De-Colonizing Deaf Education: An Analysis of the Claims and Implications of the Application of Post-Colonial Theory to Deaf Education
Temas
Detalles
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?
En K. Lesnik-Oberstein (Ed.), Rethinking Disability Theory and Practice: Challenging Essentialism (pp. 76-97).