Deaf Culture, Community, and History
This domain covers the history, institutions, values, and contested terminology of Deaf communities, mainly in the United States. Questions ask you to place events, identify key figures, and apply the cultural versus medical model.
Historical anchors
- 1817: the American School for the Deaf opens in Hartford, founded by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Laurent Clerc, and Mason Cogswell; Alice Cogswell was the first pupil.
- 1864: Gallaudet College is chartered by Congress under Abraham Lincoln, the world's first college for deaf students.
- 1880: the Milan congress endorses oralism, suppressing sign language in many schools; Alexander Graham Bell advocates oralism and eugenic ideas.
- 1880: National Association of the Deaf founded; 1924: first Deaflympics in Paris; 1968: NTID established.
- 1960: William Stokoe publishes Sign Language Structure, establishing ASL as a language.
- 1988: Deaf President Now at Gallaudet; I. King Jordan becomes the first Deaf president; the protest becomes a defining cultural event.
- 1990: Americans with Disabilities Act.
Culture, community, identity
- Culture is shared language, values, norms, institutions, history, and art - not hearing status or speech.
- Core values: ASL, visual orientation, collectivism and information-sharing, directness, and Deaf spaces (residential schools, Deaf clubs, Deaf churches, NAD).
- Name signs: descriptive (based on appearance) versus arbitrary (initialized); typically given by a Deaf community member, not self-assigned.
- Audism (Humphries, 1975): discrimination or bias favoring hearing ways; "Deaf Gain" reframes deafness as contribution.
- Terminology: Deaf (cultural identity), deaf (audiological), hard of hearing, DeafBlind, CODA and KODA. "Hearing-impaired" is often rejected as deficit-framed.
Worked example
A candidate argues, "Deaf people cannot have a culture because culture requires a spoken language." Reasoning: the premise is false - language can be signed; ASL supplies the language criterion; residential schools, clubs, churches, sports, and national organizations supply institutions; shared norms, humor, art, and endogamy supply the rest; therefore Deaf culture is a culture in the anthropological sense, and deafness is better described as a difference than a deficiency.
Traps
- Pathologizing language ("suffers from hearing loss," "afflicted").
- Treating deaf and Deaf as interchangeable.
- Describing Deaf President Now as a riot or as only about one job.
- Assuming all deaf people sign or all signers are deaf.
- Using "hearing-impaired" as neutral when the context is cultural.