Reflecting emancipation: Records of a deaf community

Abstract

This study is part of a broader investigation into” The emancipation of the deaf community: the turn and voice of the deaf”. carried out at the Open University of Lisbon. In this context, considering that politics and education are viral in the representation of personal empowerment, we intend not only to identify political and educational directions that contributed to the emancipation of the deaf community, but also to understand the role of the school in this process of emancipation and to envisage a set of services and dynamics that are inherent to it. The methodology used was qualitative in nature and data was collected through an interview with four deaf adults, translated by a Portuguese Sign Language interpreter. The names of these participants are fictitious and crossed out as a way of contributing to their anonym. The result of the study indicates that the emancipation of deaf is related to: the bilingual education: portuguese and Portuguese sign language (LGP); the timing of language learning; the interdisciplinary articulation between the curricular programs of these two disciplines; fluency in LGP on the part of all teachers who work with deaf people; the teaching of sign language and deaf culture be taught and transmitted by deaf teachers; and the predisposition of deaf people towards results emancipation. They also suggest that bilingual methodologies and inclusive policies, in the education of deaf people, have a positive influence on their emancipatory processes.