Chapter 3: Power in Deaf Education

Research in the field of deaf education has often tended to focus on social and academic outcomes, neglecting to look at issues such as ideology in this field. While there are some exceptions to this, most research to-date has not explicitly engaged with concepts of power and resistance. This book addresses this gap in the knowledge, by examining how mainstreaming is proceeding in practise, the ideological underpinnings of the mainstreaming movement, and the continuous interplay of power relations between experts, parents, Deaf community, and DHH children.  The book is particular interested in examining how power is used to ensure the continued reproduction of a hegemonic (all powerful) medical discourse of deafness.

This book focuses on the discursive nature of power, where the production, reproduction, and contestation of how we talk about and understand d/Deafness show what is acceptable for d/Deaf children to be and what is not. This can only occur as a result of the power relations that legitimize certain discourses, or ways of understanding d/Deafness, over others.  In the context of deaf education, medical discourses have arisen from residential schools for the deaf, audiology clinics, hospitals. Social discourses have grown from residential schools and Deaf communities. Both medical and social discourses outline acceptable norms for being d/Deaf. Although the dominance of one discourse over the other can vary depending on where and when they are used, in general, medical discourses wield more authority in the current system. 

This book is heavily influenced by theories from the field of social geography, in particular John Allen’s book Lost Geographies of Power.  It also draws heavily from writings by the French philosopher Michel Foucault.  Allen extends the traditional view of power as a dominant centralized force that moves from a core to the periphery, to immanent power, whereby power, difficult to see, is at all times everywhere, and nowhere. Power, as an immanent force, conceptualizes power as use of resources to achieve a particular outcome. Like the resources upon which it depends, power can expand or contract. Foucault has examined how power is operationalized, instead of who has power, or where power is located. Foucault was greatly interested in the process of human subjectification. This process involves three interdependent stages that begin with external control of the person (for example by confining them) moving to internal control through self-regulation: dividing practices, scientific classification, and subjectification. Dividing practises objectify a person by dividing them from others (by for example putting them in an institution), scientific classification uses scientific modes of inquiry to study and objectify a person, and subjectification, is the process through which humans objectify themselves, or see themselves only as others see them. These stages generally occur chronologically and vary in their scale of control on a person, moving from external to internal. Foucault categorized the subjectification process into two distinct eras: anatamo-politics and biopolitics. Where anatomo-politics used corporal punishment to control behaviour, it was within the biopolitical era that institutions were established. With the shift from anatomo-politics to biopolitics, it becomes more difficult to examine power, as power becomes internalized during the biopolitical era. To address this, this book seeks to examine how power is used within mainstream education. Specifically, it is argued that while we are in a biopolitical era, centralized institutions such as hospitals still have a significant role to play in determining whether a medical and social discourses of d/Deafness is paramount. 

Power is invisible and immanent in the context of this study, and only its effects are seen. Importantly, the apparent freedom of subjects (parents of DHH children) to make decisions is questioned. Instead, I will argue that the power of the hegemonic establishment such as medical institutions uses the norms of the institution to control behaviour through self-regulation and self-discipline of parents. I will argue that despite the illusion of choice for parents, often only one choice is truly acceptable.  This book discusses particular types of power outlined by Allen to describe this.  The term domination to refer to imposition or constraint so that the will of one person can be forced upon another; authority is used to describe the legitimization of dominance over time and in different places; seduction is used to mean a temptation to a particular choice, where a choice is presented but one is made much more appealing than others; inducement is like seduction but is a stronger form of power in that a choice is presented, but one choice is made more appealing by providing incentives to influence decisions; coercion uses more force again where a choice is presented, but a threat of negative sanctions is made if the ‘wrong’ choice is made.  

At this point, it is crucial to remember the power in resistance. Rather than understanding power as an all-encompassing dominating force over an oppressed people, this book understands that individuals are in a constant state of undergoing power, and acting against power through resistance. Resistance, like power, is the combination of resources.  There is a constant relational exchange in the construction and dismantling of authority, as such, authority is in a constant state of negotiation to maintain the hegemonic discourse. Resistance offers alternative ways of thinking. In the current system, a social model of Deafness is an act of resistance, as it undermines the authority of the medical model. These acts may be intentional, or unintentional in nature. 

Before mainstreaming, most DHH children encountered these forms of power directly in institutions such as residential schools.  However, with the mainstreaming movement, there has been a significant change in how power and resistance are organised since DHH children are now more physically distant from centralised places of power. As a result, the practises of dominating and resisting power familiar to the field of deaf education are evolving, with unforeseen circumstances for DHH children, their families, and the Deaf community at large.