Affiliation:
1. Department of Sociology, Gallaudet University, Washington, USA
Abstract
The constructions of deafness and social representations of a deaf child are very complicated and
deeply contested. This paper examines the constructions of deafness and how it has been sociohistorically
framed and re-framed within the parameters of normalcy and deviance. Such analysis may
offer insight on the potential impact of shaping ideology, politics, and what it means to be deaf. This
level of analysis is conducted via an examination of the socio-history of deaf education including discussions
of the ongoing “paradigm wars” between certain social control institutions, mainly American
Sign Language-based (or called English-based) and the oral-based educational institutions and its
implications of language. Examining these two social control institutions will seek to uncover certain
constructions within specific social representations and societal dynamics that may shape the deaf
child’s identity, its version of “natural” gifts, social inequality, and ultimately the types of ideologies
constructed toward deaf students. A possible alternative view of reapproprating of the corporeal differences
of deafness is discussed including positive strategies to minimize reproduced social stratification,
oppression, social inequality, and divisions when dealing with deafness.
Reference85 articles.
1. ALTHUSSER, L. (1970). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press. Retrieved February 21, 2008. From : http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althuss er/1970/ideology.htm.
2. ARONOWITZ, S., & GIROUX, H. (1991). Postmodern Education: Politics, Culture, and Social Criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
3. ARTILES, A. J. (2003). Special education changing identity: Paradoxes and dilemmas in views of culture and space. Harvard Educational Review, 73(2), 164-247.
4. BAKHTIN, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (C. J. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
5. BANKS, J. A. (1993). The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education. Educational Researcher, 22, 4-14.