Competing Cultures and Languages: Exploring Microaggressions Within Schooling for the Deaf

• In Event: 26.080 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 26.080-22 - Social Justice: A Framework for Community

Abstract

School administrators, teachers, and staff are often unaware of the violence experienced by students who are Deaf. In this study, violence was conceived as acts that go beyond existential threats to include microaggressions (Brooks & Brooks, 2013). The purpose of the study was to understand the ways in which Deaf students experience violence in schools. Findings suggested that microaggressions stemmed from competition for cultural and language dominance occurred at all levels of the schools. School administrators varied in their abilities to recognize and influence the ways in which Deaf students experienced violence—with some participating, knowingly or unknowingly, in microaggressive acts. This study expands our understanding of how and in what ways violence manifests in the schooling of non-normative groups.

Authors

• Marlon Kuntze, Gallaudet University

• Melanie Carol Brooks, University of Idaho

• Catherine Ann O'Brien, Gallaudet University