Deaf and Hearing Partnerships: Ethical and Communication Considerations.

WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS, a hearing perspective controls the direction of deaf education nationally and internationally. People who are hearing have a powerful influence over decisions that affect legislation, policies, professional organizations, research agendas, and curricular decisions related to deaf education. Although this situation is changing in some arenas, people who are deaf often have relatively less influence than their hearing counterparts in shaping the educational agenda. The authors, one deaf and one hearing, relate their views on the challenge of changing this imbalance of power and discuss their personal experiences as friends and professional collaborators as they offer strategies for creating and nurturing partnerships between people who are deaf and people who are hearing. Despite the warning to the contrary, many people judge books by their covers. By the same token, the title of a manuscript or book chapter communicates much to readers about the content and perspective of what they are about to read. The process of choosing the title for the present article is one of many examples of how we, the article's authors, work toward an understanding of each others' perspectives and come to a resolution that reflects what we hope to communicate and what we believe. The working title of the article, "Working With Deaf People: What Are the Demands From an Ethical Perspective?" seemed fine from the perspective of Marilyn Sass-Lehrer (the hearing coauthor) until Beth Benedict (the deaf coauthor) pointed out that the title assumed a hearing audience and might communicate an assumption that working with deaf people is difficult or challenging. Without a deaf perspective, the title might have remained the same. The process used to select the title of this article is an example of how our partnership works as we strive to understand and value each others' perspectives and ideas. In this article, we share our personal experiences and views relating to what it takes to create and nurture such partnerships. Why Are Deaf-Hearing Partnerships Important? The professional relationship between Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet is evidence of the positive impact that two individuals, one deaf and one hearing, had on the education and quality of life of deaf people. Clerc taught Gallaudet how to use sign language to teach deaf children, and Gallaudet and Clerc (with the help of Mason Fitch Cogswell) raised money to establish schools for the deaf in the United States (Barnard, 1852). Despite Clerc's success with schools for the deaf in the United States in the early 1800s, the education of deaf children has and continues to be dominated by hearing people and the values of the larger hearing community (Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan, 1996; Moores, 2001). With a few notable exceptions (e.g., the recent hiring of administrators of schools for the deaf who are themselves deaf), hearing people maintain control by occupying leadership positions in most professional organizations, policy groups, and educational programs, including teacher preparation. A hearing perspective influences the direction of the field, affecting curricular choices such as placing an emphasis on speech and hearing versus sign language, policy initiatives such as a professional organization's decision to develop position papers on issues related to speech pathology versus sign language pathology, calls for papers for national and international conferences, and research-funding opportunities that focus on technology and genetics rather than bilingual language learning. Perspectives on what it means to be deaf influence what the educational and research communities read, teach, research, and publish. Hearing people typically view being deaf as a "problem," whereas deaf people who identify themselves as part of a "Deaf community" describe themselves as a linguistic and cultural minority rather than a disability group (Hintermair & Albertini, 2005; Ladd, 2003; Lane, 2005)- Deaf people's perspectives are influenced by a visual, rather than an auditory, point of reference (Padden & Humphries, 1988). …