Deaf People Around the World: Educational and Social Perspectives

Deaf Education and the Deaf Community in China: Past, Present, and Future

Deaf Education and the Deaf Community in China: Past, Present, and Future Kathryn Johnson, Richard Lytle, and Jun Hui Yang DE A F A N D H E A R I N G American and Chinese professionals have been working together since 1999 to empower change in China’s system of deaf education. Through these years of collaboration and partnership, an expanding and empowering network that is built on guanxi has been evolving. Guanxi, a key concept in Chinese culture, characterizes several societal relationships. In some instances, it describes a personal connection between two people. In other instances, it can also represent a network of contacts on which an individual can call when something needs to be done and through which he or she can exert influence on behalf of another. In addition, the concept can describe a general understanding between two people in which one is aware of the other’s wants and needs and will take them into account when the one decides her or his course of future actions that concern or could concern the other. The relationships formed by guanxi are personal and are not transferable. Through guanxi, a deeply rooted, foundational level of understanding has developed and continues to evolve, one that shapes the depth and breadth of the context and culture of China for deaf individuals who live there. DEAF EDUCATION AND THE DEAF COMMUNITY IN CHINA: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE A review of the history and current developments in the deaf community and in education for deaf children in China is enhanced when discussed in the context of modern Chinese history and events in deaf communities elsewhere in the world. Many of the developments in deaf education and deaf people’s place in society parallel changes in Chinese society and government. Although the first half of the 19th century witnessed the establishment of many schools for the deaf in the United States and in Europe, there are no recorded developments in deaf education in China for this time period. In the United States, many of these new schools were being founded by deaf leaders and had many deaf teachers. It is not until the latter quarter of the 19th century that we see the first documented establishment of a school for the deaf in China. During the 19th century, many in China looked to the West for new ideas, but often, these new ideas were accompanied by Western imperialism. When the Emperor tried to stop the importation of opium, Britain went to war to force the continued drug trade. After the Opium War in 1842, China was forced to accept a Western presence in key Chinese cities along the coasts. Along with this “treaty” of forced openness and trade, missionaries came into the country . Two American missionaries working in China at this time attended the 1880 International 17 Congress on Deafness in Milan, Italy. After the Milan congress, the Rev. Charles Rogers Mills and his wife, Annette Thompson Mills, returned to China where, in 1887, they established the first documented school for the deaf and blind in China, the Chefoo School for the Deaf in Dengzhou, Shandong (Piao, 1992, 1996; Dai & Song, 1999, cited in Yang, 2002). Education for children with disabilities such as deafness did not exist in any systematic or formal manner before the missionaries arrived. These children were viewed as burdens to their family and to society, and the cost-benefit of educating them was deemed negligible. The Chefoo School promoted the oral methodology and trained hearing people to become teachers of deaf children. A few years after the founding of the Chefoo School, another school for the deaf opened in Shanghai. This school, established by a French Catholic Church, used the French Manual Alphabet. The school continued until 1952 (Dai & Song, 1999, cited in Yang, 2002). In 1914, the first school for the deaf founded by Chinese was established in Hangzhou by a man with a deaf son. The deaf son later became a teacher at this school and elsewhere in China (Dai & Song, 1999, cited in Yang, 2002). Many of these early schools for the deaf continued to have strong Christian evangelical orientations. Since the establishment of the first school for the deaf by American missionaries, the oral approach has continued to be the dominant approach promoted by Chinese governments and by educators in China (Yang, 2002). However, everyday practice in schools for the deaf has long entailed the use of Sign Supported Chinese (SSC) and Chinese Sign Language (CSL). Even today...