This article is about the studies of deaf culture, art, language, and people. For the education of deaf students as well as teachers of the deaf, seeDeaf education. For deafness as a medical condition, seehearing loss.
The emergence of Deaf Studies was facilitated by the revelation that signed languages are bona fide languages.[1]
Deaf studies are academic disciplines concerned with the study of the deaf social life of human groups and individuals. These constitute an interdisciplinary field that integrates contents, critiques, and methodologies from anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, social studies, and sociology, among others.[1] The field focuses on the language, culture, and lives of the deaf from the social instead of the medical perspective.[2]
Deaf studies are also described as those comprising the scientific study of the deaf-related aspects of the world.[3]
Deaf studies emerged with the recognition that deaf people have a culture and that such culture is unique, requiring alternative ways of understanding this segment of the population outside of pathological frameworks.[4] TheUniversity of Bristol began using the term "deaf studies" in 1984 after the founding of theCentre for Deaf Studies in 1968.[2] Scholars began identifying themselves with the field,[2] particularly after degree-granting programs in Deaf Studies began to emerge in theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States from the late 1970s to the 1980s.[1] The first master's degree on Deaf Studies was introduced at the University of Bristol in 1992.[1]
Studying the lives of those who are deaf include learning about their culture, sign language, history and their human rights. Being involved in "Deaf Studies" means focusing on the sociological, historical and linguistic aspects of thedeaf and hearing impaired. Within this, it prepares individuals to work with thedeaf and hearing impaired. Those who participate and join this field of study are involved with promoting the change of views and perspectives of the larger society regarding Deaf people.[5] Some perspectives of larger society, such as the belief that deafness is adisability, can result in deaf studies being related to the field ofdisability studies, although not all deaf people agree that deafness should be connected to disabilities.[6] There is also an intersection of these fields in the study of those who aredeaf plus, meaning both Deaf and disabled.
^Kusters, Annelies; Meulder, Maartje De; O'Brien, Dai (2017).Innovations in Deaf Studies: The Role of Deaf Scholars. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 88.ISBN9780190612184.
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