American Sign Language and Early Literacy: A Model Parent-Child Program

3. Discourse and Counterdiscourse

28 3 Discourse and Counterdiscourse As a system of being, a discourse concerns itself with particular matters and promotes certain ideas, perspectives, and values at the expense of others. In doing so, a given discourse will marginalize perspectives and values that are central to other discourses. Or, as Foucault (1972) argues, “Discourses . . . systematically form the objects of which they speak” (p. 39). Some writers have explored historical representations of and discourses surrounding Deaf people that are linked to social and educational practices and structures that render Deaf people as disabled instead of a distinct linguistic minority (e.g., Ladd, 2003; Lane, 1992). The construction of Deaf people as disabled often serves to channel Deaf students away from bilingual education programs and socialization with the Deaf community and toward habilitation via the practices of oralism (Komesaroff, 2008; Lane, 1992; Lane et al., 1996). In this regard, medical and educational discourses surrounding Deaf identity bear similarities to discourses opposing bilingual education for hearing children on the grounds that language and cultural differences are deficiencies (Cummins, 2001). Deaf People as Involuntary Minorities John Ogbu (1992) devised the categories of voluntary and involuntary minorities as a way to approach the academic underachievement of certain groups of students as compared with others. Voluntary minorities are groups of people who have arrived in another society of their own accord in hopes of better economic prospects, more opportunities, and/or greater freedom than they found in their own countries. Because of the volun- Discourse and Counterdiscourse 29 tary nature of their minority status in the new society, Ogbu argues , the “primary cultural differences” that voluntary minority students carry do not cause as many problems in school. These unique aspects of voluntary minority students’ home cultures and languages were in existence before the students’ arrival and did not develop as a means of opposition to or protection from the majority culture. Since these primary cultural differences are not seen as being in competition with mainstream society, voluntary minorities tend to approach school and second language learning more willingly and encounter fewer problems than involuntary minorities. In other words, voluntary minorities do not buck the system. Involuntary minorities, on the other hand, are groups of people who were brought into another society against their will through “slavery, conquest, colonization, or forced labour” (Ogbu, 1992, p. 8). Deaf culture theorists have argued for the view of Deaf people as a colonized minority, particularly in terms of linguistic and cultural colonialism, and it is in these terms that I regard Deaf people as an involuntary minority group. Assigned an inferior status, involuntary minorities have also been denied opportunities to truly integrate with the majority culture and as a consequence, developed “secondary cultural differences to cope with their subordination” (Ogbu, p. 8). These secondary cultural differences have a greater impact on the educational experiences of involuntary minorities in part because these differences appear to be associated with an oppositional collective identity versus a mainstream, dominant-culture social identity. According to Ogbu, voluntary minorities appear to bring a sense of identity with them from their homeland and retain this identity (which is different from, but not in opposition to, majority culture). However , involuntary minorities appear to develop a new collective identity after their subordination “that is in opposition to the social identity of the dominant group” (Ogbu, p. 9). This new identity is a response to their treatment by the dominant group 30 Chapter 3 “in economic, political, social, psychological, cultural, and language domains” (Ogbu, p. 9). Secondary cultural differences cause problems in school for involuntary minorities because these differences “evolved as coping mechanisms” under conditions of oppression, and involuntary minorities have little incentive to give up these cultural differences “as long as they believe they are still oppressed” (Ogbu, 1992, p. 10). These differences between involuntary minority and mainstream students in communication, cognitive, interactional, or learning styles result in the perception by involuntary minorities that school success entails “acting white.” In other words, Ogbu argues, school learning can be viewed as a process that is detrimental to involuntary minorities’ “social identity, sense of security, and self-worth” (p. 10). If involuntary minorities acquire a majority-culture frame of reference, then they fear that they may cease acting like involuntary minorities and lose their identity, sense of community, and feelings of self-worth. Furthermore , writes Ogbu, it has been demonstrated that involuntary minorities who “learn to ‘act white’ or who succeed...