Rights, Policies and Languages: divergences and convergences in/from/for deaf education

Abstract

In this article, while considering education as a complex and diverse phenomenon, we reflect on the fields of human rights and linguistic human rights regarding deaf education. We have noticed certain convergences and divergences arising from the encounter of rights, policies and languages in both proposal and construction of an educational process that recognizes and values linguistic and cultural characteristics of individuals involved. We also take a critical view towards the Manichaean perspectives that have created illusions involving deaf education, making its complexity invisible, generalizing its peculiarities and reducing its range. Linguistic aspects are central when considering the deaf, since all human rights are linked to language itself. Therefore, linguistic human rights are fundamental to the enjoyment of civil, social, political, economic and cultural rights. Finally, deaf education exists in the midst of the differences that feature it, of the languages that specify it, and the convergences and divergences that (trans) form it.