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Handbook of Children with Special Health Care Needs pp 107–130Cite as

Rethinking Deaf Learners’ Education: A Human Rights Issue

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Abstract

How can deaf children’s health be promoted through education in schools? To what extent does deaf children’s education benefit their state of health? Why is a broad-based approach bringing togetherHealth for All, Education for All andMillennium Development Goals preferable to a single intervention strategy? Health and basic education are fundamental human rights. Though they are essential in sustainable human and social development, a majority—perhaps as many as 90%—of the 70 million deaf people in the world have never attended school and are therefore functionally illiterate. Only a few countries provide bilingual education in sign language(s) and oral language(s) for deaf children, and only in some schools. Why is this so? These excluded persons can only be reached through innovative approaches in which society as a whole and deaf community members in particular can fully and effectively participate and a wide range of different sectors can work together. Unless there is a radical change of perspective, the health and education will not be available to ALL, and therefore social inequalities will increase rather than decrease. This chapter is concerned with this and other topics related to health, education, bilingualism, sign languages, and the cultural identity of deaf communities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “The drafters of this Convention were clear that disability should be seen as the result of the interaction between a person and his/her environment, that disability is not something that resides in the individual as the result of some impairment” (UN2007:4).

Abbreviations

CRPD:

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

EFA:

Education for All

HFA:

Health for All

HPS:

Health Promoting School

MDGs:

Millennium Development Goals

PAR:

Participatory Action Research

WHO:

World Health Organization

WFD:

World Federation of the Deaf

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions in enhancing the quality of this chapter: Vicente Clemente-Gomez for his help in transcribing part of it and Bryn Moody for the English translation of the original text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alicante, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, 03690, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain

    Irma M. Munoz-Baell Ph.D., Carlos Alvarez-Dardet Ph.D. & M. Teresa Ruiz-Cantero Ph.D.

  2. CNSE Foundation for the Suppression of Communication Barriers, Calle Islas Aleutianas 28, 28035, Madrid, Spain

    Emilio Ferreiro-Lago Ph.D.

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  1. Irma M. Munoz-Baell Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Irma M. Munoz-Baell Ph.D. .

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  1. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, 410 Berryhill, Chapel Hill, 27599-7575, North Carolina, USA

    David Hollar

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Munoz-Baell, I., Alvarez-Dardet, C., Ruiz-Cantero, M., Ferreiro-Lago, E. (2012). Rethinking Deaf Learners’ Education: A Human Rights Issue. In: Hollar, D. (eds) Handbook of Children with Special Health Care Needs. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2335-5_6

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