This book makes a strong case for distinguishing the Deaf movement from social movements occurring in the disability community. The struggle between the “dominant hearing society and Deaf people over the best means of communication”, with the educational setting as the constant battleground. Includes the influences of other social movements of the 60s and 70s, the Deaf “President Now!” protest at Gallaudet University, and suggestions and hopes for the future. The author Katherine A. Jankowski is former Dean of the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. Previously, she was the superintendent of the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf and the Central North Carolina School for the Deaf. She graduated
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Jankowski experience with attempting to alter the status occurred when she was thirteen years old and her experience with the big movement, as large crowds flocked to the auditorium at Gallaudet University, the world's only liberal arts university for Deaf students, to await the announcement of the name of Gallaudet's first Deaf president. The Deaf community had worked feverishly for this moment. The contemporary social movement of Deaf people in America has its roots in the historical struggles of the dominant society and Deaf people. So pervasive are the ideological struggles between the dominant culture and the Deaf community that the issues that marked the early Deaf movement. The era of the 1960s and 1970s saw the Deaf social movement move toward constituting the Deaf community as a linguistic and cultural group with a distinct identity. The separatist rhetoric that marked the changing consciousness of the Deaf social movement during that period paved the way to a strengthened "can do" rhetoric. The Gallaudet protest phase of the Deaf social movement typified what Stewart, Smith, and Denton characterize as the "enthusiastic mobilization" stage (1989, 25). During this stage, optimism among movement participants climaxes. Social movements, however, cannot remain in the enthusiastic mobilization stage for long periods of time. According to Jankowski in Page 42, “The deaf believe that they are our equals in all respects. We should be generous and not destroy that illusion. But whatever they believe, deafness is an infirmity and we should repair it whether the person who has it is disturbed by it or
Jankowski experience with attempting to alter the status occurred when she was thirteen years old and her experience with the big movement, as large crowds flocked to the auditorium at Gallaudet University, the world's only liberal arts university for Deaf students, to await the announcement of the name of Gallaudet's first Deaf president. The Deaf community had worked feverishly for this moment. The contemporary social movement of Deaf people in America has its roots in the historical struggles of the dominant society and Deaf people. So pervasive are the ideological struggles between the dominant culture and the Deaf community that the issues that marked the early Deaf movement. The era of the 1960s and 1970s saw the Deaf social movement move toward constituting the Deaf community as a linguistic and cultural group with a distinct identity. The separatist rhetoric that marked the changing consciousness of the Deaf social movement during that period paved the way to a strengthened "can do" rhetoric. The Gallaudet protest phase of the Deaf social movement typified what Stewart, Smith, and Denton characterize as the "enthusiastic mobilization" stage (1989, 25). During this stage, optimism among movement participants climaxes. Social movements, however, cannot remain in the enthusiastic mobilization stage for long periods of time. According to Jankowski in Page 42, “The deaf believe that they are our equals in all respects. We should be generous and not destroy that illusion. But whatever they believe, deafness is an infirmity and we should repair it whether the person who has it is disturbed by it or