culture' along these lines, 'being ethnic' is a generic term describing cultural activities and styles that are divorced from any particular biological origins" (p. 49).

According to Pollard (1996), "Any discussion of educational opportunities pertaining to deaf individuals cannot be separated from matters of ASL fluency, the consequences of dysfluency, and the dynamics and limitations of translation. Far too many individuals wrongly assume that a few courses in 'sign' enable one to converse with, or worse, interpret for, a primary user of ASL. Nothing could be further from the truth" (p. 391). These assumptions are longstanding and pervasive and remain firmly in place in many classrooms across the country.

The challenges associated with delivering quality educational services to the deaf community are certainly not new. As Marschark and Spencer emphasize, "Throughout history, deaf people have faced a gamut of perceptions and attitudes that have influenced the quality of educational opportunities" (2003, p. 9). Because the majority of deaf children — estimates suggest 90–95% — are born to hearing parents who are not competent signers when the child is born, deaf children may not learn sign language during infancy; sign language may therefore not be considered the child's mother tongue by the criterion of origin (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). In addition, there is the issue of whether the child learns any other language, or whether sign language — even if it comes later — is the first natural language the child learns properly (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). According to Daniels (2003), "Usually when a second language is introduced it is a spoken language. Rarely is a signed language such as American Sign Language (ASL) selected as the second language choice. Yet there is a growing body of literature suggesting signed languages present distinctive advantages for young language learners" (p. 53).

As Skutnabb-Kangas points out, a deaf child can have the same mother tongue according to all criteria only in the best of circumstances: if a deaf child is born to deaf parents who know a sign language well and use it with the child from the very beginning, feel positive about it, and give the child a strong positive identification with the sign language and the Deaf community; if the child receives both day care and a large part of their education through the medium of sign language; and if the sign language is accepted by the rest of society. Then sign language is the child's mother tongue according to all criteria. But worldwide, this would be a very unusual case (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000, p. 112).

In the worst-case scenario, Skutnabb-Kangas reports that a deaf person may grow up with no natural language as their mother tongue, never fully knowing any language. This occurs in situations such as: societies where the deaf are seen as mentally handicapped (such as Argentina), where deaf people either receive no formal education or are placed in settings designed for oral communities and therefore have no chance to become proficient in any written language; where deaf students do not encounter any competent signers; and where deaf students do not know that sign language is a fully developed minority language and that the Deaf community is a linguistically and culturally self-contained minority. This author emphasizes that "this is sadly still the case with many deaf people, especially but not exclusively in underdeveloped countries" (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000, p. 112).

These challenges have become even more pronounced in recent years as the same forces fueling globalization create an increasingly multicultural society in the United States. According to Flood, Heath, and Lapp (2005), "In recent years deaf Americans, especially those who are teachers of the deaf, have spearheaded a reevaluation — at both the grass roots and professional levels — of the education that is offered to deaf children" (p. 313). The problem that continues to be identified by both deaf people and their teachers is the difficulty of communication (and therefore of teaching and learning) in classrooms organized according to oral or total communication pedagogies (Flood et al., 2005).

As deaf adults began participating in and directing policymaking concerning the education of deaf children, longstanding erroneous assumptions were transformed somewhat, but the process has taken longer and required more effort than expected. Descriptions of deaf children as disabled persons needing auditory and speech rehabilitation began to fade. In their place, descriptions of deaf people as an ethnolinguistic group arose, where young learners need "bilingual education" using ASL as the medium of instruction rather than "special education" using invented or artificial languages. "This cultural view of deaf people, existing alongside recent realizations of the multicultural nature of contemporary American life, has given rise to a new deaf education pedagogy, termed bilingual-bicultural (or bi-bi) education" (Flood et al., 2005, p. 313). The introduction of these educational techniques has also introduced new misconceptions concerning the education of deaf children.

Deaf Education in a Multicultural Classroom

Today, the majority of deaf children in the United States are educated in regular public schools in programs where their time is distributed among special classes for deaf students and mainstream classes where they are integrated with hearing children (Flood et al., 2005). In some cases, signing interpreters are provided in integrated settings, and in special classes a pedagogy known as "total communication" (TC) is used (Flood et al., 2005). According to Gunter and Scheetz (2004), "As public school systems work to comply with federal mandates to serve students with disabilities in general education classrooms, the need for educational interpreters increases. The number of educational interpreters is inadequate. This problem is compounded by the fact that most individuals working as educational interpreters have no interpreting credentials and have not completed an interpreter training program" (p. 109).

In the United States, deaf students are considered special needs students eligible for special services because their disability or impairment affects their educational performance. Included in this broad category are children with learning disabilities, speech or language disorders, intellectual disability, emotional disturbance, autism, hearing impairment, vision impairment, deaf-blindness, orthopedic impairments, traumatic brain injury, chronic health conditions, and severe and multiple disabilities (Westwood, 2003).

The typical American classroom in which deaf students receive their education has become an increasingly heterogeneous environment, and teachers already face new and challenging issues related to providing quality educational services for a diverse student population, particularly those with hearing impairments and deafness (Gillespie & Hansen, 1998). According to Antia and Mccain, mainstreaming deaf students in regular public-school classrooms is not the only option available. "Co-enrolled classrooms," they advise, "represent a promising additional possibility for increasing student social access to peers, as well as increasing achievement. A co-enrolled classroom typically consists of an approximately 2:1 ratio of hearing and Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) students. A team of two teachers — a general education teacher and a teacher of DHH students — collaborate to provide instruction. In many CE classrooms, the teachers and students frequently use both spoken English and sign language" (p. 20).

According to Hicks (1999), these trends have also provided new opportunities for understanding how young people interrelate and react, features that hold special significance for understanding deaf education in a multicultural classroom. "As such," she advises, these trends "open up new ways of thinking about how cultural groups may function in relation to one another in a multicultural classroom" (Hicks, 1999, p. 19). Hicks also emphasizes that today's multicultural classroom has compelled teachers to begin looking at their lessons from the perspectives of their Black students, their Hispanic students, their white students, their poor students, their middle-class and upper-middle-class students, their traditionally successful students, and their unsuccessful students (p. 33). It is therefore clear that teachers also need to look at their lessons from the perspective of their deaf students.

In spite of legislative attempts to level the playing field for disabled students, significant disparities remain for the deaf. Easterbrooks (1999) points out that "most students who are deaf or hard of hearing are educated in their local schools, and many are in areas of this country where there are small numbers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Schools with few students may not have a variety of employees with sufficiently broad bases of specialization to advise the system" (p. 537). A paucity of timely information concerning appropriate pedagogy may result in schools making judgments about deaf students' unique needs based on conventional wisdom rather than fact — for example, that a student reads well enough "for a deaf child" — which may result in failure to provide basic legal requirements such as teachers, interpreters, or adequate remedial services (Easterbrooks, 1999).

Flood and his associates emphasize that "the twin objectives of public school hearing-impaired programs are to allow for instruction with normally hearing age-mates as much as possible and to facilitate the acquisition of English among the deaf children" (p. 314). Nevertheless, in spite of the availability of such programs in many parts of the country, as well as the highly intensive and technical methods for educating deaf children developed over the years, deaf students in the United States continue to fail to achieve the competence in English and assimilation with hearing people that their education is expected to provide (Flood et al., 2005).

When minority students are involved, these constraints become even more difficult. Easterbrooks notes that "students who are deaf and hard of hearing form a widely heterogeneous group" (p. 537). Notwithstanding these distinct cultural differences, deaf children are also members of a separate learning culture. According to Qualls-Mitchell (2002), "Deaf people belong to a distinct culture, and American Sign Language is the first language employed by most Deaf individuals in the United States. In order to appreciate a culture other than your own, it is necessary to understand the objective (tangible) and subjective (nontangible) characteristics of that culture. It is important to be aware of the socialization patterns as well" (p. 77).

Qualls-Mitchell emphasizes that an understanding of deafness is essential for educators working with deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and that recognizing and appreciating the culture of others allows communication to be less restrictive in nature. She advises, "People tend to let their guard down when a genuine interest in who they are or how they really feel is shown — familiarity breeds solace. When children feel safe, they respond openly, honestly, and with pure intentions. Students hold their teachers in high regard" (Qualls-Mitchell, 2002, p. 77). Likewise, Broesterhuizen points out that deaf students do not want to define themselves in terms of lacking something their hearing counterparts possess, but rather in terms of how the positive aspects of their language and culture affect them personally: "For them, terms such as hearing impaired or hearing challenged are typical of the disempowering and oppressive language use of hearing society. They define themselves as Deaf, just in the same way as others define themselves as belonging to the Italian, Irish, or Arab community" (2005, p. 304).

This suggests that even in a highly multicultural setting, deaf students would likely consider themselves part of the nonhearing culture before they thought of themselves in ethnic terms. Lane advises, "We seek mutual respect for each other's culture and language, and freedom from previous roles as oppressor and oppressed. We cultivate increased sensitivity, respect, and trust, with the hope of becoming true allies. Our goals are empowerment as individuals and equal partners, and recognition of deaf people as members of a cultural minority group" (1994, p. 127).

According to Lane (1994), some observers believe that schools with a multicultural philosophy for their deaf students are a step ahead; however, this approach ignores a fundamental reality: "By leaping into multiculturalism, they have ignored the dominant, oppressive dynamic in the system — that between deaf and hearing people. BiBi must occur first, or the multicultural emphasis will only enforce the prejudice that deaf people have no unique culture of their own" (p. 123). The use of BiBi by deaf students is considered a transitional phase rather than a final destination. As Lane states, "BiBi is not an end product. It is a transitional phase on the road to true multiculturalism. Just as you cannot start a BiBi philosophy without deaf people, you cannot start a multicultural philosophy without recognizing and accepting deaf culture — which means dealing with the last 150 years of attempted cultural genocide" (1994, p. 123).

Lane uses strong language to describe the historical dynamics of deaf education: "People have strong reactions to being identified as either oppressed or as oppressor. They do not like it, and usually deny it vigorously. But this relationship of oppression is precisely what perpetuates the current ineffectual and repressive system of deaf education. Traditionally we have ignored it, made fun of it, and acted as if it did not exist. BiBi identifies it as the enemy that it really is" (p. 126). The problem appears to be fundamentally one of communication, and this is where many authorities suggest educators concentrate their efforts.