The Curious Case of the Deaf and Contested Landscapes of Bilingual Education

In this article, the authors examine deaf education as a “curious case” to prompt thinking about issues of language inequities. The authors argue that tying the fortunes of deaf students to those of other language minority students provides opportunities for new insights into policies and practices of deaf education as well the education of other language minorities in American schools. The authors provide a case example of successful deaf bilingual education that challenges the equation of deaf communicative difference with academic failure. They conclude with a discussion of American bilingual education history and how a consideration of the “curious case” of deaf education opens up possibilities for expanding understandings of more general issues of language difference in education.