De voorbereiding van dove kinderen op participatie in de maatschappij, in de jaren ’80. De visie van Effatha en het Instituut voor Doven in beeld

Abstract

This study focuses on deaf children’s social participation in the period 1980 to 1990. In particular, it examines if the deaf institutes ‘Instituut voor Doven’ (Catholic) and ‘Effatha’ (Protestant) aimed at the integration or inclusion of deaf children in society. Moreover, it describes social trends that are underlying to deaf children’s social participation. Content analysis is performed to reconstruct the emancipation process of deaf people, the development of communication techniques in the education of the deaf, and to describe the views of the institutes for the deaf on integration and inclusion. This analysis is based on reports of the deaf institutes and on magazines: ‘De Vriend’, ‘Effathablad’, ‘Van Horen Zeggen’ and ‘Woord en Gebaar’. The findings indicate that both deaf institutes stressed the importance of deaf children’s social participation. The educational policy of both institutes therefore aimed at deaf children’s social participation, but the adopted policies of both institutes can be characterized differently. The ‘Instituut voor Doven’ emphasized the important role of communication by means of spoken language, while ‘Effatha’ emphasized the important role of social participation, where deaf children are brought into contact with hearing children to learn from and to understand each other