Culture of Disability

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Culture of Disability

• Deafness

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Aims

• To gain knowledge and understanding of the
  psycho-social foundations of Deaf culture
• To analyse the content of an interview with Susan
  Daniels, Chief Executive, National Deaf
  Childrens Society from psychological
  perspectives
• To actively participate in Ms Chloe Stoakes
  question and answer session to gain an awareness
  of personal Deaf issues

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What is Culture?

• What constitutes membership of a cultural group?
• Set of learned behaviours of a group of people
  who have their own language , values, rules for
  behaviours and traditions (Padden Humphries,
  1988)

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Disability Culture

• Is there such a thing?
• Should there be?
• Would you include all disabilities?
• What forms and approaches should answers to these
  questions take?

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What is disability culture?

• A celebration of the uniqueness of disability
• A positive development
• Positive change of attitude, systems laws,
  through shared thought and action
• A notion that people with disability are
  contributing members to society
• How might this be done?
• A means by which people with different
  disabilities can pursue their own as well as
  shared goals
• A spirit or energy
• A dignified voice

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What is hoped to be achieved?

• Stimulates debate
• Challenges myths
• Cultural contributions can be made
• Shatters images of disabled people as needy
• Reinforces idea that people with disability are
  not only consumers of services but have something
  to offer
• Moves away from the notion of inclusion to one
  that encourages disabled people to drive societal
  structures.

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Deafness as an Impairment

• Deafness as disability
• Rehabilitation Education (Butler, Skelton
  Valentine, 2001 Lane, 1997)
• Impairment
• Unable to enjoy mainstream culture (e.g. music)
• Cochlear implants, hearing aids, lip reading
  (Higgins, 1990) Kronick, 1990)
• Deafness is just one group (Turner, 1994)

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Deafness as Culture

• Psychosocial theories
• Stigma, language, prejudice
• Factors that transform deafness from a stigma to
  a cultural identity
• How has deafness (historically labelled as a
  disability) become the basis for cultural
  identification?
• Does it constitute a culture?

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External Barriers

• Prejudice
• Stigma is the label
• Prejudice is the attitude (Herek Capitanio,
  1999).
• Prejudice .is commonly defined as negative
  feeling toward persons based solely on their
  group membership (Devine, 1995486)
• Prejudice against a certain group by others
  functions as an act of cohesion among persons who
  belong to that group.

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Stigma

• Stigma
• Deafness viewed as a disability
• Cultural Model
• Maintenance of a sense of self-worth
• Person who is deaf is more comfortable with peers
  who are Deaf (Foster Brown, 1988)
• Separation from the concept of non-normality
  and disability
• Bound together by the experience of deafness
• Deafness does not signify loss but a distinctive
  perspective of the world (Dolnick, 1993) (not a
  pathology)
• Reaction against not being able to to be fully
  integrated into the mainstream (Lane, 1992)

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Group Dynamics

• In-group and Out-group
• Stigma
• Goffman (1997) tainted and discounted rather
  than whole and usual people
• An attribute that is discredited by others
• Plays an important role in group formation
• Can transform stigma as a basis for group
  identification (e.g. racial and religious
  minorities, gays) (Brewer, 1991)

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Group Membership

• Sign Language
• First language
• Foundation of pro-Deaf culture advocacy
• Pure signers (acquire the language before the age
  of 6)
• Recognise the approximate age at which a person
  acquired sign language by the way they use facial
  expressions.
• Signifies group membership
• Threat to the use of sign language
• Threat to the efficacy of Deaf culture.
• Cochlear implants
• National Association of the Deaf (NAD)
• Delay in acquiring sign language skills and
  developing identity as a deaf person (culturally
  homeless) (Lane, 1992)
• Attitudinal Deafness
• Determines membership (paralleled by proper
  language use

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An exclusive club?

• Prejudice against hearing
• Hearing has a negative connotation (James
  Parton, 1991)
• Objection to Deaf culture model
• Prejudice against
• use of oral methods of communication (Wilcox,
  1989)
• cochlear implants (Mascia Smithdas, 1994)
• hearing professionals who work in the area of
  deafness (Lane, 1992)
• families, neighbours and work colleagues
  (Dolnick, 1993)
• Hearing parents have to accept that the Deaf
  child can never be one hundred percent theirs
  (Dolnick, 199351)
• Why?
• Increases the value of membership to the Deaf
  culture

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Final Thought

• Is Deafness a culture?

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Susan DanielsChief ExecutiveNational Deaf
Childrens Society