Deaf People Around the World: Educational and Social Perspectives

Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners in Canada

Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners in Canada Connie Mayer, C. Tane Akamatsu, Mary Ann Bibby, Janet R. Jamieson, and Raymond LeBlanc CA N A D A I S the second largest country in the world, spanning six time zones from the Atlantic to the Pacific and stretching 4,800 kilometers from north to south. The southern portion consists of 10 provinces, and the northern region is divided into three territories. For such a large country, the population is small, slightly less than 34 million people, with most living in areas of urban concentration in the south, close to the border with the United States. Rural areas are spread out and sparsely populated, particularly in the north. It has been estimated that there are more than 200,000 profoundly deaf people in Canada and an additional 1.5 million with milder hearing loss (Rodda & Hiron, 1989). However, the Canadian Association of the Deaf argues that there are problems with the way in which this information is collected and recommends using one-tenth of the United States numbers as a guideline, which would produce a more accurate calculation of 310,000 deaf and deafened people and about 2.8 million hard of hearing Canadians (Canadian Association of the Deaf, 2007). Although Canada has only two official languages, French and English, Canadians pride themselves on the multicultural nature of their citizenry as well as the linguistic and ethnic diversity of their population. Minority rights and linguistic cultural freedom are seen as central and are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Department of Justice, Canada, 1982). All minority groups can demand, and expect to receive under the law, recognition and equality in every area, including that of education. Deaf and hard of hearing people share these linguistic and cultural rights. Signing deaf Canadians who come from Anglophone families use American Sign Language (ASL) as it is used in the United States, with a few lexical or regional differences. These differences are described in The Canadian Dictionary of ASL (Bailey & Dolby, 2002), a volume that was developed in conjunction with the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf and lists more than 8,700 signs, many unique to Canada and capturing regional differences across the country. Signing deaf Canadians who come from Francophone families (usually in Québec or northern and central New Brunswick) use La Langue des Signes de Québecois (LSQ). The two sign languages have many cognates, but are considered to be two different languages. Although ASL and LSQ have not yet achieved official language status nationally or provincially, they are recognized as languages of instruction in three provinces—Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario. There are no known standard signed languages used by the aboriginal, First Nations peoples of Canada, although there is some evidence that an indigenous form of sign language may exist among deaf Inuit people in Nunavut Territory (MacDougall, 2001). 284 In Canada, responsibility for education is a provincial rather than a federal responsibility, resulting in significant diversity among provincial services. On the positive side, this diversity contributes to the growth of innovative and creative solutions to meet the varying needs found in different areas of the country. However, this decentralized administrative control has contributed to a lack of continuity and cohesive development across the country as a whole. Moreover, although provincial governments directly control a few schools, including some provincial schools for deaf students, most educational facilities are run by local school boards. The positive and negative conditions created by this diversity affect all of special education in a very direct way, and these effects become evident in a closer examination of the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. Indeed, this diversity presented challenges in the writing of this chapter because it was often difficult, given the limitations of space, to provide a comprehensive account of each region of the country. LOOKING BACK: HISTORICAL FRAMEWORKS The history of the education of deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Canada parallels the history of the country more broadly in that it had its roots in eastern Canada and moved west over time as the country opened up with the building of the railroad (Clarke & Winzer, 1983).1 The first school for the deaf was opened in 1831 in Champlain, Quebec, under the direction of Ronald McDonald. McDonald had been sent to visit schools for the deaf in New York and Philadelphia and had been trained and supervised by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. This...