ABSTRACT
Certain educationists will be very familiar with the term ‘bilingualism’, a key area of concern in the field of education and cultural diversity; others will be focusing on deaf children, but mainly in the area generally called ‘special needs’. This chapter shows why considering these two areas, generally treated separately, is fundamental to the quality of education received by a certain group of children. It also indicates how it is possible, and necessary, to widen the category of bilingualism by logically including a new one.
The deaf community is now identified as a linguistic minority, which gives a new meaning to the word bilingualism. For deaf children the use of British Sign Language (BSL) and English makes them bilingual. There are a number of issues surrounding bilingualism in terms of signed and spoken languages, in the education of deaf children. This chapter elaborates on the significance of BSL and the need to examine the range of issues affecting deaf children, other children at school, parents and teachers.
Underlying the discussion in this chapter are questions such as the complex implications of equality; for instance, including the deaf children in the mainstream classroom may in one respect be regarded as treating them as equal to other children, but it could in fact deprive them of the maximum opportunities they need for learning. It also raises much more forcefully than in the past in debates around bilingualism, the broader responsibilities arising from integration of a group of bilingual children in a school community. Consideration of bilingual children in the context of cultural diversity had normally been confined to the overall educational achievement of the bilingual children only.
