The Social Condition of Deaf People: The Story of a Woman and a Hearing Society 9783110763140, 9783110762839

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The Social Condition of Deaf People

Sign Languages and Deaf Communities

Editors Annika Herrmann, Markus Steinbach Editorial board Carlo Geraci, Rachel McKee, Victoria Nyst, Marianne Rossi Stumpf, Felix Sze, Sandra Wood

Volume 16

The Social Condition of Deaf People The Story of a Woman and a Hearing Society Edited by Sara Trovato and Anna Folchi

ISBN 978-3-11-076283-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-076314-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-076320-1 ISSN 2192-516X Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951154 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston and Ishara Press, Lancaster, UK Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Anna and Sara dedicate this book to Mario and Carlo. Respectively – no confusion, please

Contents A duet as an introduction

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Chapter 1 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 1a Hearing people. A larger sphere and a smaller sphere

1

Sara Trovato 1b Hearing people. Power issues in Michel Foucault’s framework, and a society to share 7 Chapter 2 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 2a My origins 19 Sara Trovato 2b Good reasons for the right to sign languages Chapter 3 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 3a A beautiful childhood

31

45

Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia 3b Deaf education results in ten European countries: Equitability, accessibility, and accountability of educational systems 53 Chapter 4 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 4a An inadequate education at school, an effective education at home 83 Silvia Ceria & Sara Trovato 4b Building written production in Deaf students. The “Free text writing” workshop in an excellent Italian bilingual school 93

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Chapter 5 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 5a Great history from my perspective: Student protests following 1968 115 Luca Des Dorides 5b Speaking for oneself: Language and power in the Italian deaf community 121 Chapter 6 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 6a First jobs 133 Cinzia Meraviglia & Sara Trovato 6b Deaf people from school to labor in ten European countries

139

Chapter 7 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 7a Deaf awareness 167 Emiliano Mereghetti, Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 7b Deaf President then. Political pluralism in the unification of Deaf associations in liberated Italy 177 Chapter 8 Sara Trovato & Graziella Anselmo 8a Theatrical activity. Joseph Castronovo’s story

195

Sara Trovato 8b A genial man in the wrong institutional environment. Deaf empowerment in Italian and French theatre experiences Chapter 9 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 9a A citizen of the world

217

243

Sara Trovato 9b Theories about deafness: Disability, culture, identity

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Contents

Chapter 10 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 10a Engaging for my community

265

Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia 10b Hypothesis on policy evaluation and school legislation: The effects of access to education, mainstreaming and instructional bilingualism 273 Chapter 11 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 11a Research work 301 Sara Trovato 11b How society at large can become inclusive, sector after sector: Ethical choices in research as confronted to deafness and Deaf persons in Italy 315 Chapter 12 Anna Folchi & Fulvia Carli 12a Edgardo Carli, Deaf partisan. A conference of Anna’s

335

Mirko Santoro & Sara Trovato 12b Academic matters. The Deaf perspective: Difficulties and proposed solutions 349 Chapter 13 Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato 13a Being a Deaf woman

371

Cinzia Meraviglia & Sara Trovato 13b Deaf women, Deaf men, hearing women, hearing men

377

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Anna’s acknowledgments Conclusion Bibliography Index

431

403 411

399

A duet as an introduction The title of this book might have been Story of a Deaf woman and the society she lives in, that is, the woman would have been qualified as Deaf, and the society would have not been qualified. One can attribute an adjective, that is, a delimitation, to what is marked – unusual, special, extraordinary – as opposed to what is unmarked – standard, natural, normal. Intentionally, the title of this book is rather Story of a woman and a hearing society, and this for two reasons. First, for Anna, the woman the story is about and the author of the chapters in autobiographical part “a” of this book, being born Deaf has been quite a natural experience, as her family was entirely Deaf. Second, for Sara, the hearing author or co-author of essay chapters in part “b” there is a majority – the hearing one – holding too much power on a minority – the Deaf community –, and it is about time that such majority took the responsibilities connected to its power, including the one consisting in yielding power on Deaf lives to Deaf people. In contrast to what many books about deafness are engaged in discussing, this is not a work about identity (although chapter 9b also deals with identity). Anna can tell who she is, but there is no attempt to define Deaf people’s identity in the chapters that Sara wrote. Defining identities has entirely different meanings, when it is part of the search for oneself, and when it is a label coming from a hearing – let us call it by its name – power. But Anna never felt the need to look for her identity, she has always been perfectly at ease in the role she has had in the world. And, according to Sara, it is the hearing who need to engage in a more comprehensive understanding of their actions relating to Deaf people, in order for Deaf people to be adequately included in society. So, the story told in this book is the story of a woman who leads a satisfactory life, and the story of a – often well-intentioned – hearing society that may improve the – often unsatisfactory – manner it treats Deaf people. Anna: Right now, I only see a white sheet. I say to myself “Make a book of your life”, but how can I get started? I have white sheet syndrome. . .! I am neither an actress, nor a writer, nor a “high-profile” person, but I think I have “something” to tell. Maybe I’m not capable, maybe I could ask someone to write for me? I know, it is up to me to make a self-portrait of this woman that I am. I honestly don’t know what prompted me towards an autobiography. It was maybe my love for my deafness. The experiences I will talk about may be modest, but some are

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-203

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fun and some are curious, and they are living experiences where heart and brain have been working together, although sometimes in contrast to one another. One thought has been important in the choices I have made: helping hearing people to be more open, more informed in progressing towards inclusion. But not only this. I would like to share my positive and negative experiences with Deaf people who have lived through the same problems and situations as I have. I would like to tell about being “me”, as a woman, a wonderful and beautiful role, but sometimes difficult and hard in a hearing society – especially in Italy. Sara: This book weaves one story and one hundred thousand stories. One, none, and one hundred thousand. One is Anna Folchi, a Deaf woman, a leader of the Italian Deaf community. None since we, hearing persons, have never had the chance to meet enough Deaf persons to take an interest in their lives: and until we do, Deaf persons are none to us. One hundred thousand because Deaf people are as different from each other as hearing people are. The origin of this book was in Anna’s desire to write. But why me, Sara? I have been involved as a tool to provide a faithful transcription of Anna’s story – but I have also been a tool to enlarge Anna’s public, to bring her story to hearing people. I am honored that Anna chose me for this task. As we worked together, this collaboration has led to a four-handed work, an ongoing dialogue. I accepted Anna’s invitation to guide us, hearing people, into the world as it is seen by Deaf people. It is the same world in which we hearing people live, but we have never seen it from this perspective, from which we will find it quite interesting. Who is Anna in the picture in Figure 1? She is the only little girl who did not turn her head when the photographer called for attention. This book talks about that hearing photographer, as well as it talks about Anna. Sociology was born with Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes: they offered a perspective on us – we perceive ourselves as obvious –, by someone who does not belong to our society but comes from far away and does not find us obvious at all. But Anna doesn’t come from far away, and the society around her not only is not alien to her but is also entitled to, and sometimes used to, take decisions about Deaf people, such as Anna. These pages will allow to take a look at institutions – school, work, the condition of women, but also History with a capital letter – from another perspective, a perspective that should be included in the decisions that concern Deaf people. Teachers, physicians, researchers, politicians, lawmakers exert a huge power on Deaf people – sometimes excessive, sometimes unshared with the addressees of their decisions, sometimes unwitting, sometimes uncaring. As psychologist Franco Basaglia and sociologist Michel Foucault have argued for, a discourse about minorities is better performed as a discourse about majorities, who can – also unwittingly – define who “others” – the minority people – are. This work aims to show that it is within the power of hearing people to effectively include Deaf persons and pass over to Deaf people a good deal of the power that hearing people have on them: in education, in politics, in cultural consumptions, in the job market, in gender relations, in research, in institutions in general. Deaf persons are persons born with intact potentialities, but heavily dependent on their linguistic and educational context to develop them – by far more than their hearing counterparts.

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Figure 1: Anna in her kindergarten class, aged 4/5 years old.

The book will alternate the perspective of a Deaf person with an investigation on the actions, the professional roles, the attitudes of hearing persons who change the lives of Deaf people – for better or worse, carrying their responsibility well or badly, whether they are aware of it or not. Consistently, the book is structured in a double series of parallel chapters: the first series (the “a” chapters) contain Anna’s biography, while the second series (the “b” chapters) offers a perspective on the manners by which society can take responsibility for the condition of Deaf people. What solutions have worked? What could have worked better, and why? Thus, the biographical chapter on Anna’s schooltime is matched by a chapter on how deaf children are educated – mostly by hearing teachers; the chapter on Anna’s work experiences is matched by a chapter on the working conditions of Deaf people – mostly in a hearing environment; the chapter on Anna’s reflections on being a Deaf woman, is matched by a chapter on the condition of Deaf women – in a male and hearing society. As the book proceeds in providing case studies and statistics, moving from place to place and from one moment in time to another, the reader will discover good practices, successes, and missed opportunities. The theory in Deaf studies will meet data that will support it, limit it, or refute it.

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Sara: Anna’s autobiography is not the one of a superhero who succeeds in a series of trials; it is not the one of an unfortunate character in a sad tale; it is not a good example or a model. It is a story – a beautiful story, as you will read – told with a lot of irony and lightness. As I wrote it, I did not want to cancel Anna’s ironic voice, and I was very careful not to impose my style on hers. You will find it intact on the following pages.

Anna’s story was first told in LIS to a Deaf and hearing audience in a conference held in Florence in November 2015. That meeting started with the following words. Anna: And here I am telling you about my life. It seemed to me a title of little interest, but you are many. There are people who came from far way, from Rome, from Milan, from Grosseto and there are also many people from here, from Florence. I have to say thanks to everyone. Alessandra and Michele urged me to hold a workshop here in Florence, where I was born. I hardly ever workshop here, but I love Florence, here I breathe my air. Approaching my subject matter was really difficult. I started thinking about it and started looking at photos. Photos are a documentary proof of the story I will tell.

Figure 2: Anna throughout her life.

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A part of me was already thinking about a book. But it is not simple, publishing houses only print books by famous people. But many told me, come on, try! I was able to work on it and collect a lot of material. . . and then Alessandra and Michele invited me. Well, if the result is not great, it is their fault. Otherwise it is my merit! Sara: That this dialogue between hearing and Deaf people would find its proper place in a book, that is, would be in writing, should not surprise. As Carol Padden observed, written communication between hearing and Deaf people has preceded other forms of communication, “self-expression [of Deaf people] to hearing people who did not already know sign language could not be imagined, instead the written language was used to communicate”. (Padden & Humphries 2006: 72). Carol Padden also wrote, “Written language was often the medium of communication between the two groups, but not sign language” (Padden & Humphries 2006: 71). The result is an unconventional book. It has too many pictures for an essay – but it is also an autobiography, and an autobiography must present pictures. It contains too many colloquial strictures inspired by LIS to be a well-written conventional essay, such as questions – but questions structure discourse in LIS and make it clear, they may make the Deaf reader feel at home. It is a book preoccupied with access: Deaf people are visual – they would not tell nor enjoy a story without pictures. A book on deafness should be accessible to Deaf readers, and although there are some technical parts, especially in the quantitative chapters, a great effort is constantly made to control difficult notions and explain them. This is a book working at the border between the Deaf and the hearing world, it is meant for experts in sociology who have no experience in Deaf Studies, and Deaf general readers who have no experience in sociology. But the good thing in borders is that they can be trespassed and erased. For this reason, this book hosts the contributions of many Deaf people: an anthropologist, a historian, a teacher, a linguist. Some of them were born Deaf, some have become Deaf with age, some are good signers, and some are not. My idea is that people are more valuable than “ideas”. People, I think, are also more valuable than the languages they speak or sign. If I support sign language, as I have been doing for more than twenty years (chapter 2b), it is because it is the best support for the cognitive growth and spontaneous communication of deaf people, and it is because Deaf people themselves support it. But, as fundamental as sign language is, I am convinced that it is not a sufficient reason to discriminate against a deaf person who does not use it.

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Overview of the volume’s structure: A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities Introduction

a Hearing people. A larger sphere and a smaller sphere (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Hearing people. Power issues in Michel Foucault’s framework, and a society to share (Sara Trovato)

Hearing people are “default”, Deaf people are “special”, so that the discourse is usually about Deaf people. But not in this book, where the opposite can happen as well. Anna expects from hearing people that they adapt to Deaf people, not only and always the opposite.

Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework has been used by many authors in Deaf studies to comprehend power relations that define Deaf people’s social condition. This chapter builds on one notion by Michel Foucault that has remained unconsidered up to the present: social power. Michel Foucault explained that there exists a micro-physics of power. This notion is put to value not only in its critical meaning, but also in its positive, constructive meaning: much can be achieved by hearing people working with Deaf people, who are able to make good use of their individual and institutional power. The topic of how a sociology of deafness should be built is also addressed.

a My origins (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Good reasons for the right to sign languages (Sara Trovato)

Anna’s family is rich with interesting stories, that intersect Italian social and cultural history. One of such stories tells that Anna could have inherited a fortune – but alas, she hasn’t. Family memories are told about the barbaric treatment of Deaf students in institutes for the Deaf in Italy. Anna’s family was engaged in Deaf associations and in Deaf politics.

Scientific results and the nature of rights converge in attributing sign languages a paramount role in Deaf acquisition of language. The right to sign language should be considered a fundamental right for deaf people.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a A beautiful childhood (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Deaf education results in ten European countries: equitability, accessibility, and accountability of educational systems (Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia)

Expecting a baby who could be Deaf: Anna’s parents were confronted with the perspective of her birth. Anna acquired sign language. Anna’s childhood has been populated by four parents, various pets, a hearing grandmother – who, surprise, did not use sign language. As a child, Anna made discoveries about gender and politics. Anna’s childhood is compared to that of Emiliano, who was not from a Deaf, but from a hearing family.

Data are presented about Deaf students’ achievement in ten European countries. Before that, data about Deaf people from Eurostat Labor Force Survey are presented. Three research questions originating from Deaf Studies’ theory are tested: whether educational systems are equitable towards Deaf students; whether Deaf students are on average more sensitive than hearing students to the quality of the education they receive; whether all fields of education are accessible to Deaf students. Are Deaf studies scholars justified in having a strongly critical attitude towards hearing society?

a An inadequate education at school, an effective education at home (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Building written production in Deaf students. The “Free text writing” workshop in an excellent Italian bilingual school (Silvia Ceria & Sara Trovato)

Anna’s first schools, how she planned to be a writer, her relationship to books. She had two exceptional teachers who accompanied her throughout her lifetime. How Anna built a competence in French and English.

The ability to produce and read texts is central to school proficiency, as study is generally to be performed on texts. A successful bilingual project in Northern Italy, realized by Scuola Comprensiva di Cossato Centro is presented. A thorough description is provided about its organization, and its pedagogical and methodological choices are listed. A hands-on, reproduceable introduction is provided to one of its workshops, the one dedicated to written texts, with the goal to provide teachers with effective resources. Co-author of this chapter is Silvia Ceria, the Deaf teacher who first invented and implemented the lab on written texts.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a Great history from my perspective: student protests following  (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Speaking for oneself: language and power in the Italian deaf community (Luca des Dorides)

Anna studies in a nuns’ private school. She gets herself expelled from school. One Italian Deaf “Founding Father” stands up to defend Anna. She ends up being reintegrated in the school – and with a personal chauffeur.

Language issues are central to the representation of Deaf people, in many respects. Power relations become evident in the words that are chosen – by hearing as well as by Deaf people themselves. This chapter reconstructs the story of D/ deaf persons as they take the word to speak on their own behalf.

a First jobs (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Deaf people from school to labor in ten European countries (Cinzia Meraviglia & Sara Trovato)

Unique in Italy, Anna emigrates from North to South, and starts working in a bank. Men can be machos, but she meets the most important friend of her life. A misadventure almost endangers her life: clients in a Palermo restaurant are robbed, and she is there.

Data from Eurostat are presented, relative to the Deaf and hearing population, such as occupation rates, in European countries. How many Deaf people have an employment at all? Have Deaf persons benefitted from belonging to the larger group of disabled people, and from disabled organizations political struggles? Are the occupations Deaf people can access the same as hearing people’s, so that a reciprocity can be established between service receivers and deliverers? Or rather, on the contrary, from an unequal distribution in power follows a systematic lack of reciprocity in Deaf and hearing persons’ occupations? Considering that labor market can farther build on educational inequalities, is the large consideration usually given to deaf education justified? Are Deaf people comparatively in difficult economic conditions and exposed to the risk of poverty? Do Deaf people, while working, experience limitations that act as barriers, for which no solution is provided for, so that such limitations become disabling?

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a Deaf awareness (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Deaf President then. Political pluralism in the unification of Deaf associations in liberated Italy (Emiliano Mereghetti, Anna Folchi, & Sara Trovato)

When LIS was not considered a real language, the first hearing persons who tried to sign were laughed at. In an interview, Anna and Emiliano relate how the awakening and progressive empowerment that has spread throughout the world after the Sixties has reached Italy. “What Stokoe has been for hearing researchers”, Anna says, “Gallaudet has been for Deaf people”. A feeling of personal dignity originated in the deliberate, sometimes proud, public use of sign language. Public support to sign language provided by research, mass media use, and the fight for a political recognition of sign language, have also contributed.

Ten men were important in the foundation of Ente Nazionale Sordi, the most important Deaf association in Italy, in the second postwar period. This chapter reconstructs the story of the origins of ENS, by making use of the flourishing Deaf press existing at the time. It is a story where pluralism was crucial in establishing the democratic nature that ENS had in the first years of its action.

a Theatrical activity. Joseph Castronovo’s story (Sara Trovato & Graziella Anselmo)

b A genial man in the wrong institutional environment. Deaf empowerment in Italian and French theatre experiences (Sara Trovato)

Deaf people love to perform in theatre. As signing begins to be exhibited in public, Anna engages in a signing theatre, in Sicily. In her Palermo theatre lab, “Il Ciclope”, a Deaf American arrives, Joseph Castronovo, following his Italian heritage. He is an actor, a poet, an essayist and an organizer. He is a genius in many ways, but his life will not be as fortunate as it should have. This chapter tells his story. This is the first time that Joseph Castronovo’s story is published, also thanks to the material rendered available by his family.

Victor Abbou’s and Jean Grémion’s recently published memoirs relate about an experiment that is at the origin of French Deaf awakening. They tell the story of a theatre workshop, led by American Deaf Alfredo Corrado and French hearing Jean Grémion. What did French “Deaf awakening”, consist in? A collective movement involving the extensive participation of the Deaf and hearing community and engendering empowerment for Deaf people. The story of the Paris Deaf theatre workshop parallels Joseph Castronovo’s Palermo Deaf theatre workshop story. The two social innovation experiments are analyzed and compared in terms of leadership, networking, activation of resources, impact.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities Diverging institutional conditions in Italy and France explain why the French experience had a by far greater impact on the Deaf community and hearing society than the Palermo one had. This chapter contributes to understand how social innovation and empowerment for minoritarian communities work and succeed.

a A citizen of the world (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Theories about deafness: disability, culture, identity (Sara Trovato)

Anna takes flight. She travels to the United States, she is one of the first Deaf Europeans to travel to Japan. She travels first on her own account, then invited on a series of conferences. She collects samples of signs, asking Deaf people from faraway countries to sign a story about a snowman.

Disability studies or Deaf studies? Does a Deaf culture exist? Should scholars engage in a theory about Deaf identity or not? Theories on deafness are generated in various corners of the world. American Historian Harlan Lane, British Activist Paddy Ladd, American scholar Carol Padden, French sociologist Bernard Mottez are some of the main theorist who have engaged on the topic of deafness. This chapters engages in a playful, imaginary dialogue among these influential scholars in Deaf studies, and the sociological community. As the sociological agenda meets the most popular theories in Deaf studies, some notions from Deaf studies are perceived as problematic.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a Engaging for my community (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Hypothesis on policy evaluation and school legislation: the effects of access to education, mainstreaming and instructional bilingualism (Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia)

Together with Deaf co-authors, such as Emiliano Mereghetti, Anna engages in cultural projects such as the production of VHS “essays” and a series of very successful conferences. The Deaf community is eager to learn – and Anna’s medium, signs, is most adequate for her public.

Up to the present, for hearing people deafness is mostly an educational issue. Eurostat data are used to perform an analysis on Italian and Spanish educational legislation on Deaf students. The introduction of laws in each state is correlated with hearing and Deaf students’ educational achievements, for generations born from  through . Assuming that the best the educational achievements of Deaf students, the more successful the legislation, and excluding alternative explanations as much as possible, the factors compatible with most successful laws are meant to be singled out for recommendation. But all of this, only when data are available, allowing for analyses to be performed.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a Research work (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b How society at large can become inclusive, sector after sector: ethical choices in research as confronted to deafness and Deaf persons in Italy (Sara Trovato)

Anna authored various original works, demanding long years of research. Among them, she co-authors a book dedicated to Deaf painters, Il colore del silenzio, published by prestigious publishing house Electa Mondadori, an introductory dictionary of LIS, and various chapters and articles. She engages in writing the biography of a Deaf friend of hers, Roberto Wirth, and a book to teach Italian Sign Language. She participates in research workgroups in generative linguistics and Italian Sign Language. The chapter includes two interviews, one to Virginia Volterra and one to Carlo Cecchetto, with whom Anna has participated in research.

If society at large was capable of inclusion, occasions such as the one created by Joseph Castronovo’s theatre laboratory in Palermo would not go lost. What happens when from the restricted circle of hearing specialists in deafness, the meeting with Deaf people expands towards sectors of society engaged in their own work? What ethical choices do they face, and how have such ethical choices been addressed? Based on interviews with Virginia Volterra, Carlo Cecchetto and Francesco Pavani, this chapter reconstructs three important moments in the history of Italian research on LIS and on Deaf cognition, in three important research laboratories in Italy: CNR in Rome, where research on LIS in Italy was founded, Università di Milano Bicocca, where Italian Generative linguists first got interested in LIS, and Università di Trento, where research focused on Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience. The Rome group precedes the other ones in time, and has established Deaf studies in Italy, the two latter ones are identified as part of hearing society at large. It is, crucially, when Deaf people meet hearing people who are not specialists of Deafness, but are working in institutions, that Deaf people’s rights to citizenship are enacted.

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(continued ) A. First series of chapters. Anna’s autobiography

B. Second series of chapters. Hearing responsibilities

a Edgardo Carli, Deaf partisan. A conference of Anna’s (Anna Folchi & Fulvia Carli)

b Academic matters. The Deaf perspective: difficulties and proposed solutions (Mirko Santoro & Sara Trovato)

Before Edgardo Carli died, who had been to Anna as a second father, Anna asked him to write his memories for her. They became the material for an engrossing conference by Anna that is reproduced here, in translation, centered on the time when Edgardo Carli was a partisan. It is the first time that the story of this founding father of Italian Deaf association ENS has been published. The story is based on autobiographical materials provided by Edgardo Carli’s family.

Italian, French and German Deaf researchers who are or have been university students or researchers have been interviewed, asking them what they think may improve the quality of Deaf university education and the quantity of Deaf researchers employed in research institutions.

a Being a Deaf woman (Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato)

b Deaf women, Deaf men, hearing women, hearing men (Cinzia Meraviglia & Sara Trovato)

Deaf identity is not the only one. Anna experiences a condition she shares with hearing women – that of being, in fact, a woman.

Eurostat data are used for the first time to study the social condition of Deaf women throughout Europe. The analysis provides evidence that, according to social indicators, sometimes there is a strong dividing line between Deaf and hearing, but other times, the dividing line is rather placed between men and women – with Deaf and hearing women siding together. This provides evidence that deaf people have plural identities – as well as being deaf, and sometimes being women, they can be workers, students, etc. A range of potential alliances with various categories of people opens up for deaf people to effectively pose their claims and lead their social and political battles.

Anna’s ackowledgements So many persons in Anna’s life. It is time to thank them all.

Conclusion Data have been commented on, stories told, instruments provided. Now, it is up to the reader to make the world more inclusive.

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Anna: I wrote some things, yes, up to now, and I have given many lectures. I like books, I translate them. I like books that are alive, I like discovering what is written in them. I discover things in books, three or four books, I collect things and transform them into a single whole, in order to share them with Deaf people like me. My lectures are first in books. When is a book living? It is living when it reaches people. I disclose books, I sign, sign, and sign what is written in books. I love to be a lecturer, to organize workshops. It is not so much teaching as it is, rather, sharing.

And it is precisely time to cross the threshold of this book, and open chapter one. Enjoy the reading!

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

1a Hearing people. A larger sphere and a smaller sphere My Deaf friend Rosaria and I were waiting for the elevator, in the bank we were working in, in Sicily. Some directors appeared, each one closely followed by an employee, lower in hierarchy. At a certain point, one of the employees stands up and starts gesticulating, as if to demonstrate to the managers that he is able to use sign language. I speak up and say “Poor deaf-mute you are”. Actually, the poor deaf-mute there was supposed to be me. Everyone laughed, the employee was thunderstruck. “No, no, I meant to . . . But then you can talk! But then why do you gesticulate? You can talk, then talk!”. What an unintelligent man. Such situations took place constantly. The concierge contacts the office where I work. “There is a friend of Anna at the reception desk”. I reach the reception, and recognize the Deaf man standing there, an acquaintance, but definitely not a friend. I disapprove of the concierge: “How could you possibly know he is a friend?” All Deaf, all friends? In the office that I shared with other employees in the bank, we had a neon light that did not work well. The intermittent light was disruptive to me, I could not work. I told my coworkers, but it was never the right time. They told me they would report it and have the light repaired, but no one really cared for the situation to be solved. I kept silent, continued working, while the light was really, exceptionally inconvenient for my vision. It was intolerable. Do you know what I did? I took a pen and began hitting the table with a tempo, decisively, continually. And this was intolerable to my co-workers, as the neon light was to me. As a consequence, the light was quickly repaired. When one experiences an inconvenience, one ends up understanding. And so they did. There were persons who, thinking I would not understand, said in my presence “How can I talk to the mute woman?”. I answered, “Well, I understand your words, I lipread them”. My co-workers’ reaction was that they blushed, “No, I did not mean to . . . ”. The only correct way for me to respond was to confront the situation, living through it, all the time making an effort. Certainly, now that I am older, similar situations are not over. When I go shopping or to the doctor, I refrain from saying “Sorry, I am Deaf”. Sorry? What is the reason I should use the word “sorry”? Sorry for what, for being Deaf? Am I responsible, are we responsible for our deafness? It is sufficient to say, “I am Deaf”, just not to create a

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misunderstanding. I do not imply that deafness is burdensome. One must manage it – but hearing persons have to do their share. And hearing persons can do their share. On my first working days, the section head in the bank greets me at my arrival and assigns me a not – especially – challenging type of work: typing documents. I think to myself, I have just arrived, it was to be expected. I work, copying documents for one, two, three months. “I beg your pardon: is this my assignment? I do not feel very useful. Did you attribute me to this task because I am Deaf? You know, I can perform any assignment – provided it is not answering the phone. Please, challenge me – in case I won’t convince you, you can return me to the old task”. Had I not acted, I would have stayed in my first position my whole life. But I did act. I have been fighting my life long. The manager offered me to take charge of the correspondence, and with time, I became the responsible for that section. When I moved to Florence, always in the same bank, Palermo’s director exchanged ideas with the director in Florence with respect to my competences, and in Florence I was appointed head of human resources. I took charge of payrolls, I managed sick leaves. Deafness had not a part in it. My personal abilities decided it. Work must not be limited by deafness. As a consequence of accepting my deafness, I could be ironic about it with my colleagues. In the office there were telephones. When all of my colleagues had to leave the room and I remained alone, “Do not worry”, I used to say, “I will answer the phone”. And when they returned to their workplace, “No phone calls”, I used to joke. Sometimes my deafness has really been invisible. One morning that I was alone typing, one customer, a woman, approached. I had her sit and wait. The telephone rang, and, naturally, I did not react. “The telephone is ringing”, she said, “Never mind”, I replied. The telephone continued ringing, and the woman again “It is ringing”, and I said again “Don’t worry”. When the section head returned, running, to pick up the phone, the woman “The lady here did not want to answer the phone”, and our exchange only came to an end when the section head explained that I was Deaf. In some states in Europe, public televisions offer programs with Deaf people signing. In Italy at most one can expect subtitles. And not all the time. Sometimes I wish I was a wizard and I switched off the audio for everyone, equally for Deaf and hearing. Can you predict how everyone would react? And do you know that feeling, when one is watching television and for some reason subtitles disappear? This is what makes deafness burdensome. Or when one realizes that the news is reporting a strike, and there are no subtitles. When one would like to attend a continuing education course, but interpreters are not available. When I am in a train station, there has been a public announcement, but only through the loudspeaker, and I have to follow the flux of persons to

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understand to what platform my train has been moved. When there is a malfunction, and I have to roll up my sleeves to understand what’s the matter. This is the reality of our lives. When the internet did not exist, I used to be very interested in the press. As a result of the contributions of various persons, I have assembled a great selection of press articles on Deaf people. Actually, that folder has become really big. I will tell about one such article, a really inspiring one. Its title ran: “A mother says, my daughter is deaf but will lead a normal life”. This title really made an impact on me. Definitely, not a good impact. This sentence does not work properly. One can say: a dog is an animal, but it is intelligent. The sentence works, as it is not obvious for an animal to be intelligent – this is the reason for “but”. A young man is short, but very good at basket. His shortness may be a concern for a basket player, but he succeeds. In contrast, when one says this woman is Deaf but beautiful, I cannot see the logic in it. If one says he is Deaf but intelligent, it is presupposed that he should be stupid. My co-author Emiliano and I would like to work on this topic. We have a considerable amount of materials, ten or more file folders, maybe in the future they will lead to a publication. Some Deaf persons, in past times, refrained from signing in public, as they felt ashamed. I will tell you an episode I have been involved in. A Deaf woman, her daughter and me were in a shop. The little girl was signing to her mother, who made attempts at hushing her. The hearing shopkeeper, a woman, talking to someone else, just behind us, said “Poor deaf little girl”. The little girl turned around and “I am hearing, I am talking to my mother”. A very brave little girl, and she was very good at signing as well. The hearing woman blushed. Had I to say when shame about signing ended in Italy, I would say in 1982, maybe 1984. What was the reason for it? Was it the time when sign languages were recognized as real languages, and research about sign languages and Deaf people began? Chapter 7a will address this issue. The notion of Deafhood involves “audism”, that is, discrimination on the basis of hearing status. In the Anglo-Saxon world there is much debate about these concepts. Debating about such issues involves a sort of recognition, even a comingout, put to effect by Deaf persons. In Italy such a debate exists to a much lesser extent. There is no denying that hearing people are the majority, we aren’t. It would be useful for us to become stronger. If you ask me whether being equal is necessary, I tell you, it is not a matter of equality, but rather of respect and acceptance. Not equality, but comprehension. If I had to define respect, I would primarily define it by the use of sign language with us Deaf people. Signing to me is normality, I cannot think of myself without sign language. I have been using sign language since I was a little girl, I was one year old. I could not tell what living without signing means.

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When I meet a deaf person who speaks, we mutually lip-read. I adapt to friends who cannot sign, or to hearing friends. I can adapt, I do adapt. Lipreading depends largely on the type of mouthing that is being used. It depends, when a person mouths imperceptibly, it is hard to understand. It is also difficult when one’s mouthing is disproportionately expressive. One can ask such persons to mouth better. But, all things considered, lipreading remains an unnatural practice. Were I to ask something to hearing people, I would concentrate on accessibility – subtitling, to say one. Italian broadcasts and Italian cinema offer just a limited number of programs and movies with subtitles. Difficulties stem also from bad subtitling. Another crucial issue is bilingualism in education – bimodal bilingualism, that is, between languages in two modalities, the auditory modality that is typical of spoken languages, and the visuo-spatial modality that is typical of sign languages. Unluckily, In Italy, associations of people who are against sign language, in support of lipreading or cochlear implants – to the exclusion of sign languages – have greatly interfered with our fight in support of the right to sign language. To me, it is just the opposite, each one should be free: those who wish to, should lipread; those who opt for cochlear implant, should be implanted; those who support sign language should sign. Should I address hearing people with a request, I would say this. Look at me, I want to sign this properly. There is a larger sphere, this is the world of hearing people. Inside it, there is a smaller sphere, one cannot see it well, one has to split the larger sphere up, and extract the smaller sphere. The smaller sphere is us, Deaf people, who have both worlds in our hands. This is OK, we are a minority world. Personally, I have no difficulty in spoken communication, I make myself understood. After my misadventures in my workplace, I can say today that hearing people have improved. As a result of mass media diffusion, they have realized that Deaf people are not stupid, that Deaf people live just in the same manner as hearing people do. But most of all, this new awareness depends on the diffusion of sign languages. The first time that I ever saw hearing people signing, I found their imperfect signing funny; now I would say I feel happy when I see hearing people signing, and I do not mind their imperfections. This is a consequence of the enlarged use of sign language. A generalized betterment has taken place for the Deaf community. Still, there are hearing journalists who define us “deaf-mute”, which we are not, not even according to the Italian law [Italian Law 95, 2006 art.1]. Sometimes, “non udente” [not hearing] is the word used for us: but I consider it objectionable to identify a person for what she lacks.

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When I am invited by a group of hearing persons, and they talk all the time with each other, I still feel sidelined. Honestly, I do not understand – they can explain something, they can offer themselves to translate, but I cannot really participate, I feel unable. We share rights and duties, we pay taxes and we vote. The hearing world has never deliberately sidelined me, but there are still persons who need to gather information relative to our smaller world.

Sara Trovato

1b Hearing people. Power issues in Michel Foucault’s framework, and a society to share I cannot believe it! A book about deafness so little concerned with Deaf people, that it opens with not one, but two – two! – chapters entitled “hearing people”. Well, the point is, “It is not me, the one who is Deaf; it is you, the one who is hearing”, as Howard, a Deaf friend of Carol Padden signed. Let us read this story as he told it, in Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ words: A Deaf friend of ours, Howard, a prominent member of his community, made a revealing comment to a mixed audience of hearing and Deaf people. All the members of his family – his parents and brother as well as aunts and uncles – are Deaf. He told the audience that he had spent his early childhood among Deaf people but that when he was six his world changed: his parents took him to a school for Deaf children. “Would you believe”, he said, pausing expertly for effect, “I never knew I was deaf until I first entered school?” (Padden & Humphries 1988: 16–17)

Switching viewpoint, reversing the world, means that “normality”, viewed from a certain perspective, is no more “normal”. This is an old move in sociology, old as the oldest sociological work, if one agrees that the first sociologist was Montesquieu. However, and sorry to disappoint the reader again, this is not a book about hearing people only either. What is it about, then? Before responding, another objection, equally preliminary to any treatment of deafness, merits to be mentioned. Italian Deaf psychologist Mauro Mottinelli lamented, during a conference taking place in an Italian university, that hearing scholars constantly present research results concerning Deaf persons attesting that Deaf persons perform at a lower level than hearing persons. He implied that one should realize that there is a tacit politics included in such scientific practices. Well, to respond to both questions at the same time – criticism about centering attention on hearing people, and research presenting lower performances for Deaf people –, yes, this book is really about Deaf people, and it is in order to talk about Deaf people correctly, that it tells about hearing people, first. To anticipate on this and the following chapters, in this work, somehow, societies will be taken as variables and Deaf persons as constants – and this is, if any, this book’s move in Montesquieu style, that is, switching perspectives. To use experimental notions as metaphors, more than a constant, the achievements of Deaf https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-002

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persons will be considered as a dependent variable, while societies will be observed to vary, in their policies, to determine variations in Deaf persons achievements. But Mauro Mottinelli’s objection merits a more complex answer. In Mauro Mottinelli’s statement three levels are implied: the issue of power exerted by hearing people over Deaf people; the manner hearing people relate to Deaf people during their work, be it research, or education, or social services, or other; the manner a sociology of deafness should be planned and what its notions should be. Let me address these three points one by one, starting from the first one, power.

1b.1 Power matters Power relations have been universally addressed in Deaf Studies. The idea that for Deaf people it is difficult to live in a hearing world, which was conceived and managed by and for hearing persons, and the idea that Deaf people in such a world are discriminated have resonated strongly in the pages of Deaf and hearing authors in Deaf studies. The word “audism” has been created – and has met a remarkable fortune – to label prejudice on the basis of hearing status, in addition to carelessness, when not outright discrimination towards Deaf persons (Humphries 1975; Bauman 2004). But the Deaf condition could not be comprehended by just labelling relationships with one word: in order to be properly understood, a theoretical framework is needed. A theorist whose notions have been largely agreed upon and resorted to in order to describe the Deaf condition is Michel Foucault. Various authors in Deaf Studies have made use of Michel Foucault’s ideas: Harlan Lane, Carol Padden, Paddy Ladd. Actually, Foucault has been influential on Deaf studies as well as on disability studies (Oliver 1994; 1999). But let Disability studies be set aside until chapter 6b, and let us rather consider Deaf Studies’ authors one by one. One first group of notions originated in Foucaults’ Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (1961) are the ones bearing on the confinement of groups of people “outside of the norm” in total institutions. Deaf persons were one such group, as Carol Padden and Tom Humphries remark, “It was conceived as a way to remove the afflicted – the deaf, the blind, the insane, and the criminal – “from the streets” where they were wont to wander without constraint, and place them in more regimented environments [. . .] and organize them into separate institutions so that special forms of rehabilitation and education could be applied to them” (Padden & Humphries 2006: 27, 18).

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A second group of notions stems from Foucault’s Surveiller et punir (1975), and Histoire de la sexualité (1976–1984), that lead to a reflection on both education and bodies’ control. It is a discourse that Carol Padden and Tom Humphries have especially developed as far as Deaf persons are concerned, Until the late 1960s, most deaf children in the United States were educated in separate schools [. . .]. Nearly every state in the country had at least one school for deaf children, and some states had several. The story of these schools is in part about the history of deaf education in the United States, but it is also about deaf children being brought into the care and responsibility of “asylums” and “institutions”. The schools were first built in the early nineteenth century [. . .] But quickly it became a problem of “bodies”, how to control and manage the lives of deaf children within the school [. . .]. The reason why deaf children are treated so severely must be related to their long history as bodies under the control of institutions. This history of deaf children being entirely and completely assigned to institutions, from the time they are admitted as students to the time they die and are buried in cemeteries within the walls of the institution, must represent an enduring belief that deaf children’s bodies do not belong to anyone but their caretakers. (Padden & Humphries 2006: 12, 56)1

More on separate schools for the Deaf in Italy will be told in chapter 2a. Back to Carol Padden, control on bodies transforms into control of language, and the right to take the word (on which chapter 5b will concentrate): “Foucault describes asylums as organized [. . .] by silence – both the oppressive silencing of its ‘inmates’, or pupils, and the reciprocal silence” (Padden & Humphries 2006: 31). A third group of notions, bearing on the medicalization of Deaf people – who could otherwise be simply perceived as a group with their own minority language –, is substantiated by theory to be found in Foucault’s Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (1961), as well as in Foucault’s Naissance de la clinique. Une archéologie du regard médical (1963). If we ask culturally deaf adults how they first acquired the label “handicapped, disabled, impaired”, we commonly learn that some circumstances of heredity, of birth, or of early childhood marked the child as different from its parents and created an initial breakdown in communication between parent and child. The parents then saw this as deviant, relative to their norms, and took the child to the experts – the pediatrician, the otologist, the audiologist. It was they who legitimated the infirmity model. Why do they do it? Because that is precisely a core function of their profession: to diagnose infirmity. How do the experts medicalize the child’s difference into deviance? First, they characterize the difference in great

1 In this book, what is meant by capitalized “Institutions” are the cultural, political and state formations that structure society, as in Emile Durkheim’s meaning. By “institutions” with a lowercase, we mean special schools, mostly residential, and in some measure ‘total’, as in Erwing Goffman’s meaning.

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biological detail, and often only in stigmatizing ways. Much will be said about impairment of spoken language, little may be said about acquisition of ASL. (Lane 1999: 24)

After listing approximately the same three notions of power, as we saw above,2 another author central to Deaf Studies, Paddy Ladd, adds a fourth Foucauldian notion: “Another important shift during this period concerns the relationships between power and knowledge [. . .] Seeking to control what could be deemed knowledge, they were able to mask power behind (apparent) reason [. . .]. The relevance of these four themes to Oralism are clear” (Ladd 2003: 123–124). This fourth Foucauldian notion strongly reminds one of the three meanings in Mauro Mottinelli’s objection – it concerns the manner knowledge is construed, so that it ends up organizing representations – in this case, the representation of Deaf people – that are collectively shared. We will return on it at the end of this chapter, by addressing the topic of how a sociology of deafness should be construed. But of course, a fifth, more general meaning of power is central: The Deaf community co-exists with an overwhelmingly more numerous, and therefore dominant hearing society, “We are interested in issues of power and dominance in the relationships between groups of people, in part because of our own academic interests, but also because as a very small community living within a much larger country of hearing people, these issues are unavoidable” (Padden & Humphries 2006: 9). Dominance between groups is not strictly a Foucauldian topic, but the idea that persons administering power on Deaf persons are issued from the dominant – in our context, hearing – community, is Foucauldian. Synthesizing, choosing Michel Foucault to accompany the analytical work in some of the “b” chapters that will follow is a classical move, already performed within Deaf Studies. It is intended to be such. But just one Foucauldian notion will become central in our pages and will also be confronted to empirical quantitative data: the notion of a micro-physics not so much of bio-power – that is, 2 Paddy Ladd wrote: In his studies of discourses on mental health, hospitals, schools, and of punishment and discipline over the last 500 years, Foucault (1972) identifies several themes of relevance to this study. The micro–physics of biopower consists of the dense web of power relations behind the discourses above, exercised within institutions [. . .]. He also identifies the late 18th century shift from punishing the insane to seeking control of their minds by developments of classification systems which formed the lens through which such people were perceived and administered [. . .] It is also important to know that these systems were used to justify confinement of apparently sane people [. . .]. Foucault (1979) also focuses on the growing ability of the state to use medicine to dissect, categorize and control the human body itself. (Ladd 2003: 123)

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control on basic biological features of the human being, as Paddy Ladd defined it along with Michel Foucault –, as of a social power. This sixth Foucauldian notion of power, social power, has not yet been employed in Deaf studies – but it is exactly the one that will be used throughout this book.

1b.2 Social power – and professional roles What is meant by social power merits to be correctly comprehended. Mostly, when one thinks of power, the idea is that power is in the hands of socio-economic powerful classes, such as the capitalists, or in hand of organized economic interests, such as the ones of powerful corporations, or in hand of the state, as the agency enacting laws and having a police and a repressive apparatus. This is not the power we are interested in. To correctly comprehend what the relevant notion of power here is, it is time for Foucault’s words themselves to be read: I do not mean to say that the State is unimportant; what I mean is that power relations, and the relative analysis, must go beyond the framework of the State. This notion holds in a twofold manner: first, as the State, even in its omnipotence, even in its apparatuses, is far from covering the entire, real, field of power relations; second, since the State can only work as based on pre-existing power relations. The State is a superstructure, as compared to a series of power networks passing through bodies, sexuality, family, attitudes, knowledge. (Foucault [1977a] 1994a: 151)

If Foucault is not primarily concerned with state power, central power, with what form of power is he concerned with? “This is not about analyzing regulated and legitimate forms of power in their center [. . .]. Rather, it is about comprehending power at its edges, its ultimate endings, where it becomes capillary; to envision power in its most regional, most local forms and institutions”. (Foucault [1977b] 1994a: 178) In other words, it is about power “at its edges”. It is not local Institutions what Foucault thinks about, but rather a multifarious series of relationships that take place at a personal, relational level: And by domination [I do not mean] the massive and homogeneous domination of one individual on the others, or of a group on the others. One ought to realize that power, if not considered from too far away, is not something splitting those who own it and overtly use it, from those who do not own it and endure it. (Foucault [1977b] 1994a: 180)

This is really interesting. Power is not for groups to enact, but for individuals. Individuals who are often given power by Institutions or are given power by the

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simple fact of socially interacting with others. It is especially important to comprehend that such powerful individuals are not “them”, but “you and me”. Power, I believe, ought to be analyzed as something circulating, or rather, that works down a chain. It is never localized here or there, it is never in the hands of some, it is not appropriated as a good or a richness. It functions, or is practiced, through a network. [. . .] Individuals are both in the position to endure and exert power. (Foucault [1977b] 1994a: 180)

In as much as power is distributed, it is a power anyone is endowed with in one or another moment of one’s life. It is the power, to say one, of the reader of this book. Any reader of this book is a parent, a teacher or a professor, a civil servant or a local politician, a social service worker, or a health service staff, and so on. But I believe that political power is practiced through the intermediation of a certain number of Institutions which appear as though they had nothing in common with political power, and to be independent from political power – but in fact are not. It is the case with family, university, and in general, all the educational system . . . (Foucault [1974] 1994b: 496)

This extensive vision of power has indeed an operative side to it. And within this vision, power itself has a positive side to it: those who have it, they can, and this feels good. It also has a negative side to it: those who have power, have to recognize and be able to carry their greater responsibilities. Let us focus on the positive side of power. Sometimes, our lives are accompanied by the feeling that we are small and irrelevant. But there are many levels, corresponding to as many social roles, where we are not. There are professional roles; in addition to them, there are political roles in as much as we participate in majorities or in a public opinion that we may contribute to shape; and furthermore, there are familiar roles that also matter. As far as professional roles are concerned, we are often frustrated because we think that “other people” do not do their job well. One cannot step into someone else’s shoes, each has his or her own role to perform. But there is a solution to this, since others cannot take up our role either. The solution is to do one’s own work well. There is an essential value in being competent when we perform our professional roles – the one role we are being paid for. As a teacher (chapter 4a, 4b, 5a), as a medical doctor, as a speech therapist, as a bureaucrat, as a work colleague (chapter 1a), as a local administrator (chapter 8b), as a researcher (chapters 11b, 12b) one might meet Deaf persons engaged in being educated, being cured, demanding recognition of their rights, who may be in need of being listened to, or of being capacitated. We are the hearing ones, but it cannot be said that we always perform our roles by listening. We have power, but we are not always considerate in empowering others, and redressing asymmetries that should not be there. We sometimes perceive that, with respect to ourselves, power

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is “elsewhere”. But we can be the “elsewhere” where power lies, in respect to other persons. The interest of Foucault is that he points out that justice and injustice are distributed through our own participation in professional lives. And as power is distributed throughout professions, it is distributed to us as citizens who vote, who are able to adequately or inadequately evaluate while we participate in forming public opinion, who make or make not use of generosity in critically exercising our reasoning, who can happen to be the man-in-thestreet sitting in a bus when Rosa Parks steps in. In addition to professional roles, we are powerful and at the same time we suffer other people’s power in that each of us is both part of majorities and minorities at the same time. I can be a woman – a condition that tradition has considered less “standard” than being a man –; but at the same time I can be an Italian – a citizen of a Western country, and therefore a majority –, but then as an Italian, an Italian from the South – and this is, within Italy, more similar to being a minority, as Southern Italy is less economically active than Northern Italy, as people from South migrate towards the North in search of better jobs or better education. I can be a vegetarian – a condition that I chose myself, but that places me within a minority –, and so on and so forth, with any type of qualification originating in religion, gender, ethnicity, language, socio-economic condition, political opinions. In general, it is not necessary to think that political participation is only achieved by making revolutions or demonstrating in the streets: we participate all the same, whether we are cognizant of it or not. In the specific case of our role as hearing persons, we participate in being “the hearing majority”. As such a majority, we are part of a network which can take important decisions in Deaf persons’ lives. We can, we should, feel empowered by realizing that we have power: a tautology. But with power comes responsibility. This brings our discourse to the second point in Mauro Mottinelli’s words: the manner hearing persons relate to Deaf persons. A basic fact that this book will emphasize is that Deaf children are born with intact potentialities, but their development can result in an actual capacitation or in a permanent incapacitation (chapter 2b), depending on the individuals, the professionals, the Institutions which populate the environment where Deaf children grow up. If only for statistical reasons, these individuals, professionals, Institutions, are mostly hearing. It is time for them to take this responsibility. However, this type of responsibility is a notion that needs a more extensive explanation. In a Deaf family, such Anna’s (chapter 3a) or Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ Deaf friend Howard’s (see p. 7), the context adequately supports a Deaf child’s development in language and therefore in cognition (chapter 2b). Anna’s life has been rich with satisfactions and will further be in the future. But

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this situation occurs for Deaf children in a reduced percentage of cases. When hearing people take care of a child who is born deaf or becomes deaf early in life, they operate a series of choices on the child’s behalf, in a time when the child cannot participate in a choice full of consequences. Chapters 3b, 6b, 10b and 13b will provide an idea of where such choices lead. In such chapters, which are among the first publications in a quantitative sociology of deafness, a series of European countries and their respective Institutions will be compared. Actually, what will be compared is to what degree Institutions from various countries facilitate the successful development of deaf children and their inclusion in society. As said before, in this work, societies will be observed to vary, and the effect of their action will be measured in terms of achievement by Deaf persons. In sociological studies, it is taken to be self-evident that societies differ from one another – it may be self-evident, but it is evidence charged with consequences in the lives of persons. It has to be admitted that the inclusive or exclusive practices of professionals, Institutions, and society as a whole will be felt with stronger intensity in the lives of persons who are more exposed to their effects. Deaf persons are among those whose potentialities at birth can be maximally fulfilled but also maximally unfulfilled – so they are more exposed. This hypothesis does not imply that Deaf persons are not capable of assuming their subjectivity and capacitate themselves supported by their own strengths. The story of their capacitation, and their achievements is in the “a” chapters of this book, in Anna’s story. “B” chapters, as promised by the title of the book, are meant to tell the other side of the story: the one where Deaf individual initiative cannot arrive. “B” chapters mean to respect scientific standards. As a consequence, formulated as it is, the thesis that society has a greater responsibility than average towards Deaf persons sounds as yet as an unsubstantiated hypothesis. This is the reason why chapter 3b will provide a discussion of this hypothesis – although as limited to the educational domain – and will base such discussion on sociological data. In addition, Foucault’s notion of a micro-physics of hearing power over deaf persons will be put to test in chapter 6b as well.

1b.3 Building a sociology of deafness And this leads us to the third point implied in Mauro Mottinelli’s words, how to construct a quantitative and qualitative sociology of deafness. It may be an unpredicted discovery to some, but, actually, a vision of deafness centered on a social dimension is not a future objective to strive for, but a

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mainstreaming framework in which international Institutions already work with respect to disabilities in general. In 2001, ICF, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, was officially endorsed by all 191 World Health Organization member States. ICF combines the medical and the social models of disability, building on the traditional, medical view, but, crucially, also on the seminal work of disabled organizations, and among others, Michael Oliver, the first Professor of Disability Studies in the world, and a key advocate of the social model of disability (more on disability organizations is to be found in chapter 6b). Incidentally, also Michael Oliver and other Disability Studies scholars have been building on the work of Michel Foucault, and, arguably, Erving Goffman. In its history, the World Health Organization has initially provided instruments only for physicians and for clinical use. With ICF, it departed from the medical domain alone and offered an instrument meant for “a wide range of uses in different sectors” (WHO 2002: 2). The novelty of ICF is its moving on a double level, medical and social: “It recognises the role of environmental factors in the creation of disability, as well as the role of health conditions” (WHO 2013: 5). Importantly, “ICF classifies functioning and disability, NOT the people, themselves” (WHO 2013: 18). ICF works by offering two lists: a list of body functions – such as hearing –, and body structures – such as ears –; and a list of activities and social participation. For every function and structure, for every activity and participation, a barrier can create an impairment (and this is the meaning of the word “disability”: an effect, not a permanent or definitory condition), or, quite to the contrary, a facilitator can expand capacities. While everyone is used to the medical notion, the social, contextual notion of disability may benefit of an exemplification (Figure 3): Among contextual factors are external environmental factors (for example, social attitudes, architectural characteristics, legal and social structures, as well as climate, terrain and so forth); and internal personal factors, which include gender, age, coping styles, social background, education, profession, past and current experience, overall behavior pattern, character and other factors that influence how disability is experienced by the individual. (WHO 2002: 10)

ICF presupposes sociological categories, and this is important to establish attitudes and practices. In fact, ICF were thought to be used in planning and policy, by decision-makers, and not only for scholarly or clinical descriptive use. In scholarly works, there are few classical precedents among purely sociological works, that are centered on deafness. One such work is Paul Higgins’ Outsiders in a Hearing World. A sociology of Deafness. The notion of being outside of

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ICF: Interaction of Concepts Health Condition (disorder/disease) Body functions & structures (Impairment)

Activities (Limitation)

Environmental Factors

Participation (Restriction)

Personal Factors

Figure 3: Interactions between components of ICF, International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. Source: WHO 2001, 18.

a world that is organized by and for hearing people is crucial in the framework provided by Higgins. This is similar to notions subsequently ideated and published in Deaf studies, as, to say one, in Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ “Living in Other’s Word” (1988: 56). This is where the issue of how a sociology of deafness should be thought out and organized becomes crucial. Should such a sociology describe the Deaf condition, or rather organize and mobilize political action? Should it be acceptant of hearing society, or critical towards it? I defended the idea that a micro-physics of power should engender responsibility: as power is distributed, each one should take responsibility. But this is a positive vision of power, or at least a vision in which power, even if not positive at the beginning, can be made to become positive. It can be objected that such a positive tone was not present in Foucault’s notion of power: Foucault was using his micro-physics principally to denounce – and this objection is correct. But once Foucault’s micro-physics of power has been accepted, one cannot be happy with only a critical attitude, and with denouncing. Who would one denounce? The task of using power correctly rests with each one, everyone included. And there is an operative side to this vision: awareness is not enough. A micro-physics demands the management of practices, the invention of solutions, specific actions and attitudes. Crucially, hearing responsibility is often not in doing more, or expanding institutional sectors dedicated to special populations that already ended up in controlling those special populations, as we learned from a history that Foucault very effectively told (Foucault 1961). Rather, it is often in doing less, but more competently, in doing the right thing at the right moment (as chapter 8b will

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show), or in doing something for Deaf persons as one does for any other category of persons (as chapter 5b, 6b, and 9b will show). For the time being, a perfect example of how one can do less and better is in linguistics, that not by chance is the root of the Deaf rebirth started in the Sixties (Stokoe 1960, chapter 8b). Linguistics provides conclusive evidence that there are two ways to “become good” in language: only one of them is learning, the other is acquisition. Now, language acquisition in children – including deaf children – is faster, spontaneous and therefore more economic, and results in a better mastery of language than language learning (Chomsky 1965; Lenneberg 1967; Krashen 1981). But well, only sign language is acquired by deaf children, spoken language needs speech therapy, even in presence of a cochlear implant. Deaf children are perfectly endowed by nature with linguistic innate abilities to acquire a language whose input is accessible to them. So, why multiply efforts and resources that are bound to be less effective than nature, rather than directing them towards other domains, where they can be more needed? Let nature do its part, and Deaf children acquire their first language spontaneously, as any other toddler (chapter 2b). Returning to the need for responsibility: responsibility is the reason why, after Foucault’s, more books are necessary. But since, with Foucault, denouncing has already been performed, the contribution needed now is providing specific awareness, competence, reflection, and even solutions, in the form of recipes and proposals to further build upon. Good will needs instruments to become reality. Not only knowledge, but also ideas, and examples about how to innovate. Sometimes situations are ineffectively handled unawarely, or out of innocent incompetence. This is the reason why this book – as for that matter, many other ones – should be read. There is a second response that I can advance to the objection that Foucault ideated his notion of power having in mind a denouncing function. In the first place, the “positive” interpretation here proposed of micro-physical power does not go without a component of denunciation. In fact, in order to be fair, power should be equally distributed among hearing and Deaf persons as well (chapter 6b). This implies also that it is not useful to think for Deaf persons to only have a Deaf world of their own where sign languages rule. One should rather think of a common word where Deaf and hearing persons share positions of responsibility and power in the same Institutions. Institutions where at least some hearing persons sign. Most Deaf persons recognize that Deaf associations are important as an interface between Deaf persons and hearing persons: as important as having a political interface may be, one cannot wish that all relations between Deaf persons

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and hearing persons may be filtered by a single mediation agency. The reasons why all Institutions need to be shared, is that the world needs to be shared. But for this to happen, empowering and capacitating paths for Deaf people are to be thought out and enacted. Power is to be shared, and proactively so. We will one day share a world where Deaf people feel entitled to an equal citizenship. No more outsiders in a hearing world.

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

2a My origins I believe I used to signify a lot to some beloved persons, and I still do so today. First to my parents and my aunt and uncle, who were to me a second mother and father, so that I often used to say I had “two mothers and two fathers”. I am who I am thanks to these four persons (Figure 4). My aunt and uncle had no children and lived with us. They shared our home, and I shared the cuddles of four considerate dear persons. Great life, except when they grew old, I have had to take care of four parents – what a catch! Yes, as a girl, I have been cuddled by four, and as a mature woman I have had to provide for four. They were the most determinant persons in my life, the four of them were Deaf. Only my uncle had some residual hearing. Because of his beautiful voice, he was often requested to relate to hearing persons in speaking, and not in signs, and hearing persons addressed him as though he was one of them. So, he decided he would not use his voice any longer. A fact of life that I discovered through my uncle is that, contrary to what many Deaf people think, a hard-of-hearing person is just equal to any profoundly-Deaf person. Another thought originating from my uncle’s choice, was about Deaf persons who can sign very well, but in public prefer to talk: what is the reason they should make such a choice? Do they refuse being interpreted?

Figure 4: My “four parents”.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-003

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But actually, before I tell about my “four parents”, another important story has to be told. In order to properly describe “my person”, I believe that it is good, as first thing, to introduce my ancestors. My social situation in the far past is that I originate from a bourgeois branch on my father’s side, and from a branch of countryside people on my mother’s side.

2a.1 Great-grandfathers. We could have been rich My grandparents on my mother’s side were big-hearted. My grandmother had a simple character, was good-natured, benign, always in a good mood. People in her hometown used to refer to her as a “witch”, as she was good at curing diseases with home remedies – what in Italian are, in effect, called “grandma’s recipes”. For headache, she suggested sliced potatoes on the front, and similar things. She was a very good woman. Her informal job, to earn a small income, was to pick up fruits in orchards. My grandfather was a primary school teacher. At the time, when Italy had low levels of literacy, but universal schooling had just become a requirement, for one who intended to be a primary school teacher no prerequisite existed of advanced educational credentials. After leaving the Gualandi institute, where much of the events told in this chapter took place, my mother received the limited education she has had the possibility to access, only by virtue of my grandfather’s home schooling. My mother’s name was Magda. In her family of origin there were five children, two were Deaf, and three were hearing. Switching to my father’s side, my great-grandfather and my great-grandmother were Angelo Manderioli and Gemma Cavalli. Gemma Cavalli died as a consequence of childbirth, so that her first name was conserved in naming her unique child, my grandmother Gemma. Angelo was a respected man, he worked in a bank. Left without his bride, he employed a relative to provide a substitute mother to my grandmother Gemma, and in the second marriage he married Benvenuta, maybe not to become old in solitude. I assume it was because she was raised without a mother, that my grandmother Gemma developed a controlling attitude in her character. She was an exceptionally apprehensive woman, strongly attached to her own children, and to me as well. Before telling about her, however, let us move back to my great-grandmother family. The household Cavalli was a bourgeois family, maybe even an aristocratic

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one, but I could not determine to which ancient, noble house they were related – if they were. When I inquired my grandmother about the household’s origins, she, who was a humble person, told me not to attach much importance to it. My great-grandmother Gemma Cavalli had three sisters. Elvira, Ida, and Adele. The eldest, Elvira, married Eugenio Jacobitti, who was probably of Jew origin. His family of origin owned sailing vessels that were used to trade in various types of oils. Everyone called him “professore”, as he was the author of plenty of sapiential books about religion and classical Italian literature. At home, I have some ancient volumes from Eugenio’s works. Eugenio could speak various languages, and his work is overflowing with scholarly citations in Hebrew and other ancient languages. He totaled some seventy published works. I am honored by this illustrious ancestor, but his works are incomprehensible to me: their archaic, convoluted style makes them just unreadable to me. He was a great mind, and maybe my mind is just not so great! In 1966, the city of Florence experienced an extraordinary flooding of river Arno, which moved the world for the damages endured by the artistic patrimony of the city. Water reached Florence National Library, especially its lower floors, where, unfortunately, many of Eugenio Jacobitti’s works were being preserved. As a consequence, Eugenio’s work is now incomplete, and disseminated in various Italian city libraries. A selection of his books is still preserved in the library of Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, and in Bologna’s library. Elvira and Eugenio had no children. Without ever owning a house, they lived in various Italian cities, some of them very fashionable at that time, such as Sorrento. I have been told about a Villa Vittoria in Settignano, and in places such as Diano Marina, Lido di Camaiore, Napoli. Eugenio was protective and jealous of Elvira, it appears he might have been in gallant competition with the internationally renowned tenor Enrico Caruso. Elvira, for her part, was a very formal woman, with an austere personality. Enrico and Elvira co-habited before their marriage, which was scandalous for those times, but this did not prevent Elvira from being especially judgmental towards her sister Ida. And indeed Ida, her sister, was an adventurer, who never got married but had many beaus and many love affairs, among whom, as my grandmother told me, Gabriele D’Annunzio, the great Italian writer. Her sister Elvira systematically criticized Ida, judging her lifestyle immoral. A regular of theatres, she died alone in Palermo. I have not been able to reconstruct the events that brought her to Sicily. I believe I inherited from Ida my admiration for drama. Might I have been influenced by Ida? Who can tell? As she did, I also lived in Palermo, and I have a good opinion of D’Annunzio – but only as a writer, and not so . . . passionately good as she had.

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The third sister, Adele, married a count Du Besse. I have inherited no materials about her life, and my grandmother almost never told me about her. The experience of Gemma Cavalli’s death in childbirth had an impact on Elvira and Eugenio Jacobitti, who were her sister and brother-in-law, so that they decided not to have children, but they took good care of their niece. In present-time Italian literature, Eugenio is no more an important personality, but at his time he was considered a great author, his works regularly sold out, and, also as a result of his family business, he was very rich, but his fortune did not include houses, which the couple regularly rented. During the Second World War, and especially during Germans’ occupation of Italy, properties in Eugenio and Elvira’s mansion house were requisitioned by the Nazis, but anticipating this possibility, Eugenio had deposited his capital outside Europe, in a Brazilian bank. It amounted to a great fortune, for that time, probably summing up to one hundred million lire. When Eugenio and Elvira passed away, my grandmother Gemma, who was their unique heiress, tried to regain possession of the fortune of her uncle and aunt, but the documents giving evidence of her properties had disappeared. She made all possible efforts, but without success. Plausibly, her capital now belongs to the Brazilian state. She used to say “Never mind! We are good! We are poor but we have faith! We don’t mind richness, we are happy. We just care for good health!” The man who married Gemma Manderioli, my grandfather on my father’s side, Antonio Folchi, was a widely respected man. It is a shared memory that everyone greeted him when he walked in the street. He worked in a bank with an important role – similarly to him, I also have been working in a bank. He was originally from a town close to Ferrara, Cento. In my story, we meet now a grown-up Gemma Manderioli: she was a dignified woman, noble but not haughty. She was very severe. Antonio met Gemma in Cento. In a subsequent time, they lived together in Milan and Florence. Throughout their shared life, Antonio and Gemma had four children, my father Luigi and zia Vittorina, who were Deaf, and two hearing girls. My grandparents did not know the exact reason for Luigi and Vittorina’s deafness, it was certainly not genetic, since there were no other Deaf persons among their ancestors. Luigi might have contracted meningitis at the age of 9 months. The story that my family used to tell is that my grandmother, who was already pregnant with Vittorina, was mightily scared by Luigi’s condition, and that was the reason for Vittorina’s being born Deaf. My grandfather discussed his children’s condition with physicians, to see if an intervention was possible. A surgical operation was performed on Luigi’s ears, with no success. My father Luigi used to say, “You see, I carry along with me the scar thus far”. My grandmother Gemma decided that Luigi and Vittorina should go to a specialized institute for Deaf students – at that time, in Italy there were special

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segregated schools, that included residential facilities for students to lodge, and were called “institutes”. Basically, it was a time when parents did not receive help on how to support their Deaf children language development and cognitive progresses. They correctly reasoned that this role had to be assumed by the school. But the school did not function as it should have.

2a.2 The barbaric treatment of students in Deaf institutes These images (Figure 5) are very important to me, as Luigi, my father, Magda, my mother, and my aunt Vittorina told me the stories they experienced in the institutes. They are stories that really hurt those who listen to them. For a long time, I hated Bologna, although I later recognized that the city of Bologna is not responsible for my feelings, which are rather a reaction to the stories I have been told about the institute. I personally oppose the idea that special institutes for the Deaf should be re-established – an idea that is still strong in the community of Italian Deaf people. The institutes were boarding schools, but I think that young children should be brought up close to their parents. Magda, my mother, and Vittorina, my aunt, at that time were not sisters in law, they were just pals in the section for girls of Gualandi institute for the Deaf in Bologna. My father was in the section for boys of the same institute. The girls’ section was attended by nuns, the boys’ one by priests and assistant personnel. My parents told me that in the institute children wore light dresses. No heating was provided, there was plenty of snow, they were cold. In contrast, priests and nuns wore appropriate, convenient clothing. As Deaf children said they were cold, the personnel told them to practice gymnastics to warm up. Luigi contracted asthma, but for priests this didn’t matter. When co-teachers believed that students were not following the class, they beat them – and the same often happened for much more futile reasons. When I was told the story about a Deaf class-mate who stood up to defend Luigi, my father, and hit back the co-teacher, I really loved that boy. Remarkably, the fascist approach to education played a role in the story – you can see the girls’ section in Figure 5, and girls greeting with the Fascist salute. The girls in Figure 5 are Magda and Vittorina. They told me that on Sundays the nuns provided them with a miserable, light meal, an anchovy, a thin slice of bread and an apple, after heavy cleaning duties and a long walk in the open air. In the evening, they were cold and starving. This was the situation before

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Figure 5: Above, Istituto Gualandi, in Bologna, boys’ section. Below, the two girls are, on the left, my mother Magda and in the center, my aunt Vittorina. The sad-looking boy is my father, Luigi Folchi.

the Second World War. Vittorina was a beautiful, aerial girl; when she contracted bronchopneumonia, she was locked in a room on her own, nothing to read, no television as in the present day, no physician to visit her, only some broth to drink. Her schoolmates secretly followed what happened to her through a spyhole, as she got out of bed and interacted with them through that narrow space. Her serious condition continued for three months. One day my grandparents visited Vittorina, who was hardly alive. She was present when her father opened his wallet to settle the bill. She inquired “What is the reason you paid, dad?”, “The physician examined you, you received medications”. “No”, said Vittorina, “to the contrary, I received no cures and no

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medicines”. It appears that nuns and priests were better managers of their economies than good shepherds of their flock of lambs. I am sorry to have to tell these stories, which in turn were told to me, exactly in these terms. Fortunately, Vittorina was hospitalized and survived: as she told me her story, she observed that she was lucky to be there, alive and able to relive her story with me. My uncle Gastone Parrini, Vittorina’s husband, has been as a father to me, has reported to me stories of pedophilia, related not to his person but to another Deaf mate. And then he told me a story I cannot forget. A pal of his, he told me, had one brother, who used to wet his bed, plausibly because of cold, or his young age, or the hardships of being far from his mother. As a response, priests did immerse him in freezing water in a cold winter, to discipline him, or as a form of punishment. He shivered, shivered, shivered, and after some time he developed some disease and died. My uncle’s pal, the poor boy’s brother, was devastated, he sought aid, and made attempts at telling what had happened to his parents. But it appeared that being Deaf had built a wall between him and the world, and he was not believed. Imagine your parents not believing you, when you are confronted with such a sorrow. He was not considered good enough to be believed. My aunt Vittorina and my father, her brother Luigi, never met during their stay in the residential institute, and they were living in the same building. A wall separated the girls’ section from the boys’ one. But more than the wall, it was the nuns’ prudery that separated them, as various other pairs of siblings. During the walks, on Sundays, the girls walked in pairs, holding hands, and the same did the boys. If the line of the boys walking met the line of the girls, both were supposed to avert their gaze. They were not women and men, they were just children. Had a girl to comb her hair, no mirror was available. As a consequence, to get her hair done, my mother ingeniously used the reflection in the window glass. She was discovered and beaten. Using the bidet was not allowed, – too potentially pleasurable! –, and even having a bath was not allowed. In nine months, they had a bath twice, for Christmas and for Easter. Luckily no one of them stink – my mother used to remark ironically. When the school year was over and my grandfather went to the institute to bring Luigi and Vittorina home, he entered the girls’ section with Luigi by his hand and could perceive the nun stiffening. Brother and sister hugged: it was nine month they had not had news from each other. This is the reason why I wish the educational system will not return to segregated institutes, and I support the idea of mainstreaming. In addition to controversial educational methods, their curriculum was criticizable. Most classes were about religion, not about the usual disciplines – Italian, history, maths . . . From an early age, Deaf people’s lives were intended for manual labor: typography, shoe repair, tailoring, bookbinding, woodworking. Many times, Deaf people are

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reproached because they are not able to write in a correct Italian – but this is not a responsibility of ours. We were not appropriately taught. In the institutes they taught us to worship, and to articulate words. But honestly, education is not just about religion and articulation. I will state it clearly, it has been our teachers’ responsibility if our education has rarely produced good results. Before 1880,1 there were Deaf authors who published beautiful works. When oralism was introduced and sign language was abolished from Deaf education, new methods engendered no cognitive progresses, they did not advantage Deaf students. These decisions led us where we are at present.

2a.3 My family’s engagement in Deaf associations Consistently, the lives of the generation of Deaf leaders who were schooled in this manner, were dedicated to establishing and supporting a unified, strong Deaf association. Firstly, with two important political purposes in mind: protection and health. And actually, I share the legacy that my family transmitted to me with the Deaf community as a whole. My relatives greatly contributed to the history of the foundation of ENS, Ente Nazionale Sordi, in 1948. ENS is the most important Deaf association in Italy. I would like to recall the names of the ten founders of Ente Nazionale Sordi: Ieralla, Brocchi, Carli, Brogi, Sebasti, Rubino, Ali, Comitti, De Carlis, Antonio Magarotto – there was also his son Cesare, a hearing man, who was a secretary, but not a founder of the association. The ten founders are portrayed in an image in chapter 7b (Figure 32), a chapter where the history of Ente foundation will be told. In effect, in the photo, I recognize faces that populated the social life of my “four parents” during my young age. Certainly, they enriched my personal development as well. The association had no official headquarters of its own, so members used to meet in public places. There was a deep motivation, a great interest for events, enthusiasm, everyone was ready to contribute. I participated in the general attitude surrounding me, which had an impact on my character, on my confidence, on my disposition to stand up for our rights.

1 In 1880 the Congress of Milan took place, where European deaf education discontinued education in signs, and preferred oralist education, making use of spoken languages alone.

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Previously, Deaf leaders used to be capable, dignified, esteemed. Once, if an action was not conducive to success, leaders were able to stand together, thinking of common goals. My opinion about ENS? It is the same as one can have about one’s household: I actually was born and raised in it. It is an extremely important institution, an interlocutor between Deaf people and the Italian state. If Deaf people were nothing but a series of separated individuals, each on one’s own, who would be listening to us? In the past, ENS used to be an institution established under public law. Presently, as an entity governed by private law, many transformations have taken place, including in the democratic nature of its decisions. The open attitude towards as diverse opinions as Deaf people can have has faded. My father has been working as a typographer, my uncle as a wood model builder in a foundry. Both have assumed political roles in ENS. Uncle Gastone was engaged as a president of the Florence section of ENS and in the management of the Deaf association Unione Sportiva Silenziosa. He was an especially honest administrator, never pocketing even the most irrelevant quantity of the funds he administered, not even temporarily or as a borrow. Also in his old age, while working for the third-age section of Ente Nazionale Sordi, and assembling a considerable amount of funds, he used to say “Deaf people’s funds are to be respected, this is off-limits money. I administer them, I would never borrow them for personal use”. I can still feel his control on my mindset in these matters: I might have been unconcerned by this aspect of an organization, but he taught me not to be. The four of my parents and I lived in Florence. At the time, no technology existed to communicate at distance: no TTY, no telephone, so that keeping in contact for Deaf people was really difficult. As a matter of fact, people could not even organize their meetings in advance. As a consequence, the persons who had to make decisions with my father or my uncle, stopped over at our place. It was natural for us as a family that they might arrive at home during dinnertime. And the people who dropped in were plenty. We used to live in a building inhabited by three more families. We were at the first floor. I still keep a really funny document: a photo of a worn-out doorbell button, bearing the surnames “Folchi – Parrini”. No other doorbell is so worn-out, as no other inhabitants in the building received so many visits as we did.

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2a.4 Deaf politics At the time, Italy was a leading organizer in the international associative life of the Deaf community, and provided a location for major events. The World Federation of the Deaf was established in Rome in 1951 by Vittorio Ieralla and Cesare Magarotto. Its first President, who remained in charge until 1982, was Vittorio Ieralla; its first General Secretary, in charge until 1987, was Cesare Magarotto. My uncle Gastone Parrini has been an Italian representative at WFD in Rome as well.

Figure 6: First World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Rome, 1951.

Cesare Magarotto was also the secretary of Ente Nazionale Sordi until 1996, when the first woman president of ENS, Ida Collu, had him removed from his charge of – almost lifelong – secretary. The second founder of the World Federation of the Deaf, Vittorio Ieralla, had previously been elected President of ENS. As a child I met Vittorio Ieralla various times, he was an old man, who lived until I was 25 years old. My parents used to meet him often. I looked up at him as at an important person. He had a strong, remarkable character but was very diplomatic. He had to endure difficult situations, sometimes Deaf people can be

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tough and judgmental, but in my perception, he was a man of value, and an upright person. National associations, as ENS in Italy, are an instrument for Deaf people to sit at a table with public institutions, as the government. Deaf people have plenty of difficulties. As individuals, they are but ants in front of Institutions. An association is required to represent us, some tens of thousands as we are. This is the reason why, no matter how far I may have felt about some of its recent choices, I have renewed my membership to ENS all along. These were my family values, and I will remain inside ENS for the better and the worse. My uncle used to participate as an Italian representative to the meetings of the World Federation of the Deaf. From his perspective, he perceived that the objective of both Vittorio Ieralla and Cesare Magarotto was for the World Federation of the Deaf to give Deaf people an opportunity to meet on a regular basis. Meeting Deaf people from all over the world would broaden up horizons and create a network. A social interest was dominant, but it went side by side with a political interest. Deaf people met, in each state, with the same difficulties. Solutions had not to be reinvented anew, each time. And when a government was hard to convince, the successful results of a policy could be supported thanks to the example of another state. Exchanges, evidence about solutions, spurs to improve – this is what a Word Federation could provide. The domains of action were various, most important were accessibility, labor, support to sign languages, interpreting, and, naturally, Deaf education, for which the supported solution was bilingualism. The World Federation of the Deaf is so far the place where Deaf people from all over the world meet and pursue their common goals. But Deaf life in distinct states have evolved separately. To make an example, many of us greatly appreciate Deaf people’s lifestyle in Sweden, but, comparatively, Italian institutions are different from Swedish ones and do not always permit us to reproduce similar solutions. Actually, what the World Federation of the Deaf allows us to do is coordinate about universal conditions like those created by technical progresses, i.e., cochlear implants diffusion, or educational transformations, like the one from special institutes to mainstreaming. In 1951, as can be seen in Figure 6, the first world congress of the World Federation of the Deaf took place in Rome, with representatives from twenty-five countries participating. It was decided that a congress would be held every four years. A subsequent congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Italy was to take place in Palermo in 1983. In 1983, I used to live in Palermo, and I participated in the organization of the congress as a coordinator of theatre companies. Every morning there would be seminars and debates, and every evening theatrical performances. I managed interpretation services, and I supplied actors and directors with anything they could

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require. It was a week of great experiences, and many beautiful friendships were born, that would live through my entire lifetime. In recent times, Deaf people’s associative life has increased throughout the world, and the effect of associations’ activities is often very positive. These are my personal recollections about those times. Emiliano, Sara and I will tell a complete story of the origin of ENS, based on historical sources, in chapter 7b.

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2b Good reasons for the right to sign languages This is a special time for Deaf people in the world: international Institutions have discovered sign languages. In 1988 the European Parliament ratified its first Resolution on Sign Languages for Deaf People. This was the first of many more opinions and recommendations by the same Institution, the most significant of which is the 1998 Resolution on Sign Languages. On December 13, 2006, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stated that Deaf people are entitled to communicate through sign languages. Since international statements are about to be employed at a state level, this is a perfect time to think about the nature of the right to sign languages. In this chapter I address the following question: Is the right to sign language the same as the right to a minority language? A minority language is a language that is spoken in a country by a small portion of the population and (typically) does not have an official status (i.e., is not enforced by the law), but can aspire to have one. On the basis of recent research, I maintain that the right to sign language is not only as strong as the right to a minority language, but is indeed even stronger, because it is the right to have normal social and cognitive development.

2b.1 The classification of rights Following Vasak (2004), thinkers have classified rights according to three groups based on the timing of their acquisition (Table 1). The first group includes individual rights, civil, and political rights. Individual rights include the right to dignity, to personal integrity, to citizenship, to one’s name, and to equal treatment before the law. Civil and political rights include freedom of association, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of religious belief, and the right to vote and to be elected. These rights were the first to arrive on the political scene. Most of them were established in the United States and France at the beginning of the contemporary age (i.e., at the end of eighteenth century). In the United States they were the result of the economic rebellion against colonial powers; in France, they were enforced after five hundred years of ancien régime, which was overthrown in 1789. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-004

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Politically, these rights were employed for the first time in the most ancient complexes of norms in the world, which were called constitutions. In addition, their ideals, critical of the past and constructive with regard to the future, constituted the center of all future democratic constitutions of the world (up to today – and possibly beyond). Table 1: Rights Classified According to Their “Generation” (Vasak 2004). First Generation

Second Generation

Third Generation

individual rights, civil and political rights

socioeconomic rights

solidarity rights

individual rights: right to life, to dignity, to physical and psychic integrity, etc. civil and political rights: freedom of thought, right to vote, etc.

right to have a house, a job, health care, education, etc.

right to peace, economic development, a healthy ecological environment, access to communication, etc.

These rights are individual (i.e., they concern each citizen), universal (they concern everyone), and they are included in all constitutions.

These rights are collective; they apply to underprivileged groups and are included in many constitutions.

These rights are collective; they also apply to underprivileged groups but are included in no constitutions.

Every constitution includes at least one of these rights but not necessarily all of them. They are the most ancient rights, and this makes them particularly strong. So, summarizing, they concern every single citizen (they are individual); they concern everyone (they are universal); and each democratic constitution in the world includes some of them. Socioeconomic rights belong to the second generation, which appeared shortly after the first generation. They include the right to work, to have a home, to have affordable health care, and so on. This group is the result of economic struggles that began in the eighteenth century. These rights are found especially in Europe. In the United States there is typically little interest in them. They are very strong in welfare states, however, such as Western Europe, and before 1989 they were also important in socialist states. They do not apply to individuals but rather to underprivileged groups (i.e., those who do not have a home, a job, health insurance, etc.).

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The third generation includes “solidarity” rights, which belong to the future since they are not yet included in constitutions. This list is open-ended. They include such rights as self-determination of peoples, the right to communication, and the right to peace. It is worth noting that both the second and the third groups of rights are a. collective, i.e., they belong to groups. b. they are not claimed by everyone, but only by those who are interested in having what they still do not have: a house, a job, peace (for those people who do not have a house or a job, for those countries where there is no peace). c. they are only partially enforced, they are not present in all constitutions in the world (possibly, third generation rights are not included in any constitution). What about the right to sign language, then? Does it belong to the first, second, or third generation? It depends on how one answers the following questions: Is it individual or collective? Is it universal or the right of a minority group? Today most people would probably say that, as a right to a minority language, the right to sign language is collective and the right of a group. That would then mean that it belongs to the second or third generation of rights.

2b.2 Sign languages as minority languages In every country in the world there is a majority language, but most countries also have at least one minority language. The majority language is the most used and/ or the official language of the state (e.g., English in the United States; Italian in Italy). Side by side with the majority language, some people normally use another language. This is not usually a second language learned at school, such as English, but rather one learned mostly at home (e.g., Kurdish in Turkey or in Iraq). The question is, are sign languages the same as minority languages? In the first place, sign languages are the same as other languages in that all linguists agree that they are true languages (Stokoe 1960). They are the same also because Deaf people everywhere must fight for the right to use sign language. However, sign languages are not exactly the same as minority languages since minority groups are usually concentrated in a particular geographic area, whereas Deaf people generally are not. However, the main reason that sign languages do not have the same status as other minority languages is the manner in which they are transmitted. No other language is so particular in this regard: minority languages of the spoken variety,

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no matter how small the community that uses them, are successfully transmitted from one’s parents, siblings, and grandparents. The problem with minority languages like Kurdish today, or the indigenous languages of African slaves in US in the past, is that they are usually either forbidden or ignored: They are not used in print, and they are not used in political debates, for instance. They can express a very rich civilization; they can have a literature and even a core of academic knowledge; they can be the language in which very interesting ideas are expressed. Nonetheless, they will be disdained by the official public domain. Sign languages have an additional problem, however. In most cases, they are not transmitted via the family, as spoken languages are. As the available data tell us, in fact, in most countries deaf children of deaf/Deaf parents are very few, just 5 percent of the total population; the majority of deaf/Deaf youngsters are children who have grown up in hearing families (Rawlings and Jensema 1977; Schein & Delk 1974).

2b.3 Transmission of languages This difference in language transmission has important consequences. An individual in Turkey who sets aside Kurdish will learn Turkish. An individual in Scotland who sets aside Scots will learn English. If Kurdish or Scots is replaced by Turkish or English, inevitably the former languages will gradually disappear, and, for the destiny of the language, this is unfortunate. In contrast, Kurdish or Turkish equal each other in one respect: their speakers can express their thoughts in both languages. This is so because, for hearing individuals, exposure to a language at the time they are biologically predisposed to learn one (i.e., when they are babies) is sufficient (Lenneberg 1967). For hearing babies language will develop naturally; only if parents segregate them from others might babies remain without a language (Curtiss 1977). The situation is different when a spoken language is meant to replace a sign language. One might say that sign languages are “stronger” than spoken languages, in that both deaf/Deaf and hearing infants quickly learn sign languages. In contrast, spoken languages are naturally learned only by hearing babies. Deaf babies naturally acquire only sign language. For them to acquire language, it is enough simply to sign to them. They can also learn spoken languages, but, in order to do so, they must undergo speech therapy and participate in specific support programs. It is not enough merely to talk to deaf babies for them to learn to speak, a fact acknowledged by everyone who works with deaf/Deaf people.

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A mother does not need much linguistic competence to convey language to her baby. In fact, mothers who are not literate succeed in this task. In contrast, in order to teach spoken languages to a deaf baby, a great deal of competence is necessary. A mother is not enough; in fact, a speech therapist is required. Speech therapists, unlike mothers, are highly trained professionals. But this means that, in this case, it is the process of teaching and learning that brings about the transmission of language. As is clear to everyone, teaching and learning can also fail, sometimes for the reason that the process is not natural. Success, then, depends on many variables, like the preparation of teachers and therapists; the learners’ motivation; the pedagogic approaches employed; the pace of classes; teaching styles and learning styles; the quality of the instructional materials; the relationship between teacher and learner; effectiveness in creating motivation; the surrounding stimuli; the encouragement and support – or lack thereof – of one’s peers and family; the socioeconomic context, etc. Dependence on successful instruction characterizes oralism, a system of teaching deaf people a spoken language – to the exclusion of sign language – and also cochlear implantation, as cochlear implants need to be supplemented by the instruction taking place in speech therapy. This means, conclusively, that, owing to the intrinsic nature of language transmission, deaf children do not always learn spoken languages well; in fact, some studies suggest that they usually do not (for nonstandard spoken English, see, for example, de Villiers, de Villiers, Hoban 1994; for nonstandard spoken Italian, see Volterra & Bates 1989, Chesi 2006; on the natural acquisition of sign languages by deaf infants see among others Petitto & Marentette 1991; Petitto, et al. 2001). Thus, it can be said that deaf people are born perfectly healthy but are at risk. They possess a normal intelligence and an intact, innate ability to acquire language, but if they are not exposed to and do not learn language in a correct manner, they might encounter problems.

2b.4 Experiment Let us find out more by going through an experiment that Rachel Mayberry performed in 1993. I discuss this specific experiment not because it is unique but because it is representative of a well-established trend in psycholinguistic research about (sign) language acquisition (see also Mayberry 2007; 2010). Mayberry wanted to find out whether there is a proper time for sign language learning.

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The test was performed with the participation of thirty-six deaf ASL signers. They were shown ASL sentences that varied in their internal complexity (some were very long and difficult) and were asked to repeat them – not to translate them, but only to sign them. The aim of the experiment was to identify signers who were more fluent in ASL. In fact, not everyone performed the task equally well. The sentences they reproduced contained, for instance, lexical errors (such as one sign for another), phonetic errors (such as one configuration for another), and syntax errors. As a matter of fact, Mayberry intentionally involved deaf signers from four different groups. Her hypothesis predicted a specific distribution among the groups, and this is indeed what she found. Let us consider, one by one, the composition of each group. Table 2: Mayberry’s (1993) Experimental Groups. Group Language

Age of Exposure to Sign Language

Sign Language as First or Second Language

G = Deaf people born of d/Deaf parents

–

L

G = Deaf people born of hearing parents

–

L

G = Deaf people born of hearing parents; tried spoken language but it was unsuccessful

–

L

G = formerly hearing people; deafened after picking up spoken language; sign language learned afterward

–

L

Those in group one (G1) were deaf children of Deaf parents. They had learned sign language early and perfectly (between 0 and 3 years). For them, sign language was their first language (L1). Group 2 (G2) comprised deaf people whose parents were hearing. As children (5 to 8 years of age) they had attended schools where sign language was used. For them, too, sign language was their first language. Group 3 (G3) was also made up of deaf children of hearing parents. However, with them, spoken language was tried first, but they did not succeed in learning it. Only after this attempt had failed were they exposed to sign language. Thus, sign language was also their L1; the difference is that they did not learn it until they were between 9 and 13 years of age.

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Those in Group 4 (G4) had become deaf during childhood. Until that time, they had been hearing – long enough to acquire English. Once they were deaf, they had learned sign language as grown-up kids (8 to 15 years). For them, sign language was a second language, L2. The result of Mayberry’s experiment can be schematically represented as follows: G1 > G2 = G4 > G3 namely, those who performed better were G1 (i.e., Deaf children of Deaf parents). Less skillful were G2 signers, deaf people who had learned sign language as their first language not very early but not late, either. Equally good were the members of G4 (i.e., children deafened after learning a spoken language and for whom sign language was acquired late but as a second language). Those with the worst results were the members of G3, signers who had learned sign language when they were grown up and for whom sign language was their L1. These results are very important for the general issue of sign language rights. In the first place, both G3 and G4 learned sign language at the same age, but G4 performed better than G3. Why did they not score the same? The reason must be that G4 already spoke one language well – English. We can say the following: A strong L1 ! L2 is learned well Strong competence in the first language implies that the second language is learned quickly and well. Linguists have been aware of this for some decades. Acquisition, that is natural and spontaneous, is more effective than learning and schooling, in young children. Studies on bilingualism in hearing individuals have provided evidence that competence in one’s first language is conveyed to the learning of a second language (Cummins 1979; Krashen 1982). What Mayberry’s experiment tells us is that this is true with sign languages as well: Strong English ! American Sign Language learned well Crucially, other studies (Mayberry, Lock, & Kazmi 2002) tell us that the converse also holds: Strong American Sign Language ! English learned well In those countries where sign languages are not mainstream, one can still hear people (including professionals working with deaf people) saying “Signs kill speech”, a dictum that goes back to the infamous Milan Congress. This formula means that, when acquired first, a sign language makes it more difficult to learn a spoken language.

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Much experimental evidence, as we have just seen, proves that this is simply false. Signs can stand side by side with speech. Even people who think that words are more useful than signs should not ignore the fact that proficiency in sign language has proven to be a useful aid to acquiring speech. Signs do not kill speech. Rather, they help deaf people to acquire speech. Access to public discourse takes place mostly in the language of the majority, and the majority is hearing. So, some might want to give priority to speech over signs, whereas others will choose signs as the language in which they will express their most important thoughts. But the former group should acknowledge that signs facilitate deaf people’s access to speech. A second important implication concerns G1, whose signers (Deaf children of Deaf parents) ranked first among all four groups. These signers not only acquired sign language as their first language but also learned it at a very early age and at the “normal” time (i.e., the people surrounding them signed to them from birth). In particular, G1 outperformed G2. The reason for this lies in the timing of their exposure to sign language: G1 members picked up sign language earlier that G2 members. Thus: Early acquisition ! perfect language The later the time of acquisition ! the worse the language skills Previous experiments on spoken languages (Lenneberg 1967) and on sign languages bear this out. It is an uncontroversial conclusion for linguists. Now, when a deaf person is implanted or oralism is chosen, sign language is often excluded or delayed. It is important to focus on the consequence of this choice when speech therapy is not effective or when cochlear implantation is unsuccessful. If sign language is excluded, the normal process of first-language acquisition may be discontinued. If early acquisition brings about linguistic competence, late acquisition may imply delays in the child’s linguistic development. Let us now consider the results of G3: There are persons who do not acquire their L1 well. Mayberry’s test results reveal that there are deaf people who neither speak or sign well. In other words, there are deaf people who have not developed properly their language faculty. They were all deaf children who, at birth, had intact intellectual potential; that is, they had the innate ability to develop linguistic fluency. Clearly, the fact that they did not is crucial and should completely change our discourse on rights.

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It means that there are children who could have experienced normal cognitive growth but did not due to the choice of those people who were responsible for them.

2b.5 Which right to sign language? The existence of persons who do not have a satisfactory control of any language brings up a fundamental distinction. If this is the situation, the right to sign language is not only about the right to use one’s language in public: The right to sign language is not about the right to USE one’s language. It is about the right to HAVE one’s language, one’s first language: This is very important because language is connected not only with the faculty to communicate but also with other faculties; indeed, the development of one’s overall cognitive abilities depends to a certain extent on language. Moreover, correct social interplay depends on language. The formation of one’s identity, as perceived by those who surround us, is greatly affected by language. As one grows up, both academic and professional success largely depend on language as well (Van der Lely 2005). The importance of language for other cognitive skills is evident in a developmental condition called specific language impairment (SLI), which is not connected to deafness, anyone can have it. Babies with SLI are intelligent infants whose cognitive faculties are appropriate for their age. The only problem for them is that they will not learn language perfectly. What happens to those children as time goes by? As long as they are young, they use language in a way to make themselves sufficiently understood; as a result, adults do not immediately realize that these children have SLI. As they grow older, however, imperfections in their language become apparent, and in the long run other cognitive abilities are affected; these are the so-called secondary disorders. The use of short sentences and problems in producing and understanding syntactically complex sentences may reveal that a child has SLI. Then, little by little, other problems start occurring in the appropriateness of emotions, in behavior, and in attention. Later, additional problems can manifest in communication, in social abilities as revealed by theory of mind tests, with obvious effects on the child’s personal and professional life. Why do I mention this impairment if it has no specific link to deafness? I do so to further stress the fact, crucial for my argument about the right to sign

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language, that not developing a fully-fledged first language may negatively affect the development of skills connected to language. Whether one likes it or not, language is not a choice; it is a must. Those who are left without it, no matter how intelligent they otherwise are, do not have equal access to life. This obviously entails an impoverishment not only for them but also for society as a whole. It is time to return to the generations of rights. The right to sign language, at this point, cannot be considered simply a right of the second or the third generation. When it is one’s L1 (by definition, the first language one acquires in life), it is rather a right of the first generation. More than this, as an inviolable right, it is a primary right of the first generation. The right to use a language, the right typical of minority languages, is a collective right, that is, the right of a group. This is the right to use one language – often one out of two or more – in public. The right to have a language, which is necessarily the first language, the right typical of the languages of Deaf people, is fundamental, individual, and absolute and demands guarantees for everyone. I strongly emphasize everyone. This is what makes the difference. In today’s world, no one (who might have language) should be left without a language, a first language. Language must be considered a prerequisite to development because it permits full access to life. Thus, the right taken into account here is not the right to a minority language but the right to psychophysical integrity. This is indeed an absolute, universal right and therefore must include everyone, hearing and deaf. It is fundamental because it is indeed the right not to be deprived of one’s rights – those related to one’s potential – for one’s own sake and that of society. This should not depend on a choice or on one’s belonging to a group. Thus, the right to sign language should not be considered only the right to a minority language but rather the right to psychophysical integrity. By “psychophysical integrity” I mean one’s right to develop one’s cognitive faculties and one’s right to experience appropriate social interaction. These are fundamental, inviolable rights. Most constitutions include such rights directly or indirectly. In the United States, the Declaration of Independence declares the existence of “unalienable rights” and enumerates three of these. Two are the right to life and the right to happiness: One might argue that the rights to life and happiness entail the right to fulfill one’s potential. But the clearest constitution of them all is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which was elaborated in 1999 and adopted in 2000:

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Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 3 Right to the integrity of the person Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity. In conclusion, Deaf people’s right to language, their first language, is the right to a means to acquire the skills necessary to fully live their lives. As their right is fundamental, their claim is unquestionably stronger than the right to a minority language.

2b.6 Disabilities or capabilities? At this point, I want to introduce an important proviso. Legal language rights for Deaf people are sometimes grounded in disability theory, and a pathological/medical model of deafness is implicitly or explicitly presupposed. Minority language rights instead see Deaf people as another cultural and linguistic minority group (as a social and cultural construction of deafness would lead one to assume). It is important to understand that my argument, although pointing to a constitutional right, is not about disabilities, but, on the contrary, about capabilities. To explain equality and social justice, Amartya Sen, economist, philosopher, and Nobel Prize winner, has proposed the category of basic capabilities, which he explains as “a person[’s] being able to do certain basic things. The ability to move about is the relevant one here, but one can consider others, e.g., the ability to meet one’s nutritional requirements, the wherewithal to be clothed and sheltered, the power to participate in the social life of the community”. (Sen 1979: 218) The right to sign language, as I am proposing it here, should preserve Deaf people’s capabilities as it is a prerequisite for their development. It is the right that allows the development of one’s potential: a full-fledged language, a satisfying use of one’s skills, academic success, desirable employment. It is not about what Deaf people do not have but about what they can and therefore should have. When it comes to educational and social policies, what are the consequences if the right to sign language is conceived as a right to a minority language? What changes might occur if it is conceived of as a right to psychophysical integrity? As a right to a minority language, sign language should be allowed for the following: 1. public use: in the press, in research, in works of art 2. nonpublic use: in judicial proceedings, in health services 3. educational use: schools with instruction in sign language, sign language schools

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As a right to psychophysical integrity, all of these rights are preserved. But, in addition, two more are added. The government (where there is a welfare state) or educational agencies (in other countries) should give these guarantees: 4. Before formal schooling begins, do not exclude sign languages in interactions with deaf babies. All actions that address deafness in deaf babies should not leave sign languages out. 5. Later on, provide bilingual nursery schools and bilingual education in ordinary schools at all levels. What is the meaning of points 4 and 5? Let us start with point 4. If one asks for the right to sign languages as a right to psychophysical integrity, the relationship between sign language and other options to address deafness (e.g., cochlear implantation, oralism) would completely change because cochlear implant and oralist approaches are not able to secure success in all cases. Supporters of cochlear implants can say that these devices improve (and even restore) hearing. Supporters of oralism may say that oralism makes the relation to spoken language and to hearing people more direct. However, as we have seen, only sign language is effective with everyone. If my idea were accepted, the main consequence would be that sign languages could not be excluded from language programs for deaf babies. Other communication programs can of course always be used. Blocking customary practices, which have been successful in many cases, or blocking research is not an issue, of course. Spoken languages have an unquestionable importance. The conIsequence would be that such programs should not exist if they exclude the acquisition of a sign language. If a deaf baby does not learn sign language, the infant is like a trapeze artist in danger of plummeting to the ground. For the baby, sign language is a safety net. What is relevant is whether the baby was exposed to a first language that it was able to acquire. If so, the child is protected. So, for example, if I were a medical doctor who wanted to start an innovative language program in which a baby will not acquire sign language, I must prove that my program will keep the deaf baby safe. Let us now move to point 5. We have learned that the right timing for acquiring language starts in the very first years (if not months). Therefore, the government and/or educational agencies should guarantee exposure to sign language even in nursery school. There is an additional remark that is worth mentioning, although it is less central. The ones to be entitled to the right we are discussing would be deaf babies, deaf children, Deaf adults. But a significant improvement would stem for speech

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therapists, i.e., the professionals who work with deaf children. Without sign language, in fact, these professionals bear on their shoulders a very heavy responsibility. They end up belonging to a category similar to that of medical doctors: a category whose errors (or inexperience, tiredness, stress) can cost dearly. However, to medical doctors this responsibility is rewarded in many ways (prestige, earning, career), but not the same is true for speech therapists. Professionals working with deaf babies declare that anxiety often occurs in their job (a job made in conditions of risk for the child, I underline) and this can bring to feelings of guilt, to mutual recriminations. This can happen to parents, to speech therapists, or to other health or educational staff working with deaf children. It is appropriate to remember that in social and educational services it is not the deaf child who must adapt herself to social or educational professionals, but professionals that must adapt themselves to the deaf child. The central point is that the interest of these professionals coincides widely with the proper development of the deaf child. So, giving the deaf child the security net provided by sign language would entail a clear gain also for the quality of work of speech therapists and other professionals working with deaf children.

2b.7 Conclusions and agenda for the future In conclusion, what right is worthwhile asking for? The right to sign language as a minority language, or the right to sign language as the right to psychophysical integrity? My reasoning tried to show that research allows for both requests. Sign languages are true languages, therefore asking for a right to sign languages as minority languages is more than legitimate. But sign languages are necessary for the smooth development of cognitive skills of the deaf child, so one may see sign languages as a tool to maintain psychophysical integrity, as well. The choice about how framing the request for sign language recognition is a political one and it is the Deaf community who should make it. Whatever their choice, Deaf people will find it difficult to achieve their aims. Anyone who fights for the right to a minority language experiences this. But also the right to sign language as a right to psychophysical integrity is difficult to achieve. One salient difficulty is in that constitutions – luckily – never include one right alone. In particular, many constitutions include an additional right as well, the right of parents to choose how they should educate their children (the

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European Charter is clear on this, and so is the American tradition). Now, many parents are worried that their child might not talk their language and that this may interfere with their relationship. They perceive sign languages as a possible barrier between them and their deaf child. And by definition, parents only want that their children may be well off. Still, Deaf people have very good reasons to diffuse their language. Among them, the scientific reasons I tried to present in this article. I hope that Deaf people will endorse the request of sign language recognition as a right to psychophysical integrity. Before than in Parliament however, I think that this action should take place in society and should start by explaining to the hearing families of deaf children why including sign languages is the safest choice for their children’s wellness.

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

3a A beautiful childhood I was born at home, in Via Paoletti, 44, in Florence, city of the arts, on June 29, 1957. At the time, June 29 used to be a religious holiday. My parents, Luigi Folchi and Magda Castaldini, had been living in Ferrara before my birth. A midwife supported my mother during labor and gave me life. My father’s sisters, Vittorina and Villelma, were present, my grandmother on my mother’s side was on her way to our home from Ferrara. In effect, my mother’s pregnancy was not specially appreciated. Luigi and Magda had not planned to have kids, but my mother had exceptionally strong pains during her menstrual cycle, and she was advised to resort to a decisive solution – and the solution was me. Had my mother been in good health, I would have not existed. All kidding aside, I have been the optimal countermeasure. In practice, I was unappreciated by my parents as well as by my uncle Gastone and aunt Vittorina, who shared our home. My aunt Vittorina, especially, did not tolerate children. To my father, I have been a disappointment, being a woman, and not the male heir to the Folchi royal dinasty. When I learned about his penchant for his own gender, I was in turn slightly disappointed – and I have continued kidding him about his old-fashioned ideas until the end of his life. Subsequently, he has retracted, and declared it was a girl what he had wished for. We had a beautiful relationship, me and my father, lighthearted and joking, he was a specialist in laughing matters and games. He has loved me immensely – including as a daughter, of the unexpected gender. Regardless, when I arrived, everyone offered me with an extraordinarily happy and satisfied welcome. I was born Deaf, Deaf as my four relatives. Probably. I say probably, as at the time there were no technical instruments for an early detection of deafness. At first, they were sad about it. At the time, no one saw great prospects for a person who was born Deaf. In addition, having to spend my time suffering in the institutes for the Deaf appeared to them an unacceptable prospect – but an unavoidable one, for the little Deaf girl that I was. They accepted my deafness on condition that I would be raised with the best educational methods, definitely not the same as they had experienced. And certainly, being singled out and discriminated – they did not want this for me. The only one who made it good was uncle Gastone, who said “Were she born hearing, she would separate from us early, she would fly away, she would soon be far away. As a Deaf kid, she will be closer to us”.

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Indisputably, my family made an effort to accept my deafness – and I have to say I am grateful to them for my childhood, that has been very happy. I consider myself lucky for my family of origin. I have always been able to satisfyingly communicate with them through signing. I believe Deaf kids with hearing parents have a big problem to solve. I have been told that I produced my first signs when I was around one year old – the same time that hearing children take to produce their first words. When I was one and a half years old, I started to sign. Every close member in my family used to sign, except for my grandparents and hearing uncles and aunts. Grandma Gemma, my hearing grandmother, brought me along when she met elderly ladies she was acquainted with, but they would talk and talk and talk, and I was bored. I preferred the company of signers, but my grandmother: “I want to keep you with me!”, she used to say. My mother worked hard to convince me that grandma loved me. In retrospect, my hearing grandma’s company was a useful situation. With her, I experienced for the first time the hearing world, to which I wanted to participate. I looked up at them, I wished they could pay attention to me. I touched them, but they were not used to this manner of communication. Once I was thirsty, there was the two-liters bottle of water, but I could not take it on my own. I had to ask for their intervention. And grandma continued talking. I reasoned that I could drink the water that had been used to wash fruits. And so, I succeeded in getting their attention: by drinking dirty water, I caught a liver condition. Meaning that spending time with hearing persons made me sick. Ah ah ah, sorry for this “sick” joke. You can have an idea of what it meant to live in a family of five, if I tell you that first, I had a first holiday with mother and father, then a second one with uncle and aunt. I really had the time of my life. If aunt Vittorina had to tell one of the stories concerning my childhood from her perspective, she would probably tell the following.

3a.1 Aunt Vittorina’s story, as I imagine it I loved Anna intensely, she has always been the only reason of my life. I acted as a mother with her, when Magda was absent. I saw her being born, I cuddled her, I did my best to indulge her. She was more of a daughter to me, than a niece. I was her go-to person. When she was three years old, she was very intelligent, talkative, interested in the world, in a word, she was a girl genius. I do not say so because she’s my niece – everyone knows.

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One day, she approaches me, takes me aside, and inquires me. We had to talk “in secret”. “No cause for alarm”, I said to myself, and I did my best to be her confidant: “Magda, please, leave us alone”, I said. Anna, bowing her head, embarrassed, was undecisive. A good lapse of time was necessary for her to talk, and eventually “Is it true that pee, man and woman are not the same?” I did my best to get to know where she had acquired such incredible knowledge, at her young age. I inquired softly “What?”, she remained silent some time, then she pointed to a spool of thread, which had the shape of a cylinder. I laughed, forced myself to control myself, was puzzled, “Did you see anyone unbutton his trousers?” “No”. “Did you see dad or uncle?” “No”. “Did you see any of your pals?” I did not insist interrogating her on the topic, I explained to her the way we are made, even if I had no competence on the matter of sexual education for babies, but luckily Anna understood, and she was happy with the explanation. After a short time, she was occupied reading and playing as usual. I had a word with Magda, to tell her the whole story. She did not take it well, she has always been a puritan. It occurred to her that a magazine had images of nude statues, Neptune or David in Piazza della Signoria, she tore the pages out. After some time, Anna returned to me and inquired me about the reason the pages had been torn. Having them removed might have engendered in Anna a thought that it was about improper things. It had been a mistake of Magda’s, and she was aware of it, but what’s done is done. Hello, this is Anna again, resuming my role in telling my story. Only one sad memory has been associated with the cherished moments I shared with aunt Vittorina, and it was so strong that it persists so far. In her own fashion, aunt Vittorina must have thought important to explain to me that life can be difficult, and she told me about death. She told me that with time, she would have died. She must have thought it positive for me to accept it. Instead, I cried and cried. She said, “When I am dead, you can have my jewels”, but I was really scared, and cried, “I don’t care about jewels, I want you, auntie!” One distinct memory of a distant time dates back to when I was six. I had chicken pox. Summer weather was hot, it was itchy, my mother applied a preparation on my skin, it was burning. Time went by, the afternoon air cooled down, I calmed down. I planned to spend my time reading something. I discovered a photo novel, and I took a seat. My grandma arrived – she was a good woman, but with an extremely religious mindset – she came closer, and told me “What are you up to? What are these readings? This is inadmissible! This is intolerable! What is it that they are teaching you? You ought to read Famiglia Cristiana [an Italian periodical, published by the Catholic Church and distributed in churches on Sundays]”. It had been a difficult day for me, and to a certain extent, it still was. I stood up, furious, and I shouted: “I am a communist!” My grandmother had a panic

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attack, a very dramatic one. It was an indescribable scene. She summoned my aunt Vittorina: “You raised her improperly!” But it was not my aunt’s responsibility, no one had ever taught me. Poor grandmother!

Figure 7: As a child, I already loved nature and animals.

Similar to every happy child, I had a period in my life, when I was much interested in pets. You might judge some of the following stories hilarious, but pets have been important relations to me as a child, and I will dwell on the point. On my way to school with my mother, I had found a sparrow. The day after, at school I pretended I had a bellyache, in order to have someone call home, to be brought at home, and to have time to caress it. The sparrow has been important in my life, as he taught me about trust. As soon as the window was open, he felt free to fly away, but unusually, he returned. The following morning, he flew away and one more time, he returned. I became aware that treating him well meant that he would return. I realized that in life, I had to treat properly the persons I loved, to have them return. The third time, he fled away not to return, but I had already had time to value his lesson: how important trust is in life. Having a pet at home is having a permanent source of good feeling in life, even in dark times. Only those who have such luck, can experience the bliss and satisfaction originating just from its company. An incredible episode I will tell you is about a deaf-and-dumb chicken. In addition to other domestic animals, in my garden we used to have chicken, who provided us with good quality eggs every morning. One morning, a chicken gave birth to a group of chicks, and among them there was one who appeared to be strongly disabled, having a head malformation. She survived, but she was deaf-and-dumb.

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What an incredible story for us! A Deaf family with a Deaf chicken! I can see your objection coming: “Anna is projecting her deafness, how could she possibly be sure that a chicken was deaf?” Well, every time that one of us went to nurture the group of chicken, as they heard us approaching, they flocked to get food. Only one, the little deaf-and-dumb one, continued pecking in the same place as she was. She just did not realize. We had to pat on her shoulder to let her comprehend, as one usually does with a Deaf person. And, as a result, she startled, she got worked up. When a chicken used to lay an egg, they sang – in contrast, she left the place silent, as some hearing friends who were present assured us. She was really deaf. Other chickens used to marginalize her, she was always on her own. Left alone with the other chickens, she would have been the last to get food. But we largely solidarized with her, and we fed her the best food. And we never found the courage to eat her, so she died, old, of natural causes. It is so unfortunate that at the time no movies could be made, but I keep fond images of her, as of all my beloved pets. Another funny story is how the dog Baloo has been kidding me and my group of friends. She was a beautiful, very intelligent, dwarf German shepherd, she was Fulvia’s pet, and she cherished me as well as Fulvia. We were three kids, on a beautiful summer morning on the banks of river Arno. To reach that riverbank, one had to walk on a difficult slope, so difficult that no one of us, Baloo included, was happy to climb it up and down. Once on the riverbank, we waded, we threw stones in the water. One stone hit Baloo. Now her paw was lax, dangling, she limped, her big eyes suffering. The group of kids thought it over and decided the paw must be fractured. I decided I would carry Baloo up the slope, to a veterinarian. I had an indescribable hard time up that slope, the other two kids supporting me as they could, Baloo laying in my arms silent and lax. When we arrived eventually on the street, she became restless and with all her strength wanted to be laid down. “Be a good dog, you have to go to the physician!” She got on her feet and ran around happily, taking care to stay away from me. She had found a good justification to be carried, she had used me! I imagine you are conjecturing what Baloo’s story taught me. She taught me to kid people! No, she didn’t! It is me who is obviously kidding you, right now . . . One more story, and I will conclude with pets, I promise. I had a white cat with blue eyes, who began living with us when he was somehow old, as his master could not keep him any longer. He acclimatized quickly, he loved only my father who, on his part, did not appreciate his consideration much. Every morning, he used to ask to go into the beautiful garden we used to have at the time. To exit, he used to wait in front of the door. To enter the house again, he realized he had to be perceived. But the kitchen window had a lower part in wood, and the glass only in its superior part. Well, he learned he had to climb on the outer part of the window,

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so that the top of his ears materialized for us to see through the window, and he effectively signaled that he was back. His behavior became a habit. For Christmas, a couple of friends of ours used to spend holidays at home with us. The lady was hearing. What did the cat discover? That he could now meow. We were strongly surprised. But the morning the lady left our home, we could perceive the top of his ears behind the glass again – he had resumed old visual habits. Basically, I was growing up happily surrounded by the love of my relatives and even of my pets. In the meantime, my dearest friend and associate Emiliano – who will be interviewed with me in chapter 7a, will author chapter 7b, and will be better introduced for his competences and initiatives in chapter 10a –, was a Deaf child in a hearing family. In his life, he hadn’t the company of signers, he could not play with a single signing kid. Had I to tell you the reason why I associated with Emiliano, embarking with him in so many activities, I would tell you it was for friendship, certainly, but also for his great experience. Experience of life, and an experience of deafness different from my own. Personally, I have never been alone, I used to continuously communicate with the persons I loved. In my family’s context, shared deafness was a completely natural experience. In contrast, the hearing context singled out Deaf children as Emiliano as different. That’s the reason why Emiliano told me another type of stories. I’ll leave the word to him.

3a.2 Emiliano’s story At first, my parents had not realized I was Deaf, they realized it only later. I have been Deaf since my third year of age. I attended primary school in a mainstream environment. I followed my schoolmistress as best as I could, and I did my best to play with classmates. In the second year of primary school I began to instinctively isolate myself. Hearing kids used to talk, I was not able to participate. One morning, I was seven or eight years old, I decided I would pretend I was dead. I lay down. Ever since then, my mother has not stopped telling this story. My classmates converged around me. Everyone said, “You really scared us”. I had had to invent a system to attract their attention, an isolated kid is such an unfortunate thing. From that morning on, my classmates played with me because my school mistress forced them to. But outside school, they never proposed that I might play football or spend time with them. This was the social condition of Deaf people in the Fifties, in the Sixties, when deafness was not an object of awareness. The most you could expect was for hearing persons to think “Poor kid, he is deaf”.

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I made efforts to talk, but I was not rewarded. They talked, they talked. It was not just that I did not work hard enough, or that I did not concentrate. One of my schoolmasters, during dictation, used to place the leaflet he was reading from, right under his nose. Consequently, I could not decipher the words on his mouth. I was too scared to ask for help. How could I ever succeed in dictation tasks? I had an idea, I would do my best by copying from the classmate sitting next to me. On the assumption that I was cheating, he raised his elbow to screen his schoolwork. The morning after, the schoolmaster summoned the two of us “Emiliano and Adriano, come here!” I did not understand, my classmates pointed out to the schoolmaster who was calling me, “This concerns you”, they said. What was happening? I could not tell. Adriano’s face turned white. “Who was the one that copied?” said the schoolmaster. I was uncovered. “Not me, no, no, no”, said Adriano. “It was me”, I said. They summoned my mother, she was acquainted with the headmistress, a nun. My mother claimed my rights: schoolmasters had not taken into any consideration that I was deaf. That was the exact time when I really began primary school: when they placed me sitting in the first row, right in front of the schoolmaster. I began to engage in studying. But remarkably, at breaks and during playtime, I used to have my snack and go back to study. In like manner I used to spend all my free time in the afternoons at home. Playing? And with whom? And certainly, there was no subtitled television at the time. My mother was obviously happy that I was a good student, but she was also concerned . . . Should someone ever have the idea that my application in studying has been decisive for my becoming intelligent, I would reply: you must really be kidding . . .

Figure 8: Emiliano Mereghetti as a kid, as a young man, and at present.

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Honestly, I had no friends. In summer, during those three long months with my mother and my grandparents, my mother used to say, “Go to oratorio [a space provided by most Catholic churches, in Italy, for kids to spend time together, especially used in summer, as a substitute for school]”. I felt I had to go, I stayed half an hour, I observed, I went back home. As I grew older, in my small village I was the only Deaf young man. You must think that no cellular phones existed. I used to work in my parents’ bar as a waiter. One morning, I met a schoolmate from the institute for the Deaf I was attending, and we began to sign. We discussed our lives, school, parents, girls. Then we decided we would have a pizza together, and we continued signing, and signing, and signing. We moved to another bar, we played the football pool – at that time, my mother used to provide me secretly with money. And we continued signing in the bar. The waiter stacked the chairs upside down on tables, it was almost midnight. “We must go”, and we moved to just outside the bar, under the streetlamp. The waiter pulled the door down, “Goodnight”, “Goodnight”. It was April, the weather was splendid, just a bit cold. And we continued signing. Without realizing it, the following morning arrived, it was six o’clock but still dark, and my friend said to me, “Here comes the barman, to open the bar”. The barman stops, looks at us, puzzled, takes a look at his watch “My God! I went home, and you guys continued to be here, all this time . . . ? What is it that you have to tell?” “Well”, I explained, “We used to live in an institute, and now each is at home, where each has no one to communicate with in signs. When we meet . . . we are so incredibly happy . . . Hard feelings, we never have. This is the time when we can communicate, eventually. Intelligent talk, small talk, important talk, we want to communicate it all”. Should I single out what Deaf culture means, well, I would say this: appreciating the company of fellow Deaf signers, to the point never to want to part.

Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia

3b Deaf education results in ten European countries: Equitability, accessibility, and accountability of educational systems 3b.1 Introduction It may be evident, but let it be said: “Education deficits restrict social, economic and cultural development, reducing the capacity of individuals, communities and nations”. (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education 2011: 12) These words were specifically written having in mind disabled people, and were accompanied by a remark linking poor education, disability and poverty: “While the economic and social returns from education are complex, there are clear reciprocal links between poor education, disability and poverty” (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education 2011: 12). Similar remarks must not be read as indicating a destiny, and still less a deserved destiny. The protagonist of the “b” series of chapters, the essay chapters in this book, is hearing society. The data that will be presented here point to a responsibility carried by society, and specifically by the many professions characterizing a microphysical distribution of power, power on deaf lives (chapter 1b). Throughout history, deaf leaders have been aware that the central battleground for deaf development was to be education. At stake, there was a development in personality, cognition, emotions, culture, sociability, abilities in evaluating (Trovato 2014), and expression – to be meant in the same meaning as in “freedom of expression” (chapter 5b). For deaf students, education is much more important than for hearing students. When it is successful, education results in a capacitating development as for hearing students; but when it is unsuccessful, it implies the risk of a permanent discapacitation, also in cognitive terms (chapter 2b). The first book by a deaf author, Pierre Desloges, published in France in 1779, was largely devoted to the education of children and the role of sign language. In 1989, Bernard Bragg, one influential leader of the American Deaf community, wrote that “Even in Western Europe, supposedly the most liberal part of the world next to the United States as far as treatment of the deaf is concerned, governments act as self-appointed mentors and guardians, suppress deaf leaders, and https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-006

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deny deaf people their emancipation by controlling their education – and those who control the education of the deaf control their destiny” (Bragg 1989: 162). Education is the responsibility of society and its Institutions,1 and of the persons who engineer them. This is the reason why the data that will be presented in this and the following quantitative chapters (6b, 10b, and 13b) will not speak about the achievement or failure of deaf persons, but the achievement or failure of Institutions. In case the reader has not had the chance to directly experience it, chapter 6b will provide evidence that professional roles in the Institutions that constitute the texture of society largely exclude deaf people.

3b.2 Preliminary presentation of the data to be used in quantitative chapters This chapter and three additional ones, 6b, 10b, and 13b, will address their topic by providing a series of quantitative data that have been analyzed to be presented in this publication for the first time.2 Before engaging in the topic of education, however, such data need to be presented, and the reader must be made aware of their strengths and limitations. A first, central, theoretical difficulty concerns the identification of the reference population when the word “deaf” will be used, in this quantitative context. Quantitative sociological studies of disability are very scarce, before this work, and for a reason: who deaf persons are – and for that matter, who disabled persons are – is not at all self-evident, mainly due to four reasons: disability is a culturally determined notion; disability exists on a continuum, ranging from minor to severe and to multiple disabilities; the number of disabled people changes throughout time and societies; disability is a notion that is assuming a less and less objective, and a more and more subjective and self-definitory meaning.

1 See footnote in chapter 1b, for the distinction between Institutions with a capital and institution without a capital letter. 2 The authors acknowledge access to Labour Force Survey microdata by Eurostat, which is the basis for the quantitative chapters of this work. Microdata have been attributed to authors within projects RPP 312–2016-LFS, and RPP 319/2020-LFS: the authors thank Tanja Sekulic for support.

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The difficulties in counting deaf persons That disability is culturally defined has long been known to social scientists. This consideration posits a real problem when one wants to count them; “The act of classification and counting is far from a simple matter, often subject to methodological bias and the distortion of the cultural lens. Disability identification is a judgement on the human condition and its statistical summary represents more than a simple enumeration of those who are disabled and those who are not” (Fujiura & Rutkowski-Kmitta 2001: 69). Far from being a concession to a humanist perspective, this is a consideration supported by hard evidence. Let the number of SEN, Special Education Needs students, be considered, to say one. In Figure 9 a graph is reproduced, about students an official decision of SEN was taken for, so that a state school expenditure followed. “For all countries, the operational definition of an official definition has been applied to the data collection” (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education 2018: 21). It is hardly believable that in England 1 child out of 35, in Scotland 1 child out of 5, and in Sweden 1 child out of 100 present comparable “objective” needs to be specially taken in charge. Whom we choose to consider deaf can differ from country to country, but also from one moment in time to another. Data collected by Eurostat show that “In some countries (e.g. Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Spain, and Sweden), the rising incidence of health problems among youth is a relatively recent phenomenon, while in other countries, a rising trend has been observed since 2005 (e.g. increased for example Austria, France, Malta, or Portugal)” (Scharle 2016: 8). This difficulty can be appreciated also for the deaf population. In Table 3 the results of a series of international studies are compared, with respect to the prevalence of deafness: it ranges from around 9% through around 17%, with figures being inconsistent even when concerning adjacent years, like in the case of United States. Numbers in Table 3 differ remarkably from the conclusion of a much cited North American study: “About 1,000,000 are functionally deaf – either deaf or unable to hear normal conversation at all, even when using a hearing aid – (0.38% of the population, or fewer than 4 per 1,000)” (Mitchell 2006: 116). This should come as no surprise: naturally, persons can be mildly to profoundly deaf, according to quantity of decibels of residual hearing they have – thus, setting the limit of what one considers to be “proper” deafness is arbitrary. But the prevalence of deafness is also not the same throughout the aging process, in one person’s life. Deafness increases with age. Far from being typical of deafness, this is a phenomenon that exists for all disabilities (Fujiura & Rutkowski-Kmitta 2001: 85). But as to specifically deafness, it makes quite a difference,

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0,00

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5,00

15,00

10,00

20,00

25,00

Belgium (Fl) 9,36 Croatia 6,13 Cyprus 6,90 Czech Rep. 8,79 Denmark 5,13 Estonia 7,92 Finland 7,29 France 3,09 Germany 5,51 Hungary 7,32 Iceland 16,33 Ireland 6,04 Italy 3,37 Latvia 6,55 Lithuania 13,04 Luxembourg 1,54 Malta 8,04 Netherlands 3,31 Norway 8,02 Poland 3,33 Portugal 7,56 Slovakia 11,53 Slovenia 7,79 Spain 2,96 Sweden 1,06 Switzerland 3,91 UK (England) 2,80 UK (N. Ireland) 5,12 UK (Scotland) 20,50 UK (Wales) 2,93

Total average (30) 4,44 Figure 9: Percentage of pupils with an official decision of SEN, based on the enrolled school population. Data from 2016. Source: European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education 2018: 21.

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Table 3: Prevalence of the deaf population as published by French public authorities. Source

Date

Geographical area

Scope

Prevalence

Comparison with Enquête Handicap Santé (HSM)  Light disability and more

Middle disability and more

NHIS survey

 USA

Aged  and more, not in institutions

,%

,

,

Better Hearing

 USA

Totality of the population

,%

,

,

HRF 

 Sweden

Totality of the population

,%

,

,

Aged  and more

,%

,

,

Totality of the population

,%

,

,

,

,

,%

,

,

–%

,

,

Eurotrack

 France

,%

Germany UK

,%

USA

,%

France

Aged  and more

,%

Germany

,%

UK

,%

USA

–

IRDES survey

 France

Aged  and more “difficulties in following a conversation”

Hear it report

 Europe

Aged –, light disabilities included ( dB and more)

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Table 3 (continued) Source

Share Survey NHANES Survey Hearing Matters

Date

Geographical area

 Europe – USA

Scope

Prevalence

Comparison with Enquête Handicap Santé (HSM)  Light disability and more

Middle disability and more

Aged  and more

%

,

,

Aged –

,%

,

,

,%

UK

UNSAFF (sofres)

 France

Aged  and more

%

,

,

HID 

 France

Totality of the population

,%

,

,

Source: Ministère des Finances et des Comptes Publics, Ministère des Affaires Sociales, de la Santè et des Droits des Femmes 2014: 17.

for, say, education, if someone was born deaf, and had no access to spoken language, with the cognitive consequences possibly entailed by an imperfect acquisition of first language (chapter 2b), as compared to becoming hard-of-hearing when one has already mastered one’s first language throughout one’s entire life. Epidemiological studies led in Western countries (Cruickshanks at al. 1998) converge with results in Figure 10, presenting a graph that was produced with data collected by French state statistical agency, INSEE. The proportion of persons with a serious-to-total deafness, marked with the darkest color, increases with age. So, had one to study education, one would misconstrue one’s sample by including deaf persons with total deafness, but whose period of deafness onset was not considered.

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70% 60% 50% Very serious or total hearing loss Serious hearing loss

40% 30% 20%

Middle hearing loss

10%

Light hearing loss

0% aged aged aged aged aged aged aged aged aged aged 9 or 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 to 60 to 70 to 80 to 90 less 19 79 29 39 69 89 and 49 59 more

Figure 10: Proportion of persons having functional hearing limitations by age and seriousness. Data from French inquiry “Enquête handicap-santé 2008”. Source: Ministère des Finances et des Comptes Publics, Ministère des Affaires Sociales, de la Santé et des Droits des Femmes 2014: 18.

The data used in the quantitative chapters of this book A very fortunate event took place in 2011. Since 1960, Eurostat, the European statistical institution, together with single European states’ statistical institutes, carries out a Labour Force Survey, LFS, with quarterly data collection at household level, meant to provide single states and European institutions with comparable statistical information about the resident population with respect to the working conditions of its members. The survey involves all persons in the household and is not limited to persons active in the labour force. (Eurostat 2003: 4)3

In 2011, in the framework of LFS, Eurostat launched a special collection of data, the 2011 LFS Ad Hoc Module on Employment of Disabled people. A question in the survey permitted to identify deaf persons, selecting a subsample of deaf respondents and opening the possibility to form a subset of Eurostat microdata. The reader will now wonder which “deaf” persons – well, it will be said in a moment. The 2011 Ad Hoc Module survey offered a great opportunity to study the deaf population. The LFS sample is constructed as solidly as no lone researcher could ever

3 “In Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal, the sample does not include persons in institutions; in the United Kingdom it includes them if they are either students or in National Health Service accommodations; in Portugal if they are either students or servicemen.” (Eurostat 2012a: 64).

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afford to do, with the only purpose of studying the deaf population: “Population registers and the latest Population Census or list of addresses used in that Census are the two main sources for the sampling frame” (Eurostat 2013: 6). “On average, the achieved quarterly sample in 2011 in all participating countries was 1.835 million individuals . . . The achieved sample in the EU-LFS is thus approximately 0.29 % of the total population” (Eurostat 2013: 7). It is unthinkable to mobilize a similar quantity of resources to promote a bottom-up collection of data about deaf people. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to properly sample deaf people, owing both to the difficulty to access the complete lists of the deaf population for privacy reasons, as deafness is considered health information and as such is very sensitive information, and to the impossibility to realize a probabilistic sample by approaching deaf people through their associations or the medical premises they usually attend. Data stored by health care systems, in addition, do not include social indicators about education or employment. In synthesis, data collected by Eurostat are especially precious. But what about the above-mentioned difficulties concerning counting disabled persons? No matter how authoritative an official agency can be, whatever choice Eurostat had made, it would be biased by arbitrariness. “Estimates of the magnitude of disability are directly affected by the definition employed and the method of sampling” (Fujiura & Rutkowski-Kmitta 2001: 77). But Eurostat’s choice can be subscribed in many ways. The definition of who should be defined as ‘deaf’ and included in our sample was based on the conceptual model of the International Classification of the Functioning of the Disability and Health, by the World Health Organization (chapter 1b, 6b). The persons who compose the deaf sample in our analyses are those who answered a question about their first difficulty in basic activities, by stating that their first difficulty concerned “hearing, even using a hearing aid”. It is important to note that it was the respondent who defined herself or himself, and not a medical diagnosis, and that the identification of deafness is functional, that is, it belongs to a difficulty in developing daily activities, and is not defined in terms of disability. From a sociological perspective, this is a good solution to the problem of identification (more on this in chapter 9b). Who better than the interested person can state whether he or she feels to be deaf? The sample we worked on does not include those who have indicated hearing difficulties as second, next to another more important difficulty, which would have led to selecting people with multiple disabilities.

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It cannot be denied that “the more contextually defined ‘handicap’ criterion yields estimates uniformly lower than personal level descriptors based on activity limitation” (Fujiura & Rutkowski-Kmitta 2001: 75). Admittedly, there is an arbitrary component in this choice. But we do believe that the self-selection performed by persons in the sample justifies this sample better than others. To avoid classifying as deaf a large number of persons who were not born deaf, but had a story of late deafness onset, we decided to limit our sample so as to comprise only persons of 15 to 59 years of age. It must be stressed that by doing so, we could not but exclude also deaf-born people older than 59. This reduced the sample numerically, but had it limited as much as possible so as to include only the targeted group of people. As the self-selected sample resulted to be small in many countries, analyses have been limited to eight to ten European countries, depending on the type of analyses performed, which were selected because their unweighted sample of deaf people was larger than 145. The resulting sample can be read in Table 4, that includes population weights, as calculated by Eurostat. In one case, namely, chapter 13b, we will analyze differences and similarities between hearing and deaf persons across four geo-political areas, instead of across countries, in order to gain more statistical power for the very detailed analyses that will be reported there. The sample in Table 4 is to be considered the statistical basis for all analyses presented in the book, unless otherwise indicated in the text, or within tables and graphs. The sample size was obviously subject to variation in each distinct analysis appearing in this chapter, and in chapters 6b, 10b, 13b. To give an example, statistics concerning employment refer to the population economically active, that is, the labour force proper, and do not include students, retired persons, and other categories. As is customary, each table will provide its own sample size. As a consequence, what notation should be used to refer to the non-hearing persons in our sample: Deaf with a capital, or deaf without a capital? It is a convention to indicate as Deaf the persons who are signers and recognize themselves in a community sharing a culture (Padden & Humphries 1988: 2005; chapter 9b), and as deaf the persons who do not hear. As a matter of fact, we cannot be certain that our sample selects only persons in the Deaf community, and even less that they identify with Deaf culture. Definitely, they identify themselves as not having “solved or cured deafness” by using hearing aids or cochlear implants, but this is all we know about them. It is probable that Deaf persons, with a capital, have a strong acceptance of their deafness, and will be happy to identify themselves as having a hearing difficulty. Still, as long as our sample was not selected by

129446

44081

32025

102178

23637

Poland

Portugal

Spain

Sweden

United Kingdom

747445

129

218

28862

Netherlands

Total

205

173118

Italy

1627

135

87

102

99

411

103

16954

142923

France

138

Deaf persons

Finland

54221

Austria

Hearing persons

Sample size

95446

18620

2806

14661

3110

11780

4978

17572

17748

1594

2577

Hearing persons

1133

164

26

86

37

36

17

42

665

18

42

Deaf persons

Weighted sample size (in thousands)

Men

774871

25772

104032

32904

47048

131502

29734

181367

150552

16598

55362

Hearing persons

1324

209

120

169

118

59

77

60

360

71

81

Deaf persons

Sample size

95931

18900

2703

14338

3240

11663

4939

17755

18281

1539

2573

Hearing persons

906

147

21

65

34

22

13

27

538

13

26

Deaf persons

Weighted sample size (in thousands)

Women

1522316

49409

206210

64929

91129

260948

58596

354485

293475

33552

109583

Hearing persons

2951

427

249

374

253

146

179

159

771

174

219

Deaf persons

Sample size

191380

37521

5509

28999

6351

23443

9917

35328

36029

3133

5150

Hearing persons

2038

3111

47

151

71

58

30

68

1202

32

68

Deaf persons

Weighted sample size (in thousands)

Total

Table 4: Sample size by state, gender, and hearing status. People aged 15–59. Data Eurostat 2011, elaboration by the authors.

62 Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia

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asking: “Do you consider yourself Deaf with a capital, meaning that you both sign and share Deaf culture?”, we cannot be certain that the respondents in our sample are all and only Deaf. In order to be rigorous, then, the word that will be used will be “deaf”, – but only in quantitative chapters (3b, 6b, 10b, 13b). The most considerable limitations of this study, then, is the size of the country samples of deaf persons, which may hinder statistical analyses aimed at generalizing the results to the population of deaf people in each country. Nonetheless, population weights mitigate this drawback, in that they make the data reflect the estimated population of hearing and deaf people country by country. Notwithstanding this, caution is recommended by Eurostat about the disaggregated use of these data (Eurostat 2003: 4, 10), that apply to our sample of deaf people as well: it is an obligation of honesty to declare that estimates produced in this publication may not properly represent the deaf population in their countries, but just the respondents who were interviewed in 2011.4 So, analyses employing statistical models in support of strong hypotheses (like those investigating causal relationships) were mostly avoided in this book, and descriptive analyses were privileged, but this notwithstanding, this is the first time that data about the social condition of deaf persons in Europe are published. Most importantly, these results can direct future studies, and might generate further hypotheses and further investigations. Even so, disaggregated data on deaf people have long been available in the United States, but in Europe, without quantitative data, it was difficult to assess whether states are treating equitably their deaf citizens. In addition, Deaf Studies have posited a series of theoretical issues that have remained until now unchecked by a comparison to empirical data. As Eurostat data are cross-nationally comparable (Eurostat 2003: 11), and European states have enacted distinctive educational, labour and social policies regarding their deaf citizens, the data will be analysed having in mind the possible effects of deaf education and labour policies about which the debate has been, until now and for a long time, only theoretical. This is to be the first European quantitative information published on the condition of deaf Europeans – with the limits but also with the great value that typically characterize a first analysis.

4 The variables selected from the 2011 LFS microdata to be used in this publication were: AGE, COUNTRY, DEGURBA, HATFIELD, HAT97LEV, HATYEAR, HHSEQNUM, HHSPOU, ILOSTAT, INCDECIL, ISCO–08 (1 digit), MARSTAT, NATIONAL, SEX, SUPVISOR (EUROSTAT 2010a). To them, two variables selected from the 2011 LFS AHM should be added, DIFFICMA, and LIMREAS (EUROSTAT 2010b). Specific information about used variables is to be found in Eurostat publications.

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3b.3 Research questions The first issue that this chapter will address is whether educational systems are equitable towards deaf students, as compared with their hearing peers. Secondly, an assumption this book is based upon is that educational success depends on the quality of the education received more for deaf students than for their hearing peers. This assumption requires to be put to test, in order to become a research question in its own right – and it will be put to test, in this chapter. Education is crucially important as a means to enter labour market with good credentials. Therefore, a third issue of concern in this chapter is about equality of access for deaf persons to all educational fields, as a means to have jobs that do not confine them to underemployment. The first and third of these issues have been advanced and discussed in theoretical Deaf Studies, but not always a conclusive evidence has been reached by resorting to psychological research methods, that are the ones mostly providing hard data about deaf education. The aggregated data that sociology provides can be a very useful contribution to these debates.

First research question. On the equitability towards deaf students of educational systems What has been offered to deaf persons as students, in past times, have been the repressive, total institutions Anna’s parents lived through (chapter 2a). And it was not only because Italy was at the time a fascist country, that schools for the deaf worked so poorly: testimonies to the same effect have multiplied internationally, being brought to light in Deaf cinema and Deaf publications. Carol Padden, living in and writing about the United States states that [Schools for the Deaf left an] indelible impression on their adult lives. They remember the oppressive environments of their classrooms and dormitories, the long separation from parents and family, and living for months with other children without love or affection from adults, . . . the petty and irrational rules of dormitory supervisors, . . . [every aspect of school life being] regimented; irrational punishments, moving about in groups, standing in lines, fighting to get a second helping of dessert, waking in the morning to flashing lights and banging on metal beds, sharing showers and sinks, . . . [and] separation of the sexes being more rigidly enforced. (Padden & Humphries 2006: 14–22)

In more recent times, deaf students have left the total institutions that were meant to – but did everything but – educate them. But what they have met with, was good-intentioned didactics that presented a series of flaws:

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Education is thus the key to the future of deaf people, but the education of deaf children in America as elsewhere is not now remotely capable of enabling deaf people to meet the challenges of that future. Since educational programs for deaf children have not succeeded in teaching them English, and yet rely on English for all teaching, the programs long ago settled for instructing their deaf students in manual trades. (Lane 1999: 131)

An educational system can be considered equitable if it provides deaf students with equal opportunities with respect to hearing students. Educational credentials, that is, the highest level of education successfully completed by students, can be used as an indicator allowing to assess whether deaf and hearing students have been offered equal opportunities. Meeting with comparable educational opportunities as hearing persons means for deaf persons to be treated as equal citizens. The first research question we ask, then, concerns deaf students being provided with equal (or less than equal) educational opportunities than their hearing peers. Equal opportunities will be evaluated in terms of results in the educational credentials attained, net of the effects or other relevant factors. Obviously, one might object that the ability to achieve high educational results depends on deaf students more than it depends on educational systems, or society. This leads to the second research question here proposed.

Second research question. Deaf students are on average more sensitive than the average hearing student to the quality of the education they receive This book centers on “hearing society” as well as it centers on “deaf persons” – whence its title. Its paramount idea is that hearing society should assume its responsibilities towards deaf persons, starting from the data here presented, which tell what society has achieved, more than what deaf people have. Education is a domain perfectly fit for this theoretical model. More specifically, this book is based upon the assumption that deaf persons, since infancy to university, are more sensitive than their hearing peers to the quality of education they are exposed to – from access to language (chapter 2b) to speech therapy and school educational methods. Is this a well-grounded idea? To provide an answer, one possible line of analysis could be comparing educational results for deaf and hearing students from distinct educational systems. It is well-known that a factor influencing educational success is the quality of the education received (Ross, Paviot, & Juergen Genevois 2006: 26). This effect has been appreciated in previous studies, such as the OECD-PISA test, by comparing the rate of higher education qualifications in different countries (OECD 2012a).

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Can deaf persons acquire better educational credentials in certain educational systems, than in others? Do deaf students achieve as much as, more than, or less than their hearing peers, country by country, educational system by educational system? Many national educational systems are rated in independent studies, such as OECD-PISA tests: such ratings may provide a criterion to judge on the quality of the education that distinct educational systems provide. Appreciating higher chances for deaf students to achieve higher in educational systems of better quality, as compared to their hearing peers and to educational systems of lower quality, would offer some ground to the idea that deaf students are really more sensitive than hearing students to the quality of the education received. Then, our second research question asks whether deaf students’ educational achievement is higher in Central and Nordic European countries (Austria, Finland, France, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom), which show higher ratings according to the OECD-PISA 2000 assessment in reading, than in Mediterranean countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain), which rank lower (Kirsch et al. 2002).

Third research question. On the accessibility of all fields of education to deaf students In chapter 4a, Anna will testify to one of the main failures in educating deaf students: their being confined to a narrow choice of careers. As the reader will shortly discover, in Anna’s own words: Had I to draw a balance with respect to deaf education, I would say that after 1880,5 the situation has permanently declined. Crucially, reading and writing was not at the center of the educational effort, but rather lip-reading and speaking: what a waste of energies! No one took charge of the cognitive development of deaf students; the improvement of deaf people was a result of their autonomous efforts alone. Consequently, the jobs deaf people were recruited for were the simplest: shoe repairers, tailors, carpenters, etc. (chapter 4a.1)

Anna is not the only one to think it this way: “‘special’ education is in fact an especially unsuccessful education that commonly leads to underemployment”, Harlan Lane wrote (1999: 5). The inability of an educational system to connect deaf students to a vast choice of professional roles begins in the access it provides to many and varied educational fields.

5 1880 is the year in which European education for deaf students moved away from sign languages towards spoken languages only.

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Therefore, as an additional indicator of both the efficacy and the equity of an educational system, we will use the distribution of deaf and hearing students throughout the subject options they have chosen in the highest level of education completed, that is, in their specialization. This is a measure of efficacy of the educational system, in as much as it is a result of adequate previous studies in all disciplines. It is a measure of equity of an educational system as well, in as much as it provides deaf students with as many opportunities to choose one’s specialization among, as it provides hearing students. Accordingly, as our third and last research question, we ask whether deaf students cluster in a limited number of fields of study, which may differ by country, as opposed to hearing students being spread in all ranges of educational fields. So far, as to the transition from education to work. Chapter 6b will return on the topic of fields of occupation, which is constrained not only by one’s choice, one’s selfreliance, and the strengths in one’s character and the competence that the educational institution can build, but also on the possibilities offered by the labour market.

One caveat Before we proceed to tackle these issues with data, an important caveat: can the data provided in this and the following quantitative chapters be considered able to refute theories, ideas, representations of deafness? Can they really describe the deaf condition? Caution is the answer to both questions. Deaf advocates writing in the last decades have made clear-cut statements about what it means to be deaf, in a hearing society. Many of these statements were strongly critical, and therefore assertive about how things really are. Descriptive data may seem to have the power to support or refute such assertions. But well, in the first place, as mentioned above, all the answers provided here ought to be considered as a first step towards sounder research, based on larger samples, especially when it comes to deaf people. Secondly, and most importantly, it ought to be kept in mind that the data presented here only represent specific societies and a definite moment in time, year 2011.

3b.4 Educational credentials Chances are lower for disabled than for non-disabled students to study throughout higher education and achieve highly qualified educational credentials. Disabled

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students are at a disadvantage, and research results on the European population are clear-cut: “Access to an inclusive, quality education remains elusive for many people with disabilities. Indeed, close to 22.5% of young people with disabilities are early leavers from education and training, compared to 11% for pupils without disabilities. Moreover, about 29.5% of persons with disabilities (age group 30–34) have completed tertiary education or equivalent, compared to 42.5% for persons without disabilities” (European Commission Staff 2017: 4). As if this were not enough, OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, that conducts research in 37 countries throughout the world,6 has observed that “most worryingly, the education gap between people with and without disability has worsened for younger age groups. . . . Only in a few countries, including in particular the United States, has the trend been in the opposite direction, and in several countries, e. g. Ireland, Poland and the Slovak Republic, the education gap grew much faster” (OECD 2010: 27). OECD recognizes that disabled people’s education difficulties will have consequences on the labor market, since “as a response to greater competition and more rapid technological changes, working conditions have been changing in OECD countries”, becoming more difficult to access for less skilled, that is less educated, persons (OECD 2010: 27). So much for disabled persons. But what happens to deaf persons in European countries? Are there many early leavers among them? Are there many persons who have completed tertiary education? Before commenting what happens country by country, let us start by considering educational achievement and hearing status – that is, being deaf or hearing – independently from country of residence, age and gender. The probability to achieve any given level of education has been estimated by means of a technique called multinomial logistic regression. In simple words, this technique of analysis uses the information provided by the data to estimate the probability of a given outcome (in our case, the educational level attained) relying on a set of factors that we think may have an influence on both deaf and hearing people’s educational achievement. Apart from hearing status, which is the factor we are interested the most, these factors are country of residence, age (in birth cohorts) and gender.7

6 They were 30 countries in 2010, the year of the publication quoted. 7 Evidently, these are not the only factors potentially affecting the respondents’ educational attainment. Other sociologically relevant factors are parental education and social position, cultural capital and income level of the family of origin, as well as household size and composition when the respondent was in the education system, on top of individual characteristics

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The results of this analysis are very interesting, since – independently from the country of residence, from age and from gender – the advantage of hearing people in the education system in Europe, as compared to that of deaf people, becomes clear and quantifiable. In fact, hearing people are 11 times more likely than deaf people to get to upper secondary education, instead than leaving the education system with a lower secondary or a primary school degree. Clearly, this is a disadvantage for deaf people, since being low educated prevents accessing occupational and social positions of higher standing, as compared to those that can be reached with a lower secondary degree, or less. Indeed, in most countries an upper secondary degree gives access to non-manual occupations (employees, service workers, public officers, managers, etc.),8 while a lower secondary degree gives access mostly to manual occupations (like workers in a factory, plumbers, masons, electricians, etc.). This may affect income and career prospects, and the prestige attached to occupations and to the people who hold them (Chan & Goldthorpe 2004; Chan et al. 2010; Meraviglia, De Luca, & Ganzeboom 2016), but also chances of facing unemployment. The disadvantage of deaf people is observed also at a higher educational level: indeed, hearing persons are 31 times more likely than deaf persons to complete tertiary education (instead than leaving the education system at lower secondary level), thus achieving the highest possible educational grade much more often than deaf persons.9 This means that deaf people have less chances to access the higher strata of society, since a university degree is needed for exercising professional roles (lawyers, engineers, architects, medical doctors, biologists, etc.) and (most often) managerial roles, either in the public or in the private sector. And let us come to Figure 11, which shows what happens country by country when we compare the educational achievement of deaf and hearing persons. It

such as motivation and personal skills. However, this information has not been collected in the Labour Force Survey, since its target is studying what happens in the labour market. 8 See for example Breen and Jonsson (2007); Forster, van de Werfhorst & Leopold (2021); Klein (2011), Hout (1988); Torche (2011). 9 The difference in the probability of achieving tertiary education (instead than lower secondary education or less) for deaf and hearing people is statistically significant, which means that we can confidently think this is the situation not only in our sample, but also in the population of hearing and deaf people across Europe. On the other side, the significance level concerning the difference between deaf and hearing people in the achievement of upper secondary education (instead than lower secondary education or less) equals 0.069, which is slightly higher than the usual threshold of statistical significance (ie., 0.05), however still very small and pointing to a borderline significance. This still means that what we see in our sample is also what we may expect to find in the European population, only being less sure that it is so, since the probability that the difference in question is actually not there in the population is somehow higher (0.069 instead of 0.05 or lower) than we would have hoped for.

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presents the probability to achieve any given level of education or training for hearing and deaf persons, aged 20–59, in 2011 and in each country.10 Two bars exist for every country: above, there is the bar of deaf persons, below the bar for the overall population, that is overwhelmingly composed by hearing persons.

Figure 11: Highest level of education or training successfully completed for hearing and deaf persons, in European countries. Persons aged 20–59, 2011 (Predicted probabilities; weighted N=174 678 000).

10 Respondents under 20 years of age have been excluded from the analysis, since most of them were still in education in the year of survey, 2011. The probabilities shown in Figure 11 have been estimated by means of the multinomial logistic regression model previously mentioned.

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In our analysis, three levels of education have been considered: in black, the probability is marked for persons to achieve, at most, lower secondary school. In light grey there is the probability for persons to complete upper secondary education – that is, secondary school –, and post-secondary non tertiary education – which means courses after secondary school, that are not provided by universities. Finally, in dark grey is the probability to complete tertiary – that is university – and doctoral – that is, Ph.D. – education, which is the highest possible achievement, and a very positive measure. So, a large dark grey portion of the bar marks good achievements. In general, it is important to compare deaf and hearing persons country by country, since some countries achieve higher, and some countries lower average levels of instruction. The deaf population has to be compared to the general population of its own country, in order to be able to tell whether its achievements are in line with the possibilities that the educational system offers precisely in that specific country. It can be observed that, from top to bottom of the graph, the dark grey section for the deaf population decreases, that is, the probability for deaf persons to complete tertiary education or more is highest in countries taken in this order: Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Italy and Poland. It can also be observed that by far the highest probability for deaf persons to leave the education system with just a lower secondary school degree, or even less, is in Portugal, where the problem concerns hearing persons as well, followed by Spain and Italy. The one distinguished result for Poland is the very high probability of deaf students to achieve secondary education degrees, however at the expenses of the share of deaf students who graduate at the university level. In figures such as 11, one wants to appreciate the situation of countries that are very virtuous, and countries whose achievements are very poor, considering that one may find inspiration in the solutions enacted in virtuous countries, or may realize that some policies are not effective, as the ones enacted in countries with poor results.

A response to the first research question – on the equitability of educational systems towards deaf students Figure 11 provides descriptive evidence that, in many countries, deaf educational credentials display a larger share of low achievements – lower secondary education or less – and a more reduced share of higher achievements – tertiary education or doctoral degrees. It is the case with Portugal, Poland, Spain, Italy.

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What happens in these countries supports the critical attitude of Deaf Studies scholars lamenting that deaf persons are not given equal opportunities as compared to hearing students.11 Yet, most differences do not strike for their magnitude. What is still more evident, unevenness in educational achievements between deaf and hearing persons does not occur in every country. There are also countries where educational achievements appear to be at a balance, such as in Austria, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland. Such a variability suggests that deaf people are not always treated unequally by educational institutions, and there are educational systems that are indeed equitable towards them.12 This may lead us to conclude that, in a political perspective, there is room for the initial criticism of Deaf Studies scholars to be transformed into constructive proposals, rather than into rage. In fact, if fairness in educational opportunities is possible in some countries, it can be achieved everywhere. Much work is to be done, but it can be done. In a more scholarly perspective, by observing Figure 11, what is quite thoughtprovoking is taking dark grey bars, referring to tertiary education achievements, as an indicator that the educational system advantages or disadvantages deaf people as compared to hearing people. Concentrating on this difference will also allow to provide a response to our second research question, that is, whether educational systems are more responsible for deaf students’ achievements than they are for hearing students’ ones. This would happen since, arguably, deaf students are on average more sensitive than the average hearing student to the quality of education provided to them.

11 It should be considered that the probabilities shown in Figure 12 are net of the effect of gender and age, along which large variations can be usually observed in most countries. 12 This conclusion makes sense also considering that the composition of the deaf population across countries should not depend heavily on factors such as the socio–economic status of the family of origin, cognitive abilities, motivation to study, personal skills, and so on. In other words, we can assume that the observed between–country variability does not depend mainly on the variability of the deaf population by country.

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A response to the second research question – deaf students are on average more sensitive than the average hearing student to the quality of education provided to them Completing tertiary education, that is earning a university degree, means completing the entire path of education, an achievement that is only possible to students who have performed well in previous cycles, and quite a considerable satisfaction for both the educators and the educated persons involved. Therefore, let us now concentrate on the dark grey part of the bars in Figure 11: completion of tertiary education and more – where more means doctoral degrees. One way to compare such results is calculating the difference between the probability of deaf and hearing students having completed tertiary education and more. Such a difference allows to appreciate at a glance whether, in the educational system of the country in question, deaf and hearing students are equals as for their probability to achieve the highest educational level possible. In Figure 12 this difference is evidenced: a negative number represents deaf students being at disadvantage as compared to hearing students, while a positive number represents an advantage of deaf students over hearing students. 5.0 0.0 -5.0 -10.0 -15.0 -20.0

Figure 12: Difference in the probability of deaf and hearing persons to complete tertiary education, in European countries, 2011. Persons aged 20–59, 2011 (weighted N= 174 678 000).

On the basis of Figure 12, with respect to tertiary education completion, countries can be classified in two groups. From left to right, there are countries where deaf persons are more or less strongly at a disadvantage as compared to hearing persons (Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy and France); and countries where deaf persons’ disadvantage is lower than 5 percentage points, or even reversed at their advantage, so that one may perceive a substantial balance between the opportunities offered to deaf and hearing students (Finland, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden). The second research question asks whether deaf students are more sensitive than hearing students to the quality of education provided to them. If the answer

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to this question were positive, it would imply for the educational system to have a greater responsibility with regards to deaf students’ achievement, as compared to its responsibility towards the average student population. In order to control whether this is the case, it is necessary to be informed on the better or worse achievements of a series of educational systems, performing variously, and to check whether their effect on the deaf student population is stronger that their effect on the average population. Obviously, there are educational systems that are more performing than others, and there are measures of their performativity that were calculated independently from this study. What is needed, then, is comparing the country ranking in Figure 12 with an assessment of the same countries educational systems, and then control whether the effect of being educated in various countries is stronger for deaf students than for hearing students. The rank ordering, from top to bottom, of our ten countries, according to OECD-PISA 2000 reading literacy results (Kirsch et al. 2002), is Finland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria and France – that is, our second group, with the exception of the UK – and Spain, Italy, Poland and Portugal – our first group. The linear order in the OECD measure of educational systems performance judged by their students’ reading skills and in Figure 12 is almost the same, and when it departs, each country remains in its own group, with the only exception of the UK. A further confirmation that our two groups of countries correspond to the OECD ranking comes from the inspection of Figure 13, in which the probability for deaf and hearing persons to achieve tertiary education is compared, and countries are ordered according to the probability that deaf people have of making it to a university degree.13 As we see, hearing students have a higher probability than deaf students to graduate at the university level, even in countries like Italy or Portugal, where the share of the tertiary educated is very low. Furthermore, and what matters for us, the ordering of the countries largely matches the OECD results as for the reading skills, as measured in the year 2000.

13 The probabilities shown in Figure 13 have been estimated by a multinomial logistic regression model in which the dependent variable is whether or not the respondent achieved a tertiary education level, while the independent variables are gender, age, hearing status, country of residence and the interaction between the latter variable and hearing status. According to this model, and net of the differences between countries, gender, and age, hearing people have a (statistically significant, p=0.000) probability to achieve a university degree which is 22 times higher than that a deaf person has. The goodness of fit of this model as measured by the likelihood ratio chi square, with 17 degrees of freedom, is 9200.88, with p(chi square)=0.000.

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Therefore, there is some ground to suppose that, the better the education system (as measured by the OECD PISA rankings), the higher is the educational achievement of deaf people and the lower their disadvantage in comparison to hearing students. This in turn may mean that, indeed, deaf students are more sensitive than their hearing peers to the quality of education provided to them. As a consequence, we can conclude that the educational system has a greater responsibility towards deaf students than towards average students. Deaf Swedes Swedes Deaf Finns Finns Deaf Dutch people Dutch people Deaf British British Deaf French people French people Deaf Spaniards Spaniards Deaf Austrians Austrians Deaf Portuguese Portuguese Deaf Italians Italians Deaf Poles Poles 0%

20%

40%

up to higher secondary

60%

80%

100%

tertiary

Figure 13: Predicted probabilities of achieving tertiary vs. up to secondary education, by hearing status and country. Persons aged 25–59 (weighted N=156 182 000).

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3b.5 Virtuous countries: Sweden and Finland Sweden and Finland are the countries whose educational systems attain better results in tertiary education completion for deaf students as compared to hearing students, as Figure 13 reports. As explained earlier, Scandinavian states’ educational systems have been achieving very good results in OECD-PISA evaluations from the beginning and throughout time (Schleicher 2019: 10, 19). Well before that PISA evaluations became available, Scandinavian states often employed policies and approaches that moved away from what was usually considered to be “good norm”, and adopted a rather exploratory and innovative attitude (chapter 10b). So, while in the 80ies most of the world – and, most definitely, European institutions – were opting for mainstreaming, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were passing legislation in recognition of sign languages (Swanwick et al. 2014: 294). Such legislation would be, and still is, highly valued by deaf people throughout the world, and has become a central point in their political claims, so that the right to sign language is today recognized in all European states, and also by European political institutions (the first, in 1988, the Resolution on Sign Languages for deaf People; the most significant in 1998, the Resolution on Sign Languages). In addition, in past two decades, while most European educational systems identified and classified what was called SEN, Special Education Needs students, Sweden was opting for an individual tailoring of didactics, which was centered not on categories of students, but on individual needs. This meant an exceptional attention to the needs of students with disability – but careful! – without ever identifying anyone as disabled. The 1999 Finnish Constitution states that “no one shall, without acceptable reason, be differently treated, for example on the ground of . . . health, disability” (§ 6) [our emphasis]. With these words, that represent well a way of thinking shared by Finland and Sweden, it is implied that, as a person should not be identified as black or gay, one should not be identified as disabled either. As a consequence, as can be observed in Figure 9, SEN students in Sweden are much less than in the rest of Europe. In Finland, the practice exists to dedicate larger resources to students in difficulty (Teittinen 2010: 2, 8, 10), moving away from classification – and, for that matter, from special education decisions. This is done by “focusing on earlier support and prevention. General and intensified support were adopted as the primary forms of support before a decision on special support is made” [our emphasis] (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education 2020). Bimodal bilingualism has also been a solution resorted to. As a direct consequence of legislation in support of the right to sign languages and the individual

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entitlement to it as a primary language for children with severe and profound deafness, Sweden, Norway and Denmark not only enacted curriculum transformations, but established official bilingualism in special schools for deaf children (Swanwick et al 2014: 294). Teachers were trained to use sign language, and sign language courses were established for parents of deaf children. In fact, it was this “entitlement to bilingual education that functioned as a substantial claim for the maintenance of special schools for deaf children” (Swanwick et al 2014: 295). Specifically with respect to Sweden, in 1995, sign language was introduced as a subject for hearing students in primary, secondary and adult education, so that sign language became one of the many languages used in Sweden at large (Swanwick et al 2014: 295), and its was given the same status as any other foreign language (Swanwick et al 2014: 298). The intention behind such legislation was that of freeing special schools from their role as “sign-language islands” (Swanwick et al 2014: 298). Later, when cochlear implants were introduced, parents were not any more obliged to choose between sign-language and spoken-language curricula for their deaf children, and this alleviated the unwished for result of dividing deaf children into two language groups (Swanwick et al 2014: 295). As far as individualization is concerned, here is what the 2010 Academic Network of European Disability Experts wrote in its country report on Sweden: Sweden has chosen not to categorize pupils according to different disabilities. . . . The reasons behind this are that an approach with categorization from for example “disability” can contradict the ideal of a school for all and lead to placing pupils into specific groups, it risks contributing to a static group way of thinking about pupils who have individual needs, it can provide excuses for lowered ambitions and lack of results, it can appear that individual characteristics are more interesting than the educational system’s ability to adapt to diversity, and that pupils’ deficits are the focus instead of their strengths. The Scandinavian relational approach to disability emphasizes that a disability is not a characteristic of an individual person; it is a relationship between the person and the environment, it is relative and situational. (Jerlinder & Danermark 2010)

As far as Finland is concerned, it has the second highest share of deaf students who graduated at the university level – one in three students, actually. Various additional results concerning education in Finland made the Finnish educational system being intensively studied and emulated. The virtues of Finnish education have been identified by OECD-PISA also in its ability to achieve only a 5% performance variation amongst students that lies between schools, meaning that every school succeeds. Everywhere else in the world plenty of researches observe the dependence of students’ educational success on the socio-economic and cultural status of students’ families of origin – but well, not so much in Finland (OECD 2012a; OECD 2019), and “this is where success is

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systemic” (Schleicher 2012). “And how do they do that? They invest resources where they can make the most difference. They attract the strongest principals into the toughest schools, and the most talented teachers into the most challenging classroom” (Schleicher 2012). “Parents and teachers . . . expect every student to succeed, and you can see that actually mirrored in student behavior” (Schleicher 2012). Finland also passed an important law about pedagogical individualization in 1998: “High performers on PISA embrace diversity with differentiated pedagogical practices. They realize that ordinary students have extraordinary talents, and they personalize learning opportunities” (Schleicher 2012). Individual tailoring applies to disabled students as well (Teittinen 2010: 6). With respect to deaf education, the “differentiated pedagogical practices” Schleicher relates about were, once again, bilingualism. In fact, while mainstreaming was adopted in 1983, accompanied by the idea that it is individual needs and not group needs that must be accommodated, from 1970 total communication became popular in Finland, and, subsequently, sign language was used in instruction more and more frequently: the use of signs was allowed and recommended. After sign language research started in Finland, FinSL was used more and more in instruction, depending on the sign language skills of the teachers. In 1998 a teacher training program for sign language users started at the University of Jyväskylä. Today many of the students are deaf teachers working in deaf education and using bilingual methods in instruction. (Takkinen, Jantunen, & Ahonen 2015: 255)

In 1998, Finland approved a law on basic education (628/1998), stating that “students with auditory impairments must be given teaching in sign language, when necessary” (section 10, 2), and that “on the basis of the student’s choice, also the Romany language, Sign Language or other mother tongue of the student can be taught as a mother tongue (section 12, 2)”. Sign language was recognized in the 1999 Finnish Constitution (section 17), and “free interpretation and assistant services” are provided under the Basic Education Act (628/98) (Teittinen 2010: 3). Remarkably, individualization practices are more effective, in Finland, for deaf people than for the totality of disabled people: According to EU SILC data for 2009, compiled by ANED, the proportion of disabled people (aged 30–34) having completed tertiary level education in Finland was 35.4%, compared to 48.0% for non-disabled people (29.9% for disabled men and 41.7% for disabled women). The proportion of young disabled people (aged 18–24) leaving school early in Finland was 14.5%, compared to 8.4% for non-disabled people. (Teittinen & Heinonen 2011)

Chapter 4b and 10b will provide additional information on how to enact bilingualism, and on the effects of bimodal bilingualism in school legislation, including in Sweden.

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3b.6 Deaf people’s fields of study. A response to the third research question, on the accessibility for deaf students of all sectors of education Participation in the entire spectrum of available educational fields is here considered as an indicator of accessibility, building on the assumption that whenever they can, students make use of their liberty to follow their interests. On the contrary, when a school system has not produced didactic and organizational solutions that are adequate for deaf students, deaf students’ access to further studies will be restricted to a limited number of disciplines. Some fields of studies will not be considered “fit” for deaf students, some others will not provide enough motivation, some others will be considered too long and engaging for their capacities (see also chapter 12b). The distribution of deaf students across educational fields, however, may be explained also as the result of a different culture in the deaf community or among deaf persons, one that attributes different value, prestige, or desirability to educational paths, as compared to “hearing” values. As a matter of fact, one cannot be certain that our sample selects only persons in the deaf community (above, 3b.2) that according to various authors has a culture of its own, but the “cultural” hypothesis cannot be entirely excluded. On the other side, the “cultural” hypothesis might be a way to legitimate the (unfair) status quo, namely, the existing system of opportunities for deaf students, who would “choose” to set for some specific fields of studies because they “prefer” so, where preference is just an euphemism for addressing deaf students settling to certain given fields of study because they are prevented from accessing other options. In this view, the “cultural” hypothesis would disguise the effect of discrimination at the societal level (Lucas 2008). As a matter of fact, making use only of the data provided by Labour Force Survey, this ambiguity between real possibilities of access and sub-cultural values, or discrimination effects, cannot be solved, but solving it can be set as an objective for future quantitative research – as to qualitative research, see chapter 12b. Due to the low sample size concerning deaf persons in each country, we could not perform an analysis detailing each disciplinary field, and could only consider whether deaf and hearing persons are found in even proportions across the two main groups of subjects as found in the educational systems all over Europe, that is, the fields concerned with humanities and those concerned with the STEM disciplines. Among the first group we find general programs, teachers’ training and education science, humanities, language, arts, social sciences, business

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and law, while in the second group we find science, mathematics, computing, engineering, agriculture, veterinary and health sciences.

Figure 14: Share of deaf and hearing persons in European countries according to the field of highest education or training that has been successfully completed in two main sectors. Persons aged 20–59, 2011 (weighted N=112 253 000).

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Data in Figure 14 are provided in response to the question concerning the field of highest level of education – or training – successfully completed by respondents who achieved at least upper secondary education, since in the data collected by Eurostat, field of study becomes relevant only after completion of lower secondary school. Respondents were all the participants in the LFS survey who achieved at least upper secondary education, aged 20 or older, and answers only covered the regular education system – formal education, including schools, colleges and universities (Eurostat 2010a: 113, 110). We found that, on average, deaf persons have 26% more chances to graduate in the STEM fields than in the humanities ones, irrespective of their age, gender, education level and country of residence.14 This difference is statistically significant, meaning that it is expected to be found also in the actual European population, and not only in the sample we analyzed. Is this imbalance found in all countries? Are we to expect deaf persons enjoying more or less the same probability to graduate in STEM disciplines, as opposed to humanities, in all countries? Figure 14 provides at a glance the answer to this question. Countries are ordered according to the decreasing probability for deaf persons to graduate – either at the upper secondary or tertiary level – in the STEM fields, so that we find Poland at one extreme (with a probability as high as 80% for deaf people to graduate in this group of subjects) and Portugal at the other (with a corresponding probability of just 31%). Indeed, European countries differ widely as for the probability of both deaf and hearing people to graduate in either of the two groups of major subjects; however, differences are also found within some countries. In most countries, and in line with the average result we just discussed, deaf persons enjoy a higher probability to graduate in the STEM disciplines than in the humanities field. Exceptions are the UK, where deaf students graduate slightly more often in the humanities; and Austria and Sweden, where deaf people have the same probability to graduate in either group of subjects. It would be desirable to perform these analyses at a greater level of detail, as far as graduation fields are concerned. This type of data would remain valuable besides their theoretical potential, in as much as they might indicate which high-schools and university departments deaf students mostly attend, country by country. In the departments where deaf students are more present, these data would allow institutions

14 A binomial logistic regression model was estimated with the field of education as the dependent variable, and hearing status as the explanatory variable, together with country, gender, age and whether upper secondary or tertiary education was achieved as control variables. The likelihood ratio chi square has 13 degrees of freedom and equals 12 318.44, with p(chi square)=0.000.

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to provide stronger support. Sign language – spoken language interpreters, personal assistants, note-taking aids, advantageous teacher-student ratios, proof-reading, adaptations in exams are all strategies employed in Sweden (Jerlinder & Danermark 2010: sect. 1), where, judging from good results, they have proven successful in removing barriers. But additional strategies can also be thought out, such as speech-totext projected on screens, room adaptations, and so on (for the Deaf perspective on what can potentiate educational offer in universities, see chapter 12b). As for educational fields to which deaf students have a more reduced access, on the contrary, institutions can intervene to strengthen the relative primary-to-high-school didactics. Further research would also be useful to understand why the humanities present greater difficulties for deaf students. A satisfying development of language as a faculty is needed in order to fully develop cognitive abilities that are a prerequisite in the study of both sciences and the humanities (chapter 2b). So, disfavor for or unsuccess in the humanities cannot be the effect of a less-than-perfect development of language as a faculty in deaf students who reach upper levels of education. A possible explanation might rather be that many deaf students master certain specific languages – that is, those spoken languages that almost exclusively vehiculate university education –, as foreign languages, and not as their first language. An explanation that might complete this one is suggested by the United Kingdom being an exception to this rule. In the printed production in many languages, the style in writing in the humanistic domain tends more towards elegance – by this we mean richness in vocabulary, subordination, cultural references that are implied rather than explained – than towards clarity. This character includes the language in which school and university texts are often written, as Tullio De Mauro has remarked for Italian printed works (Scarderoni n.d.). Quite interestingly, since the beginning of the Twentieth century, the English language that is used in essays has undergone a considerable attention for readability, arguably in the humanities no less than in the scientific domain. In other words, a clear language as opposed to an ornate style, implies access. This is obviously a hypothesis needing further research – but, if proved, it would explain so much the rule – deaf students’ disfavor for or unsuccess in humanity studies at university level in the majority of the European countries considered –, as the exception – success of deaf students studying humanities at university level in the United Kingdom. In conclusion, this chapter has provided evidence that much work can be done to support deaf students’ right to education. But in contrast to testimonies from past generations, as also reported in chapter 2a, and in contrast with the most pessimistic expectations of some publications in Deaf studies, improving European educational systems is not an unrealistic objective. It is very encouraging to observe that variability in results from country to country allows for a remarkable success in some educational systems, which can serve as models to follow.

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

4a An inadequate education at school, an effective education at home 4a.1 An inadequate education at school The first school my family chose for me was Istituto Pendola in Antignano, close to Livorno. I was just three years old. At first, my “four parents” were very uncertain. In practice, the one who took the decision and convinced my “four parents” was our close friend Edgardo Carli, who referred us to Pendola as to the best option, as it was generally held in high esteem by everyone. As every institute for the Deaf in Italy, Pendola was a residential educational establishment. It appeared that my story was about to reproduce my parents’ experience in the institutes. My uncle Gastone and a hearing aunt accompanied me, and when they realized I was happily playing with other children, they disappeared. This was a habitual behavior for those times, but it was really a wrong method. When I realized I was alone, I burst into tears, and cried and cried, unable to discontinue my sorrow. I felt unsteady, powerless, I vomited, I fell ill, I got a high temperature. Nuns with large white hats with two wings on the sides appeared briefly, never to stay. I was alone with them. From morning to evening, no one inquired about me, no one cared. I was three years old, then, but I still remember the situation and the place, as though it was yesterday. On the left of my bed there was a window, and I wore a light blue pullover, home-made by mother. I vomited on it, and no one dropped in to control what had become of me. In the evening, they brought me a broth, and children were sleeping in their beds all along the walls in the large dorm. When my family found out about it, they decided it was not the right manner. Reluctantly, Edgardo Carli inclined towards continuing to leave me in the institute, it was important for my education, he said. The nuns proposed for me to stay longer. But my family was positive about bringing me home. And this is how I escaped the education in residential institutes that is so usual for Deaf people of my generation. At this point, experiments concerning the good manner to school me started to take place. The four of them were searching for a solution, concerned about my future. I was able to sign, but my mother was determined to let me learn to speak. I have learned to talk twice, and, remarkably, the first time has been with the principal support of a Deaf woman: my mother. The Gualandi institute in Florence

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offered me the second opportunity to stabilize my abilities. No further education in talking has been necessary. As my first speech therapist, my mother taught me to imitate her in mouthing vowels, no voice of course, as she could not perceive it. “A, A, A, with a wide mouth. M as in mother, with clenched lips”. My aunt Vittorina and her, they offered me publications with figures to learn from. In addition, my hearing grandmother participated by providing me with opportunities to mouth. Not only was my mother my first speech therapist, but, most important, she motivated me. She told me that using my voice was important in order to live in the world of the majority, who was hearing. “You cannot perceive this yet, but hearing people are everywhere. With dad you can sign, but the rest of the world is hearing. Persons outside of home will not understand you if you sign to them. And you will continue to sign, don’t worry”. And “I don’t want you to be in my same isolation, you have to be in a better situation than I am”, she used to say. It was her solution to the sadness that arose when I was born Deaf. She was very favorable to signing, but she was aware that signs were not enough. She wanted for me to integrate, and I later recognized she was right. She ingeniously schemed for me to experience situations and derive evidence about my capabilities. When I had to go to shops or to the street market, she mouthed me the list to shop. The prospect not to be understood and to feel ashamed persuaded me to search for solutions. I wrote my list, hid it in my pocket, and prepared to leave the house. “Hey, Anna. Here, give me the list”. She was benevolent, but firm. I handed her the written list, and she let me go out. At the market, I started to explain, and eventually went home with the whole list of purchases in my bag. “You can see it has worked”, my mother told me, and she was right. I could not deny, there was evidence that I had been able to communicate by talking. My mother’s attitude has been a fortune in my life. I have first learned to talk with her, a loving person, and not with a rigid speech therapist. But I was positively going to meet rigidness, as it inevitably happens to every Deaf child who is confronted with talk for the first time in her life. Before attending Gualandi institute, however, my “four parents” took charge to recruit two schoolmasters – eventually lay, not religious, tutors! –, in the assumption that they would be beneficial to my development. But their costly provision did not work either. I did not follow, I was too preoccupied by what surrounded me, I felt inclined not to pay attention. Both tutors advised for me to be mainstreamed. Their advice, which was consistent with my mother’s ideas about integration in the hearing world, led me to the kindergarten close to home, Asilo Sant’Anna in Florence. But it was not a great experience.

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In Figure 1, you can quickly distinguish me, as my head is turned to the side: every kid was concentrating on the photographer, who had prompted them to, I was the only one who could not hear him. Among hearing kids, I was not able to communicate, I was isolated, and the Sisters of Charity suggested that a more adequate school should be chosen for me. So, I joined the second school, one that would be effective in my learning to talk, a specialized institute, the Gualandi in Florence. As it was the institute in our home town, after morning classes I could spend my time with my parents at home, and the bad experience of Antignano did not take place again. I consider hearing people lucky, as they can learn to talk by simply listening, and talk comes smoothly and quickly for them. In contrast, Deaf kids must wait until someone can effectively support their learning. A hand on the nun’s breast, a hand on mine, I had to reproduce the vibrations I perceived. When my tone was too loud, a hand was positioned on my head. To be able to roll an “R”, they placed a pen under my tongue, to produce an “N”, I had to position my index finger on my nose. I was still in my early childhood, and my memories of that time are faded, but at my young age I was aware it was a torture. Indisputably, however, at Gualandi I got better at lipreading and at modulating my voice. When I was three or four, I was able to communicate by talking. But in the Gualandi Institute I have never been happy. Nuns taught me fear. Fearing the dark, the devil. I received plenty of fears. They told me, “In the basement it is dark, whenever you are not good, we lock you there”. I am not ashamed to tell, it was a shock, and its consequences persist so far. This was their good education. There was one nun, a very inhumane person, who continued telling me that my uncle – he was at the time the President of the Florence section of Ente Nazionale Sordi – was communist. I was five years old, I did not comprehend what she meant. I went home, my aunt Vittorina looked at me “What’s the matter?”. I trusted my aunt, my mother was somewhat more austere. “I am unhappy because uncle is bad”. She was as puzzled as I was: “Why is that?” Eventually, I said “Yes, uncle is communist”. To Vittorina’s eyes, I added puzzlement to puzzlement. I was five years old and talked about communism. “What has politics to do with it?” “Communists burn churches”, I replied. “Have you ever seen any church burn in town?”. In effect, I had never seen one. My aunt made efforts to explain to me, and eventually I reached the conclusion that there was something beneficial in communism too. In return, when I was five years old, as a result of the time spent with nuns, I was very good in Hail Mary, God’s Angel, Glory Be, I was really a talented girl

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with respect to worship, but I was not learning any discipline useful to my life. At best, my mother thought, I might have had my First Communion early. She inquired the nuns, “Are you preparing her for the First Communion?”. But the nuns responded it was too early. So, my mother inquired “Then how comes Anna is studying catechism so hard, and no Italian reading and writing?” A tough woman, my mother was. My uncle inquired, “Let me see how you are able to write . . . and the verb, where is the verb?”. I had no ability whatsoever in Italian grammar. So, they moved me out of Gualandi, to the Rovezzano Institute, in Florence, where I attended primary school. In sequence, the educational institutions I have attended in my early life have been Gualandi and Rovezzano in Florence, and Convitto Fabriani in Rome: this has been my career in state schools. I will tell some interesting details about my middle school in chapter 5a. My high-school Diploma professionale I earned from a private school when I was thirty-five, thirty-six years old, concentrating five school years in one and a half. In Rovezzano, for some time I received a rather good preparation. What disappoints me, in retrospect, was the widespread mentality of having primary school, that was meant to last five years, to last ten years for Deaf children. Two years were required to successfully conclude a single year: Deaf students attended twice the first year, twice the second, twice the third . . . I was one of the few Deaf children who had the fortune not to double school years. In that period, my pals outside school were mostly hearing. Basically, I associated with my cousins – and they were hearing. I made no distinctions, to me they were not hearing boys, but simply friends. I was the only girl, they were boys. The time we spent together was a happy one, we invented games, there were no difficulties. With my Deaf schoolmates I excelled, as I was well informed about life in the Deaf community: on the Saturdays and Sundays spent at home, my “four parents” told me about all events and happenings, and on Mondays, I would report every story. In the Rovezzano institute, I was universally appreciated for my beautiful voice, and was continually required to talk in public (Figure 15). I would have preferred signing, like every other Deaf schoolmate. It was a discriminatory factor. I wanted to be treated as an equal to my peers, instead I was singled out, contrasted and preferred to them. I used to proudly talk, but presently I think it was unfair. The situation I had experienced with my grandmother exhibiting me to hearing ladies recurred over and over. It reminded me of hearing persons saying, “Oh, poor girl, she’s deaf”. That “poor” was incomprehensible to me. What was the reason for it? I was in good health, ate, attended school, had a good time. I did not interpret my deafness as a limitation, let alone a disease. What

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was there to be proud about me, as my grandma used to be? I was being used as a dog in a circus, and persons were rewarding me with a small treat, “You are able to talk so well”, I smiled, I took it. I beg your pardon, but “fuck off”! This situation makes me angry, and also sorry. Having said that, I am not angry at her, a part of me understands. My grandmother had had two deaf children, she was certainly concerned, she had a grandchild who was so proficient.

Figure 15: Talking in public and in front of authorities.

Had I to draw a balance with respect to deaf education, I would say that after 1880 [when the Congress of Milan directed deaf education towards oralism], the situation has permanently declined. Crucially, reading and writing was not at the center of the educational effort, but rather lipreading and speaking: what a waste of energies! No one took charge of the cognitive development of Deaf students; the improvement of Deaf people was a result of their autonomous efforts alone. Consequently, the jobs Deaf people were recruited for were the simplest: shoe repairs, tailors, carpenters etc. A transformation has taken place with time, with mainstreaming. Bilingualism is presently the most interesting frontier in deaf education. Reaching a university degree has become achievable and achieved. But I am optimistic, the future can bring further betterments.

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4a.2 A good education at home Parallel to educational institutes, the story of my interest in books developed at home. And really, my positive relation to education can be said to have originated at home. My aunt and my mother strengthened my interest in books with ingenious methods, meant to support my motivation. In the evening, after dinner, the five of us used to have some fruits and stay at home. My mother used to tidy up. It was when me and aunt Vittorina had our time together. She took me in her arms, and positioned me straddling on her legs, facing her. And she started telling, in signs, various types of stories: fairy tales, stories she invented. She had a great imagination. Sometimes the story was accompanied by a book, she read and signed, sometimes real stories were from newspapers. I found such stories really beautiful. “Where did you find it, auntie?” “It is there, in the book”, I observed the lines, and could not explain where the stories were. No images, no signs . . . “Observe it better”, she told me, and I remarked that in a story with two children, two names appeared in the line, beginning with a capital letter. It was a beautiful time. Sometimes I had to participate by inventing. Gradually, I discovered how books worked, and realized that they were valuable. Edgardo Carli, Fulvia’s father, was another protagonist of these paper adventures. He explained, “When it is about a girl, you are supposed to invent her looks, her face, her dresses as you like them most. When it reads, ‘she ran’, a film is supposed to project in your mind, with what happened to her”. Gradually, my interest intensified, and I learned how to autonomously get reading materials. I have recently reused the same method with a young Deaf woman whom I supported in learning to read Italian – a nice person, whom the school had left without a fundamental ability. She was very motivated to learn – she needed a correct written Italian in order to be able to work. This is the reason why I was always the first in my class, at school. In primary school, from the third year, I was directly advanced to the fifth. I used to be the youngest. On this subject, I will tell you a nice story. I was six years old, and I had appendicitis. My mother and aunt Vittorina accompanied me to the hospital, and explained to me I would undergo surgery. I was all happy, as a great series of comics and books of fairy tales had been accumulated on the table next to my bed. Absorbed by the prospect of reading, I said goodbye to my mother. “Are you certain I can go?” “Go, go! I am fine”. I was eventually on my own, I could engage in reading. Two hearing women were in my room. The night approached, I saw the moon in the sky, I began to cry, “Mom, mom”. The two women were concerned, “What are we supposed to do?” “Please, make a phone call home”. “Calling a Deaf

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woman? It cannot work”. “I will give you the number”. A six-years-old Deaf girl was able to tell her home phone number? Incidentally, I am still able to tell you my home phone of that time: 48 20 36. The women could hardly believe it. They made an attempt, my grandmother reported my message to my home – it used to work like that in all Deaf homes, with grandmas as mediators –, and my mother was quick to arrive. “Mom, it is dark, there is the moon”, and I hugged her tight.

4a.3 I planned to be a writer. My relationship to books In my young age, I loved writing and planned to be a writer. I could not plan for me a future as a physician, as even a small wound upsets me. Conceivably, I had to be a writer, I was so good at it. I created a workbook where I recorded my journey reports, I invented crosswords and short stories. A perfect Italian was not my priority, but I did achieve a considerably correct style for my age. At to my relationship to books, my purpose while reading is not just to become good at writing Italian. Reading engages my imagination. I take an interest in the style that authors use. I still choose my books carefully. Most of all, I appreciate philosophy. Not Umberto Eco, whose style is too complex, but Sophie’s World by Norwegian Jostein Gaarder, and Neapolitan Luciano De Crescenzo, who used to write about philosophy and mythology in an elementary and clear manner. Some time ago, I asked Fulvia Carli and Virginia Volterra about my Italian, and how to improve it. They responded, “Keep it simple”. A simple Italian is a model to me, an intelligent person is able to make herself understood by everyone. From the books I read, I learned stylistic elements that I use in writing. I use these books to build my conferences. Sometimes a conference originates from my discovering an interesting book. I do not read them all, sometimes I just buy a book because I wish to own it. I have built a large library at home. I also value works about historic curiosities, or literature, and books about the Italian language: etymologies, wordbuilding rules. Works about the formation of attributes and adverbs: “-mente” leads from an attribute to an adverb, veloce is transformed in velocemente; “-zione” leads from a verb to a substantive, organizzare is transformed in organizzazione. I appreciate very much works by publishers such as Hoepli, a publisher of textbooks for independent study. Generally speaking, it was these works that created my knowledge, rather than school. School has been largely inadequate. Primary teachers considered

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deaf students as incapable to reach a good level. They demanded too little from us, so that we achieved too little. Exceptionally, my class of Deaf students was very good at French. For this, there must have been an explanation. My teacher was Fulvia, an excellent signer. Another extraordinary teacher was Ariela, who has never been able to sign. It is about time I introduced my most effective teachers, Fulvia and Ariella.

4a.4 Exceptional teachers: Fulvia and Ariella. Building a competence in French and English, and earning my high-school diploma Fulvia Carli, who will co-author chapter 12a, is an elderly sister to me. She was an only child, as I was. Three hours after my birth, she was holding me in her arms. We have grown up together, sharing experiences, holidays, spending together our free time. As the hearing child of a hearing mother and Deaf father – she was the daughter of Edgardo Carli, the man who taught me to use imagination in reading stories – she acted as an interpreter in a time when the profession of interpreter did not exist yet. She interpreted during the mass on Sundays and aspired to become a teacher of French. She speaks today such a perfect French, that French people often believe she is French. Once, in Paris, Fulvia and her husband were at the marketplace. Fulvia’s husband used to work for Alitalia and spoke seven languages. The seller at the market complimented Fulvia’s husband for his perfect French, and added, “Naturally so, he married a French woman”. Fulvia is a strict teacher of French for Deaf students, during her classes her students effectively concentrate. She has been my teacher at middle school. Her method was as follows: she began with the French pronunciation: contrasting the French pronunciation of “U”, to the Italian pronunciation. Then she gave us a brief text, say, a poem, including the special difficulty we had to learn in that class. She required us to write brief compositions directly in French, without thinking them out in Italian first. During corrections, she explained clearly the reason why a word or a sentence were mistaken. Not only we used to read and write in French, but we also spoke it. As a result of having had Fulvia as a teacher, despite my not practicing French frequently, my French is good, so far. When I am in France, my French production is comprehensible to French people: “S’il vous plait, de l’eau pétillante. Bonsoir, je suis Sourde”. I am a strong reader. Had I to explain what my method has been to become a strong reader, I would say the following: when I meet a strange word, one

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that I do not recognize, I mark it, but I continue my reading. In the same manner when an information is implicit, I just mark it. Subsequently, I enquire Ariella to explain it to me in a simple Italian. Then I reread the section autonomously, and it works, it becomes clear. I read French better than I write it, I write English better than I read it. I have learned English supported by Ariella. Here is Ariella’s story. After middle school, I had a nervous breakdown – the reader will discover the reason why in chapter 5a. I temporarily interrupted my studies, which I resumed only when I was thirty-five years old. For a long time, I have continued to study, read and write autonomously. I can really be defined a self-educated person. I completed five years of high school in one year and a half, in a private school with an individual teacher: Ariella. Before Ariella, school has been a duty to me: she made me appreciate it. She introduced me to philosophy and taught me Italian and history. She could not sign, I lipread her. She was especially talented in simplifying complex concepts and transform them into simple and clear ideas that I comprehended without effort. I especially profited of her concreteness – in this, she reminded me about my aunt Vittorina. Upon my request, she learned to enrich her explanations with examples – examples work extraordinarily well with Deaf people. After I finished school, she continued following me. We still meet, once a week, and she supports me in the preparation of my seminars. I have really been lucky in meeting her. I love Ariella.

4a.5 University I have tried to implement a project to get a university degree twice, both times without success. As a young woman, I enrolled in Education science. I realized I could pass one, two, three exams. After having provided evidence to myself that I was capable, I lost my motivation. I was already working in a bank; I did not intend to become a teacher. As a mature woman, I enrolled in Philosophy, but I did not take any exam. My major difficulty was the complex style philosophy books are written in. An episode in my youth, relating to education, deserves a chapter of its own, chapter 5a: it is about ’68 students’ unrest.

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4b Building written production in Deaf students. The “Free text writing” workshop in an excellent Italian bilingual school It is sometimes said that “furthering a particular educational approach [for deaf students is not to be set as] a goal” (Marschark 2002: 6). This chapter will theoretically refute this idea, support a specific educational approach, and provide instruments to enact, in practice, successful didactics. An Italian project including Deaf children has obtained excellent results in official evaluations led by INVALSI, the Italian counterpart of OECD-PISA for primary schools’ student assessment. To be precise, the students participating in such a project, from its beginning in 1994 onwards, outscore the results in Italian language of the totality of Italian students; they outscore the results of students from their same advantaged area in Italy – the Italian North-West; they outscore the classes in the same school attended only by hearing students. The project is the bilingual project of Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato Centro, in Cossato, a small town in Piedmont – “bilingual”, in this context, means bimodal bilingual, i.e., with full immersion in a spoken language, Italian, and a signed language, LIS (Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato & Istituto Istruzione Superiore “Q. Sella” n.d.).

Note: The authors wish to thank Roberta Gherardi and Anna Ubertalli, Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato Centro and its directors. Anna Ubertalli, primary school teacher in Cossato, has worked at the bilingual project since its beginning and until 2018, in the organization and management of the project, as a contact person and a coordinator, together with Director Ermes Preto. Anna Ubertalli provided the qualitative data presented in the first section of this chapter, by personally contacting Cossato’s alumni. Roberta Gherardi, who has a rich experience as an interpreter, educator and support teacher, joined the Cossato bilingual project at first as an interpreter in 2004, and subsequently as a support teacher in 2015. Since 2017 she has assumed the role of coordinator of free-text-writing laboratories, a role that had previously been Silvia Ceria’s, the Deaf co-author of this chapter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-008

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4b.1 Cossato bilingual project and its success: Quantitative and qualitative results Upon a visit to Cossato school, one can be introduced to classes in which sign language is the instructional language. During such classes, all students sign, and no one can tell who is Deaf and who is hearing, among them: it is the ideal of inclusion brought to its most perfect achievement. Cossato school bilingual project started in 1994/95. The project has involved, throughout time, Deaf girls and boys whose families, in many cases, had moved from all over Italy, in order to provide their Deaf children with a qualified education. The particularity of the Cossato project (Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato n.d.) is for Italian Sign Language to be taught to and used by the entire class, hearing and Deaf children together, both as a second language and an immersive language in learning. In Cossato, sign language is used both as a means of instruction and an instrument of inclusion. Since 2003, the Italian state assesses students’ learning in a program called INVALSI. The authors have been provided access to the results of Cossato school’s assessments relative to school year 2003/04. As an example, we report the results of a fourth class, in which 4 profoundly deaf students were included, 2 of them with associated disabilities: the average in the test for Italian language was 72.40, with standard deviation 11.96; the average in the math test was 84.42 with standard deviation 11.10; the average in the science test 90.55, with standard deviation 5.45. Well, good results, apparently, but they might be average in Italy, or in the Italian region where the school is located. We asked access to more INVALSI results and we were provided with the results of a test taking place ten years after, that is, in school year 2013/14. They are presented in Figure 16. The second class of primary school, “2° A”, was part of the bilingual program. In Italian as a school subject, it scored better than the rest of the school, better than Region Piedmont, better than North-West Italy, and better than Italy in its entirety. In mathematics, it outscored region, macro-region, and country’s results – but not the results of the whole Cossato school. Comparing results from 2003/04 and 2013/14 attests to the constancy of the success of this project. But many factors could intervene to raise doubts about such a success: families moving from all over Italy to provide good education for their Deaf children

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Figure 16: Students’ learning INVALSI results for Italian language (on the left) and mathematics (on the right), for Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato, including disaggregated results for class 2A, hosting the bimodal bilingual program (first column on the left of each graph), as compared to results of the entire school Istituto Comprensivo di Cossato (second column on the left of each graph), schools from Region Piedmont (third column on the left of each graph), from North-West Italy (fourth column on the left of each graph), and from Italy in its entirety (first column on the right of each graph). School year 2013/14.

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must be highly motivated, possibly more than average; a school that has been regularly visited by Italian and international teachers, parents, and scholars may be more performant just because it is aware of being observed – it is the socalled Hawthorne effect, well known by sociologists. So, it would be really interesting to know about the school careers of Cossato’s Deaf students, after their schooltime in Cossato came to an end. In 2019, an attempt was made to reach for Deaf students who are now old enough to have completed their whole education cycle. In Italy, the school career leading to enrollment in university lasts at least 16 years, including kindergarten. From 1994, when the project began, to 2019, 25 years elapsed, so that the first Cossato Deaf students had the time to enroll in university and attain university degrees. From 1994/1995 through 2005/2006, 27 Deaf students whose age was, in 2019, 17 through 28, have enrolled in IIC Cossato Bilingual project. Out of these 27 students, 9 have either moved to another city, and did not complete their primary school and middle school time in Cossato, or could not be traced back in order to get information about their career after their Cossato schooltime. Let us consider what are the educational credentials of the remaining 18 Deaf students enrolled in Cossato in the first eleven years of its bilingual project. In 2019, out of 18 former Cossato Deaf students, 6 Deaf students have earned a University degree, among them, 3 have a Master’s degree, and one, in addition to the Master’s degree has been granted international scholarships; 11 have their secondary school diploma, among them 5 are university students. University careers span in as diverse areas as Medicine, Psychology, Architecture, Educational Science, Performing Arts, Nursing, Communication Media and Advertisement. By making use of ISTAT data for 2019 (I.Stat 2020), let us compare the educational credentials of Cossato Deaf students aged 15 to 29 years – there are no former students from Cossato older than 29 – to the general population of the same age from North-Western Italy – remember that Cossato is located in North-Western Italy, a geographical partition used by Istat, the Italian statistical agency, including regions Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont and Vallée d’Aoste. Only 1 out of 7 persons in North-Western Italy achieved a university degree or more, as compared to 1 out of 3 former Cossato students. Only 4,5 out of 10 persons in North-Western Italy reached a secondary school diploma, as compared to 6 out of 10 former Cossato students. One out of 2,5 persons in North-Western Italy has only a middle school diploma or less, as compared to one out of 17 former Cossato students. In other words, Cossato Deaf students achieved considerably better than the general population in the area where the school is located.

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Interesting characteristics of the group considered are as follows: 6 of the Deaf students considered had at least one parent or sibling or grandparent who was Deaf; 3 were implanted with a cochlear implant.

4b.2 The bilingual program: history and organization The story of the bimodal bilingual adventure started in 1994. The bilingual project was definitely not born out of the blue. What permitted its creation was a collaboration between a series of strongly motivated persons. Three speech therapists, Maria Teresa Lerda, who had bene working in Torino, and her colleagues Simona Pidello and Elisabetta Minola, working in nearby Biella, identified that there was a need for sign language to be acquired by four two-years-old deaf girls. Silvia Ceria (one of the authors of this chapter) was involved, being a deaf teacher herself. Silvia had the chance to observe how the girls acquired sign language – she thinks that had the children not been a group, the project would have never been born. So, it was decided that a kindergarten would be contacted, with the idea of a bilingual project in mind. Italy is and was then an oralist country, that is, it was introducing the totality of its deaf students to spoken Italian as their first language. So, this was an especially courageous move. The school manager of Cossato’s state nursery and primary school, Ermes Preto, welcomed the initiative. The project was born in schoolyear 1994/95. A professor from Università di Milano Bicocca, specialized in methodologies for reading and writing, Lilia Teruggi, was called to didactically supervise the project. She would train teachers when the project was implanted, and subsequently support and supervise teacher’s work over time, in a continued manner, on request. Each teacher would have the chance to periodically meet her on an individual basis, and to reflect on the situation and the specific productions of singular students. In the meantime, the school manager had to collect funding to recruit two type of staff crucial for the project, but not usually present in the Italian school system, and therefore not paid for by the state: Deaf teachers, who at the time did not have sufficient educational credentials to qualify as teachers, and LISItalian interpreters. The Ministry of Education recognized the project as an “experimentation”. In fact, a Deaf teacher was necessary, to convey LIS to deaf children: Daniele Chiri soon entered the project. In addition to Daniele Chiri, also Simone Cericola, a CODA teacher (a CODA is a child of Deaf parents), has been working as a LIS

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teacher in Cossato school; he was to be replaced by Claudio Baj, a Deaf teacher, in 2009. Both Daniele Chiri and Claudio Bay were employees in the local townhall. Cossato school manager asked for them to be moved from one branch of public administration to another – Cossato school is a state school, as almost all Italian regular schools are. As to interpreters, generations of Italian interpreters have been established in a recognized professional role by being employed for at least one year in Cossato school. At the beginning, the bilingual project was offered to the deaf and hearing children of Cossato’s nursery school. Year after year, the project developed in order to offer children the possibility to continue their education up to middle school and then, outside of the boundaries of Cossato Istituto Comprensivo, to local upper secondary schools. Peculiarities of the staff in the project, with respect to the Italian school system, were that in addition to Deaf teachers and interpreters,1 the project employed curricular teachers and support teachers recruited by the state. Curricular teacher attended a course of Italian Sign Language, although they did not have to reach proficiency in LIS. Support teachers, “insegnanti di sostegno”, are staff specialized in special education. In plenary classes, support teachers and interpreters are intended as complementary to each other, so that there is no co-teaching between them: rather, there is always a shared presence during all classes, of a curricular teacher, and either an interpreter or a support teacher. In contrast, it was decided that “assistenti alla comunicazione”, staff paid by local administrations and having – at that time – mostly a limited competence in LIS, were not to be used in the project. The project was characterized by a strong willingness to include the school in research programs, and to encourage evaluations. INVALSI assessment of students’ learning has been encouraged by including in assessments students with deafness and with multiple disabilities. This practice, although required by assessing agencies, is not frequent in Italian schools. In addition, the project has permanently opened its doors to visits by families, and by Italian and international professionals. Protocols are permanently activated with families, that allow the

1 One important note to better comprehend the role of interpreters. Interpreters’ work is performed having in mind two requisites: respect for the limit of their role, that is not that of a teacher; and care that deaf children, who arrive in the program at an early age, have their attention converge on the signing that interpreters provide for them. In the first days of a new deaf child’s arrival, lessons are frequently stopped to ensure that the small child’s attention effectively converges on the interpreters.

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publication of photos, videos and data of children of the project, and materials produced by children. An association of parents of Deaf children spontaneously formed to support the project. The project has not been modified over time, after the adjustments of the first few years, and has maintained the stability of a functioning organization.

4b.3 Didactics Many professional figures were required in order to take up didactic roles that had to be performed by staff competent for his or her own specific task. Their presence is justified by the use of an innovative didactics, as compared to the one used in average Italian schools. All didactics employed in the project are active didactics – such as the ones ideated by John Dewey and Celestin Freinet –, all didactics privilege a visual access to instructional contents. The approach to languages – both LIS and Italian – is acquisitional for LIS and taken in charge by the school for Italian. Basic acquisition of LIS is reached in the last year of nursery school, by sharing classes with children who are already good signers. Theoretical foundations for such approaches are in studies such as Mayberry’s (one among many: 1991), whose results have been repeatedly confirmed. These studies attest that a strong first language is a solid starting point for second languages, and that this also applies when the first language is a sign language, and the second language is a spoken language. Furthermore, early language acquisition (i.e. first language) leads to perfect proficiency, while late first language acquisition leads to less solid language skills (chapter 2b). In language acquisition, nature is more effective and less laborious than school: it is nature that has to be resorted to. It is rather in literacy and other typically educational tasks that a reinforced teacher intervention will be required. As a consequence, it is a usual practice in Cossato, that deaf children just arrived and aged 6 years, that is the age when primary school should begin in the Italian school system, are made to spend one year in nursery school. This permanence in the last year of nursery school, irrespective of age, is motivated by the intention to build a solid acquisition of LIS, as a pre-requisite to entering primary school. During the last year of nursery school, first reflections on reading and writing are built following Emilia Ferreiro and Ana Teberosky’s method (Ferreiro & Teberosky 1985; Ferreiro, Teruggi, & Mennilli 2003; Teruggi 2003).

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Ferreiro and Teberosky’s approach provides the chance to discover written language as a social means of communication, as a real practice, that is visible (in cities environment, by way of signs, books, billboards, media, etc.) and that is transversal to all domains of experience. Nursery school lays the foundations for a work on texts, that will take place starting from the first year of primary school, both in Italian and in LIS. The work on texts is also didactically active, mostly centering on text writing, that is, production, in addition to reading, that is, comprehension. This work on texts will be a central topic in the present chapter. In most primary and middle school classes, teachers opt not to use textbooks. Families and the school help to fund the creation of a class library. Using the library, weekly books exchanging is a ritual experience that is meaningful already in nursery school: an early immersion in reading and writing is crucial especially for deaf children. Other didactic methods used, in addition to Ferreiro and Teberosky approach to literacy, are: laboratory teaching for natural sciences; exploration of the territory to have live experience of “how things work” – visits to farms, firefighters, factories, etc. –; Bruna Radelli’s “logogenia” (1998); authentic learning, that is, students interacting with people engaged in a series of workplaces present on the school’s territory, who provide tasks and projects for students to carry out; cooperative learning (Johnson & Johnson 1989; 1999); text simplification workshop, provided by support teachers (Piemontese 1996). Most methods are freely used and reinterpreted.

4b.4 Workshops The term laboratorio, workshop, is meant to indicate specific didactic spaces where deaf students learn LIS and Italian languages. Workshops are meant to personalize interventions, are carried out outside of the shared space of plenary classroom. The time for workshops to be realized are obtained by carving out patches of time from curricular subjects, in agreement with curricular teacher, on a yearly basis, according to necessities. Workshop activities may be either connected to the ones realized in the plenary class or based on their own separated program. Five specific language workshops have been created in the project, some individually tailored, and some for small groups of students; they are carried out in bilingual modality.

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Language workshops are: Guided study in LIS: a workshop activated when anticipations or additional explanations are to be provided, in LIS, on specific study topics. Super LIS: lexical, syntactic and cultural consolidation of Sign Language. Linguistic comparison between LIS and Italian: grammatical, syntactic and cultural comparison between spoken and sign languages. Written dialogues: free chatting in written Italian between student and teacher, aimed at reproducing the colloquial modalities of spoken communication. Free Text: teaching activity involving the whole class that weekly engages students in the individual production of a written text. The topic of the text is free, and the text is addressed to schoolmates. For this activity deaf students follow a particular path in four phases, realized partly in class and partly outside. Students work out their LIS and their written Italian. The Free Text Laboratory has been invented, and coordinated until 2016, by Silvia Ceria, who has been acting in it in the role of Italian language specialist teacher (see also Ceria 2011; 2016). She is one of the authors of this chapter. Table 5 details the weekly workshop schedule in Cossato bilingual programs.

Table 5: Weekly organization of workshops timetables, in Cossato bilingual program classes, as referred to the 2016/17 school year. Workshop schedules are agreed upon by the teaching team of each class. Each separate year, a distinct decision is met about the curricular subjects from which it is more appropriate to cut out hours to be employed in the workshops. –

Primary school, second year class – Free text (4h of individual work): 1h of pre-text in LIS outside the classroom with the LIS teacher, the interpreter, and the support teacher; 1h of autonomous work in class with classmates, to be spent drafting a text; 2h revision outside the classroom with both the Italian language specialist teacher and the interpreter. – Guided study: 2h in class with the LIS teacher and either the curricular or the support teacher. – SuperLIS: Lexical expansion (group of deaf children): 1h outside the class with the LIS teacher, the interpreter, and the support teacher. – Italian-LIS comparison (group of deaf children): 2h outside the classroom, with the LIS teacher, the Italian language specialist teacher, and the incterpreter.

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Table 5 (continued) –

Primary school, fifth year class – Free text (4h of individual work): 1h of pre-text in LIS outside the classroom with the LIS teacher, the interpreter, and the support teacher; 1h of autonomous work in class with classmates, to be spent drafting a text; 2h revision outside the classroom with both the Italian language specialist teacher and the interpreter. – Guided study (group of deaf children in the class): 3h outside the class with the LIS teacher. – SuperLIS (group of deaf children): 1h outside the class with the LIS teacher. – Italian-LIS comparison (the group of deaf children in primary school fifth class together with the group of deaf children in middle school second class): 2h outside the class with the LIS teacher, the Italian language specialist teacher, and the interpreter. – Written dialogues (individual work): 1h outside the classroom with the Italian language specialist teacher and the support teacher.

–

Middle school, second year class – Free text (4h of individual work): 1h of pre-text in LIS outside the classroom with the LIS teacher, the interpreter, and the support teacher; 1h of autonomous work in class with classmates, to be spent drafting a text; 2h revision outside the classroom with both the Italian language specialist teacher and the interpreter. – Guided study (group of deaf children in the class): 2h outside the class with the LIS teacher. – Italian-LIS comparison (the group of deaf children in middle school second class together with the group of deaf children in primary school fifth class): 2h outside the class with the LIS teacher, the Italian language specialist teacher, and the interpreter. – Written dialogues (individual work): 1h outside the classroom with the Italian language specialist teacher and the support teacher.

4b.5 The laboratory of “Free Text Writing” Starting from the first year of primary school, sitting in the classroom with their classmates, all students, deaf and hearing, produce weekly a free text, inspired by Célestin Freinet’s educational practices (Freinet 1968–1969). In this text, everyone talks about himself or herself, addressing his companions in a sort of letter: the text begins with the words “Dear friends, . . . ” and ends with a greeting and signature by the author. The children decide what to tell, without limitations from teachers: they can choose to tell about a lived experience, a dream, a desire, a past fact, an emotion. In order to achieve a better production, students first tell the text to the teacher – hearing students tell it to the class teacher, by speaking; deaf student, to the LIS

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teacher by signing. Soon after, students write the text, individually and independently, as best they can, each according to their own level of spontaneous writing. The production of a free text is proposed to students right from the first days of primary school, even when the children’s writing is not yet conventional. The free text constitutes an excellent test to observe and monitor the evolution of each student’s writing skills (Teruggi 2001; 2008). The entire class participates in the workshop, but for deaf students, specific activities are scheduled, partly with the class and partly outside of the class, partly in LIS, and partly in written Italian. First aim of the workshop is to acquire written Italian, but the intervention performed in sign language contributes to build reasoning, logic and textual structure as well. The final text is produced in Italian with the contribution of work performed in both languages. In this activity, sign language acts as the ‘root’ for Italian language, as it lays solid foundations to structure child’s thought and construct a proper text. Experience has led teachers to propose free text workshop until the third year of middle school, obviously transforming its content, from grade to grade, according to children needs and linguistic competence. A great variability is observed in deaf children’s pacing, but almost always this individualized space, separate from the space offered to hearing classmates, proves crucial for deaf children to appropriate writing skills. Four phases are envisioned for deaf students: a pre-text phase, which takes place in LIS and is used to structure the story; a drafting phase in which the child independently writes the text he or she has told in the previous phase; a revision of Italian grammar, that brings the text to a formulation that has to be in the first place understandable and faithful to the thought of the child, and subsequently, from session to session, growingly correct; and, finally, a public reading to the class. Let the four phases be comprehensively described.

First phase: Pre-text This phase takes place outside the plenary classroom and is managed by the LIS teacher co-working with the support teacher and the interpreter. The only author of the contents is to be considered the child: the role of the teacher is to understand his or her communicative intent and provide him or her with the narrative and linguistic instruments to put into words what he or she has in mind.

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– The child signs what he intends to write in the text, addressed to his classmates. It can be a successful or hoped-for event, a desire, an emotion, a dream. Is important for the child to be motivated by his desire to communicate something personal and real and to his classmates: for this reason, experiences are usually privileged. – The LIS teacher helps the child to coherently and organically build the text, inviting her to justify her choices, to articulate the story correctly, to provide a structure to her thinking and to better reformulate her wording. At this stage, sign language, a natural language for the deaf child, guarantees spontaneity of thought and communication. – The LIS teacher stimulates the child to enrich and personalize the story with subjective aspects, emotions, reflections, elements not previously treated but able to generate curiosity and interest in the class audience. The teacher’s intervention is aimed at searching for global coherence in the story in the first place, then for a more localized coherence; it helps the child to discover contradictions, if any, among the distinctive information provided, and to be effective in communication. Teacher’s interventions are textual – structure and order in the text: introduction, body and conclusion – and grammatical – structure of the LIS sentence, lexical choices. At the end of this work, the LIS teacher “mirrors” the story, that is, signs it entirely, in a form that is structurally and linguistically correct. – Building on the mirroring provided by the teacher, the student repeats the text in LIS, while the support teacher takes note of this latest version, as translated by the interpreter. These notes (Figure 17) have a double utility: they will both be used by the Italian language specialist teacher as a basis for the revision work that will follow, and serve to value child’s production in the very eyes of the child, so that children become aware that those words contain their thought.

Second phase: Drafting The phase when children are drafting the text in Italian takes place in the classroom, individually. On returning to class, where also hearing children sit, the deaf child carries out her task alone, as her hearing classmates also do, without interventions from teachers. It is important for writing to be autonomous and spontaneous according to the level of conventionality reached by the child. For conventionality, the ability is meant to write in a correct language. This term is employed within the Ferreiro and Teberosky didactical framework, where children are required to spontaneously explore language and write, without an explanation on how one reads and write by teachers.

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As Ferreiro and Teberosky teach us, children already have a clear idea of what writing is even when their production is not yet conventional. Teruggi’s studies on Cossato’s deaf children show that deaf children need more time and a longer immersion to appropriate the written language and achieve conventionality (Teruggi 2001; 2008. An explanation of how the Ferreiro & Teberosky method has successfully been employed with deaf and hearing children in Cossato schools is in Teruggi 2003b). In case the child’s writing is not yet conventional enough for the text produced to be comprehensible, at the end of the writing, the child will “read” to the teacher the text she produced, giving meaning to the graphic forms she used. The support teacher will immediately take note of the meaning attributed to the text by the child on a photocopy, so that to make sure that the child’s own idea of the meaning of the text is correctly understood (Figure 17).

Figure 17: On the left is the original text; on the right, the same text integrated thanks to the notes taken by the support teacher.

Third phase: Text revision Text revision is carried out by the Italian language specialist teacher, together with the LIS interpreter and the child, on an individual basis, and using as a support the notes written in the previous phase by the support teacher. Such notes are used so as to compare the quality and quantity of the information expressed by children in the text they wrote independently. Awareness is created in children that, as it mostly happens, their written text is at first reduced as compared

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to the signed one, but that their written text can and will be enriched, with time spent working on more and more productions in the workshop of free text. Importantly, revision is not intended as a search for errors or defects, but as a construction of a conventional text, by having the child reason on the text language. In the early stages, when the child is still unable to write conventionally, the teacher proposes a shared rewriting of the text and its parts, providing a comprehensible, understandable, and cohesive Italian linguistic model. Subsequently, when faced with a conventional writing, the teacher will be able to make a real revision, with interventions inserted in the text by way of symbols and colors initially agreed upon with the child, which constitute a strong metalinguistic work. Interventions on the text can be accompanied by interventions outside the text: examples can be provided, as well as models of Italian language, sentences can be compared, verbs can be conjugated. These interventions are strongly customized with respect to the child’s advancement, they are built together with the child, are proposed when the need really arises, and constitute the expression of the individual path of the child. They stimulate the child to be an active part in the work leading to language acquisition. Before illustrating the fourth phase, consisting in public reading, next section will provide an idea of how the teacher-student interaction really functions, during text revision.

4b.6 What will be observed during the workshop The revision work is always based on the text written by the student, there are never predefined programs. In the following interaction, the teacher chose some intervention priorities: – Punctuation – Reinforcement of clause analysis – Analysis of verbs used by the pupil: the information grammatically hidden in verbs (person, time . . .) was made to become apparent, and verbs were compared. In order to properly realize how the revision phase functions, here is a transcript of one session that took place in the spring 2017, with E., a ten-years-old Rumanian child who had first been institutionalized in Rumania, and had arrived in Italy in 2016, being first enrolled in Cossato school in schoolyear 2016/2017. The

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interaction proposed here took place when the workshop had already been attended many times, so it builds on conventions already established, and makes use of materials that are already habitual for the child. During the interaction, the child signs, the teacher speaks, the interpreter translates.

Making a first contact with the text Teacher [speaks]: – I saw that you have chosen a very interesting topic. What did you talk about? E. [signs]: – About the institution. Teacher: – I want to understand properly what you wanted to tell, in order for your thought to be very nicely expressed in this text. I want to understand your thought. “Dear friends . . .”: it is something you want to tell your friends. I want to know if the most important topic for you was “I want to describe for you classmates how my institution looked like” or rather “playing pretending we are at school”. E.: – Institute. Teacher: – I like it very much even when you say that, while you play, the institute comes to your mind. Did you like being there, did you have many friends? E.: – Yes.

The text Teacher: – Let’s see how many, and which things you have told in this text. Please, read. E. [reads in signs]: – “The institute”. Cari amici, a casa mia io ho gioc a lego a scuola. Ma nell’istituto come? Entrata, ufficio del preside, ufficio del direttore e del tutore, bagni, scala, classe, cucina, dormitorio. Maschi divisi dalle femmine, per dormire. [Dear friends, at home I play lego at school. But in the institute how? Entrance, principal’s office, director’s and guardian office, bathrooms, staircase, class, kitchen, dormitory. Males and females separated, to sleep.] ‘I like’ is missing! I have to write ‘I like’.2

2 The child makes reference to the pre-text, where he had provided this information, that is absent in the text.

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Teacher: – Good! Add “I like” if you want. Bravo that you thought about adding it. “I like it”: mi piace, piace a me, ti piace. [In English: I like it (two ways to express this in Italian), You like it].3 Okay. Do we usually start with which color?

Table 6: The use of colors and symbols as agreed with the student, in the Free Text Workshop. Green – punctuation Yellow – moving parts of the text, to syntactically reorder it Purple – additions Orange – deletions

Punctuation Teacher: – Let’s start from green, what does green stand for? (see Table 6) E.: – Green is for commas, for all punctuation. Yellow [for parts of the text that] move, purple to add [parts of the text], orange to delete. Blue are the clouds for clause analysis (see Figure 18).4 Teacher: – Are the clouds for the things that we write, of for the things that we think out? E.: – Think out. Teacher: – Take the green color. It is important that you tell me the limits of your first sentence. Where can you insert a full stop? Start reading, please. E.: – Up to here [indicates the end of the text]. Teacher: – Up to here? And there are no other full stops in here [points to the whole text]? E.: – No. Before, full stop is not appropriate, full stop goes there. Teacher: – Let’s start again from the first words, please point to the words where the sentence begins. E.: – Here. Teacher: – We always write this comma after “Dear friends”, it is a little different from the other commas. Similarly, at the end . . ., what do you always say at the end?

3 The teacher reinforces the use of Italian terminology by dramatizing a small dialogue and inserting the linguistic rule through a communicative exchange. 4 By remembering together about the use of colors, contact with the child is rebuilt, and this conveys him trust and stability.

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E.: – “Goodbye”. Teacher: – The sentence really starts here [indicates “at home”]. Please, read the first sentence. E.: – a casa mia io ho gioc a lego a scuola. Teacher: – Where does the first sentence end? E.: – [indicates after “at school”, and inserts a green bar5]. Teacher: – Ah! The first sentence ends here. Well! It is useful in order to break up your text.

Figure 18: The posters with clouds for clause analysis, in the room specially dedicated to the Free Text Workshop. The clouds on the left are part of the interventions “outside” of text. They are small questions that “silently” correspond to phrases. They support reflection on clause analysis. Normally, they are written in light blue, to underline a reflection that is only thought out, but not really written in the text. Using these logical questions helps students construct both their thoughts and all single sentences in the text. The questions in the clouds are: Who? What? When? Where? What does s/he do? The poster in a central position contains at its center the verb essere, to be, in its third person, she/he/it is, connected to nouns, such as in “he is the doctor” – under it, there is the cloud “Who?” –; other nouns such as “it is the church” – under it there is the cloud “What is it?” –; adjectives, such as “he is beautiful, intelligent, happy” – with the cloud “How is he?” –; adverbs such as “it is evening” – with the cloud “When is it?” –; verbs, such as “he is at work” – with the cloud “where is he?”; and the verb to be conjugated in its use as an auxiliary verb, in the past tense, such as in “he has fallen”, and in reflexive verbs. A similar poster is on the right, referring to verb avere, to have.

5 A convention has been previously established with the child, that a green bar is used to part the text in chunks that, usually, correspond to phrases.

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Clause analysis Teacher: – Let’s go to check if the whole sentence is there, by connecting it to the clouds (Figure 18). Read, please. E.: – At home. Teacher: – Which one is the corresponding cloud for “at home”? What is the meaning for “at home”? E.: – “Where?” Teacher: – Okay. Very well! I see you want to draw the little cloud. But listen, we only think of the clouds, we do not write them. We use those little clouds that hang on the wall to reflect also on linguistic comparison [between Italian and LIS]. Whenever you want to communicate clearly, if you want for other people to understand, you have to reflect and explain well what that chunk means. “At home”, means “where”. The sentence is composed of many little clouds. There is a “where?” good! And then? try to proceed. E.: – Where? At my home. Teacher: – And then? What is next cloud? E.: – “What have I done?” Teacher: – “What happened?”. Look, sometimes chunks can even be small, such as “I”. E.: – “Who?” Teacher: – Bravo! Now “What happened?” E.: – It is linked to ho [(I) have]. Teacher: – Do you have to separate words or take two words together? If you just say “ho”, do I understand that you played? E.: – No, io ho [I have] must be connected. Teacher: – It must be connected. This word and this word are connected [the teacher points to ho (have) and then gioc (play)]. It means “What have you done?”, “what happened?”. One understands that you have played or that you play thanks to this word gioc [play]. T.: – Lego. Giocato cosa? [Played what? In Italian, a preposition is missing] Teacher: – Giocato a cosa? A lego. [Played what? Played lego. The teacher emphasizes the two prepositions6]. T.: – A scuola [at school].

6 The teacher permanently uses a didactical strategy of mirroring and rephrasing.

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Teacher: – Watch out. This looks like it’s “Where?”, at school, but it is not really taking place at school, because you’re at home, you already said “where”. This would mean you played what? Like played soccer, played . . . and then say which was the game that you played. Played pretending being at school? Does it mean you take up the role of a teacher? T.: – The principal. Teacher: – Ah, nice! T.: – My desire for future work. Teacher: – With lego pieces, are lego pieces your pupils?7

The verb offers information on tense and person Teacher: – Listen. Now I want to understand this chunk. I see that there is a verb, it is one of these two words. Where is the word “play” written, when you consider these two words? Use fingerspelling, please. E.: – G-I-O-C [play. E. uses fingerspelling]. Teacher: – Bravo! “Gioc” is the beginning of the verb giocare “to play”. Play, I understand what you want to do is play. [The teacher writes] GIOC. What is the ending? E.: – A-R-E [E. uses fingerspelling]. Teacher: – Yes, this is a verb, it ends in are. Can you find in the posters a verb that ends in are [verbs ending in -are are a class of Italian verbs]? E.: – There is no verb. Teacher: – Giocare is not there, it is true, but there are other verbs. [Teacher and student go near the posters, that represent Italian regular verbs conjugated in the present – in white –, future – in blue –, and past – in yellow.] Teacher: – One verb ends up in “are”. What are these posters? You always see them. E.: – Past, present and future. Teacher: – Well, well. It means you want to communicate “when”. In the past, ho giocato [I played]. E.: – I’ve done it in the past. Teacher: – Alternatively, you may mean right now, as in gioco di solito, gioco sempre [I usually play, I always, play]. Or . . .

7 The atmosphere has relaxed. E. is at ease, and accepts to feel he is both “together”, in his work with the teacher, and “inside” the text.

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E.: – Future. Not yet. it will happen. Teacher: – On which poster is the future placed? Blue means future on the poster. It has yet to happen. What? Your verb, giocare. Io giocherò, tu giocherai, I will play, you will play . . . Now, you try to continue.

Posters hanging on the walls are colorful. The teacher drives attention towards “colored pieces” of verbs. Verb roots and endings have different colors, whose convention has been often repeated: from the root one understands the action and if one looks carefully one understands ‘‘who’’ does that action and ‘‘when’’ does it. The verb contains information about tense and person. Our participation in the session stops here. The expressions most frequently used by the teacher during interaction are look here, you told me that, if I remove / change / add / conjugate / decline / etc. . . . what happens? try to say this. Teacher’s questions are meant to understand the intentions of the student in writing a text that the student will consider one’s own. The teacher offers models to explain how structures and expressions vary in Italian and show how they can be appropriate to different communicative intentions. During one workshop session it may be necessary to retarget interventions and readjust work in progress, following the needs that emerge from the student’s reflections.

Fourth phase: Public reading There is a fourth and final phase which unfortunately is not always carried out due to time problems, but whose importance for deaf pupils is imaginable. It consists in the final reading of the text to classmates, after the long revision that made the text clear and legible. As it could be observed, the text “enters and exits” from the class. It is structured in LIS, out of the classroom, with the LIS teacher in the first phase of the workshop, dedicated to “pretext”. It returns to the classroom during the drafting phase. It moves back out of the classroom to be revised with the written Italian language specialist teacher. Finally, the text returns, revised and accessible to be read to classmates. Public reading is the achievement and the fulfillment of the work done, that emphasizes the communicative function of writing for others.

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4b.7 Summarizing and pinpointing Each phase of the free text workshop starts from the text in its entirety, and then moves to analyze its parts; this takes place by working both in LIS and in Italian as instructional languages. Memorization of rules is never chosen, and the work of revision emerges from a process of reflection shared by the deaf child and the teacher. Punctuation is a departing point, in that it defines the limits of phrases, constituents, clauses, direct speech. The central role of the verb in each clause is underlined, while complements and prepositions acquire their meaning by their connection with the preceding verb. During revision, the error is a crucial, positive, moment. The error is a window open on the mind of the child: every time that it opens, something new can be learned, thanks to a shared reflection. What permits progression, from session to session, is never orthographic correction, but rather clearness in the meaning that is intended. Effective communication is the chief criterion for evaluation. The Free text workshop is proposed to respond to the specific language needs of each deaf child, aiming at clarity of thought in LIS, and to the acquisition of written Italian. It is an inclusive practice, since deaf children share it with classmates: communication is its motive.

4b.8 Conclusion In a 1985 report on Deaf education, UNESCO, the educational branch of United Nations institution, had stated “We must recognize the legitimacy of the Sign language as a linguistic system and it should be accorded the same status as other languages” (UNESCO 1985. Quoted in Lane 1999: 46, 271). The 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in its article on education, demands that appropriate measures shall be taken, to ensure that the education of persons, and in particular children, who are blind, deaf or deafblind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development. In order to help ensure the realization of this right, States Parties shall take appropriate measures to employ teachers, including teachers with disabilities, who are qualified in sign language . . ., and to train professionals and staff who work at all levels of education. (art. 24)

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This chapter has provided evidence that such measures can lead to excellent achievements by both deaf students and their hearing classmates, as shown by quantitative test of students learning achievements administered by an Italian state assessment agency. This chapter has also provided didactical instruments to reproduce the good results achieved in one of the workshops offered in Cossato project, according to practices that have been observed during a visit to Cossato school. After 23 years from the beginning of Cossato project, new staff is being trained, who will take over specific roles of retiring teachers. The future of the Free text workshop has recently passed in the hands of Roberta Gherardi, who has been working alongside Silvia Ceria since 2011 and has taken the relay in 2016/17. Cossato project began with Silvia Ceria’s generation of teachers but will not end with it. There are things in life that come to meet you and ask you to take care of them and listen to their meaning. This was to me my deafness, a precious baggage of skills that I have never abandoned during my journey. Best wishes to Roberta, bearer of what is new, and thanks to those who had much to give, and to this day continue believing. (Silvia)

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

5a Great history from my perspective: Student protests following 1968 5a.1 Student protests Here I was, fifteen years old, and expelled from school. My teachers treated me harshly, my classmates hardly addressed a word to me. What a hard time I had! And paradoxically, some days after, the situation would be totally reversed, and I would dispose of a personal chauffeur that accompanied me back and forth from home to the same school that had expelled me. I believe this is a story worth telling, so let me go back to where it commenced, and proceed in an orderly fashion. At the time, it was 1973, I was attending my third year at in Rome, in a special middle school institute for Deaf girls. Deaf students made use of a residential section, Convitto Fabriani, where I used to live (Figure 19 represents a picture of me in 1973). It was a religious institute, led by nuns.

Figure 19: This image dates to March 1973. The defining moment of the story in this chapter was February 6, 1973.

My schoolmates were especially dissatisfied about the institute and how it was managed, for various reasons.

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On February 5, a nun hit a girl, another girl was present, and this caused an uproar. The girl who was present proposed to organize a strike against the nuns and the teachers who were too hard on us. It was the time when students were protesting against educational methods and political authorities all over the world. The day after, February 6, 1973, a Tuesday, was to be a revolutionary day. As far as I know, Deaf girls contesting the management of their school was an unprecedented event, plausibly we have been the first ones in history. The idea had not been mine. And I was very much in good faith, responsive, but really naïve. So, it was me who happened to take the lead in organizing the demonstration the next day. As I had had experiences in the management of then Ente Nazionale Sordomuti, I explained “The reasons for our protest have to be clearly formulated. We must lead the persons we address to see our point, and possibly share our perspective”. I did not take this decision lightly, but what I intended was just to suggest how to effectively act, without creating too much of a confusion. On the following morning, contrary to the will of the nuns, we, the girls, left the institute and run buses or hitchhike – without considering the risks we ran – to reach the central office of ENS, then Ente Nazionale Sordomuti. As ENS was at that time an institution governed by public law, both the institute and the Convitto were under its management. ENS was and is the largest Italian Deaf association. Cesare Magarotto, the general manager, saw us approaching and asked me to explain what it was about. Without having really wished for it, I was singled out as the spokesperson, and this converted me into the de-facto leader of the protest in front of the authorities as well. As a representative, I explained the reasons of our acts. Mostly, we were just claiming our rights. Well, it did not work as I had foreseen. Once our action had been brought to a conclusion, we reappeared in the institute, under the cold stares of the nuns. And I was screwed up. To the nuns, it was a lot to process. From that moment on, they did everything in their power to affect me adversely, as I was the one whom they identified as the leader of the protest. Actually, I wasn’t, I was just trying to keep the situation within certain limits. All that I wanted was for this shared initiative to succeed. But the nuns and the teachers formed a coalition against me. And they planned a well-thought-out “revenge”. I did my best to be strong, but I was only fifteen years old. I felt miserable, and the nuns succeeded in finding my weak spot. We were three girls who had visited a fellow schoolmate in hospital, and on our way back, we saw a disco, and asked to briefly see it inside. Lights were appearing rhythmically, we briefly stopped, and returned to the residential house.

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Discos were obviously not allowed by conservative nuns. This was the evidence they used against me – only against me, but we had been three of us –, and the Mother Superior, Suor Domenica, had me expelled. It was March, and the schoolyear was about to conclude. I could be failed, and loose one year. A sort of process took place. I appeared with my father and my uncle in front of a commission composed of nuns, representatives of students’ parents, and two Deaf representatives of ENS. An alliance was formed between the nuns and the students’ parents, who pointed at me as at a “peril and ruin” of their daughters. I was expelled from both school and convict. I gathered my things, as my fellow students assisted. Only a good nun, a real nun, Suor Giovanna, who was Deaf, waived me goodbye and sent me a kiss from afar. At this point of the narrative another protagonist of this story ought to be introduced: Edgardo Carli. Edgardo Carli had been a Partisan – his story will be comprehensively told in chapter 12a – and he was the father of my teacher of French Fulvia at the middle school, and, most of all, was an employee of ENS central section. He had been a fatherly figure for me (Figure 21), he was the man who had suggested to me to visualize the stories I read, when I was about to learn to read. He was one of the Founding Fathers of ENS (chapter 7b): next to the authorities belonging to his generation, I used to feel strong – a strength that I am no more able to feel today. Edgardo Carli did not accept the situation as the nuns had been presenting it, took me under his protection, and fought hard for me (Figure 20).

Figure 20: Edgarlo Carli protecting Anna with his report to ENS.

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He involved Cesare Magarotto, the general manager, Vittorio Ieralla, the President and member of the directive council, and Armando Giuranna, who also took my defence: ENS was entitled to protect Deaf people, they said. An unprecedented solution was found, I would be reintegrated in school, but would leave the boarding school, and live in via Gregorio VII, at Edgardo Carli’s home. But the institute was far away from Edgardo’s house. He requested support to Vittorio Ieralla, ENS national President. “I will not be able to accompany Anna to school every morning”, Carli had told Ieralla. Exceptionally, Ieralla offered his personal chauffeur until the conclusion of the schoolyear, for the situation to be solved. Can you imagine? Every morning the chauffeur was dropping me in front of the school, under the unfavorable stare of nuns. That was really something! Can you believe that? I thought I would be ruined by this story, and quite to the contrary, everyone could see me stepping out of a chauffeur-driven car every morning, as a rich girl in a British college. Well, I tell you this story in these terms, but at the time, I really had a hard time. When I talked to teachers, they turned to me a cold shoulder. All assignments were more difficult for me, but I was a hard worker, and remained the best of my class throughout. My fellow students, they had been convinced or threatened by nuns not to talk to me. I was isolated, feeling awful, shunned by everyone as though I was a leper. I was lonely. Those were three months of suffering and silence. No one to tell me what the homework was, no one lending me books, when someone secretly spoke to me, everyone hushed us, “Silence, silence!”. I carried this sorrow with me until the exams, and upon that occasion, they did their best to crush me. During final exams, a member of the examining board of teachers, asked me, “How comes you take the exam separately?” Fortunately, Fulvia Carli, my teacher of French, explained the situation to the examiners. Edgardo Carli as well, he had alerted me in advance that the exam would be extraordinarily difficult. The examiner understood the situation, I was anguished, but I was well prepared. And I passed the exam. I went out – what a liberation! And soon after, I fell ill. I had a nervous breakdown. I was only fifteen years old! At present, I would have not cared, but back then, I was so young . . . Twenty years later, the Superior Mother who had behaved so terribly with me, Suor Domenica, dismissed the religious habit. I met her at a congress, she observed me, I had not recognized her, she had fingernail polish, and hair-styled hair. She approached me, took my hands in hers, hugged me, and “I know I have harmed you”, she told me. I hardly comprehended what the situation was about. She asked for forgiveness, “I beg your pardon, who are you?”, I asked. She looked around, “I used to be Suor Domenica”, she replied. Time had elapsed,

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and I had no hard feelings, my life had evolved. I let her go, it had been a terrible period of my life, but still an experience that had formed my character.

5a.2 Under the protection of a Deaf Founding Father This story is told. But there is an important part of that time that I love to remember: the time I spent at Edgardo and his wife’s home, a time of intensive study. My mother worked in Florence, so it was decided that my aunt Vittorina would join the three of us in Rome – Edgardo, his wife and me –, her too sharing Carli’s home, in order to cook for me, wash my clothes, and allow me plenty of time for books. Edgardo controlled me, “What did you write? Let me see . . . What did you learn, tell me . . . ?” He watched at my homework, he observed me refreshing what I had studied, and his judgement was permanently negative. “Were I your professor, I would value you with a grade of four”. [Italian school grades range between a minimum of zero, and a maximum of ten]. “Luckily you are not my professor!” was my silent reply. From time to time, Edgardo used to call me and point to an object in the house. The first time, it was a cushion. “Describe it for me . . . Come on, come on”, “What a bore”, I said to myself, “It is a beautiful cushion, shaped as a sunflower, it was mother and aunt Vittorina who crocheted it”. Edgardo would look at me disappointed, “Too cold, too brief”. I start working on it, I built a structure, a nice story to tell, I explained and explained, and he would be observing me with interest. “Well, but I am not satisfied”, he invariantly said at the end. “Fuck!!!” I said to myself. For three months, it was always the same story. Incidentally, I have been living with Edgardo, his wife and aunt Vittorina in Rome, also when I studied to earn my Diploma Professionale, a five-years-in-oneand-a-half-year enterprise. It is the endeavor that was made possible by Ariella’s contribution, about which I related in chapter 4a. I was then thirty-five years old. One morning, Edgardo called me, and he revealed: “When you were studying for your middle-school certificate, I have never given you a positive judgement, but that was not what I thought. Had I done so, you would have been filled with proud, and you would have stopped improving yourself”. “And do you say so only now, now that I am thirty-five?” “Yes, I have always considered you very good”. And then he said a sentence I will never forget “You are my pride and my masterwork. I followed you, I educated you, sometimes with my ruses I forced you into working, but now I am happy”. Two days after, the day I took my written

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high school exams, he felt unwell, and not long after, he died. Three days after he died, I had to sit for what in Italy is called “oral exams”, an hour-long interview. Fulvia, Edgardo’s daughter, was supposed to be my interpreter. She resisted, hesitated, and then concluded, “Dad would have wanted for Anna to get her diploma”. So, we went, both very moved. The commission extolled me – I earned the maximum grade, a very unusual result for a student who had studied five years in one. If I have found fulfillment in life, I owe it mostly to Edgardo.

Figure 21: Edgardo Carli and me.

Luca Des Dorides

5b Speaking for oneself: Language and power in the Italian deaf community I have only one language, and it is not mine Jacques Derrida (1996)

5b.1 Freedom of expression Languages play a fundamental role in the dynamics of power governing the lives of those who use them: languages structure both the self and relations with reality. At the same time, languages constitute a vision of the world. As such, they connect common feeling to ideology (Gramsci 1975), and the symbolic order to reality (Bourdieu 1998). In addition, they are incorporated in the communities that use them: discourses define who the subject is, who uses them (Butler, 1990). For these reasons, they are the object of political and ideological investments, such as the identification between language and nation, involving ethical and moral consequences (Kroskrity 2004). This chapter will center on the complex relationships between language, ideology and power. For deaf people, choosing communication practices and producing discourses has historically amounted to choosing forms of subjectivity that would be socially recognizable. To deaf people, language is an unstable place, where polysemy and fight for the control of meanings take place. In addition, signed languages have a decisive political value. The history of sign languages is not only one of struggles for one language rather than another, or for the management of discursive practices; but also one of struggles for the very possibility of having a language, one’s first language, and of being able to construct a discourse (Trovato 2009; Murray et al. 2016; chapter 2b). Despite their centrality, signed languages have long been subject to prejudice and discrimination, even their language status has been denied (Burns, Matthews, & Nolan-Conray 2001). The denial of linguistic dignity characterizes hostility to sign languages and is due to an erroneous archetype, according to which language is recognized only in its spoken form, and what is not spoken is an “alterity”. Signed languages, therefore, have been placed in the domain of what is not really human and have been perceived as disturbing. Faced with the terror of the nothttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-010

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fully-human, therefore, a symbolic violence was unleashed (Bourdieu, 1998), and an acceptable order was recomposed through the power of naming. Since language is a categorical system that elaborates reality in symbolic forms, deafness is similar to gender, in that language perpetuates relations of power and subjection (Wrigley 1996). Naming, labeling and diagnosing are operations creative of meanings, by which powerful social structures give form to subjects. When naming, labeling and diagnosing have taken place, the symbolic and the real consistently correspond to one another, and a sense of naturalness and inevitability is produced, that masks the contingent and violent nature of the act of naming. Perceiving something as uncanny depends on an “abilist” (able as opposed to dis-abled) model based on the normotype. Managing the uncanny takes place within those Institutions that, by means of what is said and what remains unspoken, produce that heterogeneous set of scientific and moral statements that Foucault calls devices1 (Agamben 2006). With respect to deaf people and sign languages, the abilist paradigm is audism (Humphries 1977), originating in medical and educational institutions but not limited to them. Audism has been acting as a normalizing power that, similarly to other Foucauldian devices, “has its own autonomy and its rules”, and has never been established by a single institution, but rather, has extended its sovereignty on society “through the interaction among different institutions” (Foucault [1974–1975] 1994b: 822). For deaf people, acquiring “freedom of expression” has combined linguistic and human rights into a single set, defined as “linguistic human rights” (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000; Murray 2015). The path towards freedom of expression for deaf people is characterized by being strongly political, and its events are social actions towards language acquisition, and for the education and the empowerment of those who do not hear. But how and how much did Italian deaf people participate in these political choices? Telling this story or the story of Italian deaf associations, even briefly, goes beyond the possibilities of this chapter (a part of this story is to be found in chapter 7b). This chapter will focus on some moments of this process in order to clarify the historical dynamics of this long journey.

1 A device is “a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions–in short, the said as much as the unsaid” (Foucault [1977c] 1994a: 299).

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5b.2 “Once were dumb” In the history of Western deaf communities, some key moments are recognized for having created a collective, shared memory. A prominent place goes to Abbé de L’Epée’s 1760 foundation of the school for the deaf that, already in the eyes of his contemporaries, represented an exit from the darkness of ignorance (Mottez 2006). Another prominent event was 1880 Congress of Milan, which has today become a symbol of oppression (Lane 1999; Baynton 1996; Burch 2002; Branson & Miller 2002; Ladd 2003). Each national deaf community, however, has experienced these moments in its own ways, and they are historically determined by each singular social and political context. With respect to France, in Italy the beginning of deaf education took place later and was not so strongly characterized by Enlightenment and revolutionary values. But some basic characteristics are common to France and Italy, such as a rhetoric celebrating both the work of the first tutors and the exit of deaf persons from the darkness of ignorance. In fact, in Italy the possibilities for deaf people to access education would remain very limited throughout the nineteenth century, so that at the end of the century only a fifth of Italian deaf people of school age had been schooled (Raseri 1880). Among the deaf persons registered in the 1901 census, 3 deaf persons out of 4 could not read (Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, 1904). Data in the census of Regno d’Italia are alarming, reporting that only 27% of deaf people aged 6 and older could read, as compared to 52% of the Italian population in general. A more complex and articulated situation is described in a survey by Enrico Raseri, secretary of the Giunta centrale di Statistica del Regno d’Italia (the central statistics board of the Italian state). The survey had been commissioned by the local committee of Congresso internazionale dei maestri dei sordomuti, the International congress of teachers for deaf and dumb in primary schools, that was scheduled to take place in forthcoming September 1880, in Milan. In contrast with previous 1861 and 1872 censuses, in which “only those who are completely deaf and dumb were taken into account” (Raseri 1880: 11), the committee inquired about the number of those who need a “special instruction”, including also hard-of-hearing persons, labelled as “sordastri”. In Raseri’s work, data from previous censuses are crossed both with reports by the Ministry of War on the causes for not drafting young people called to military service, and with data from directors of 35 institutions for the deaf existing in Italy, answering to a committee questionnaire. Raseri concluded, “it can be assumed that in Italy the total number of persons who are deaf and dumb or who are severely or completely

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deaf exceeds 40,000, of which 15,000 aged 5 through 21 and these are especially fit for education” (Raseri 1880: 14). Estimating that eight years was the average duration of primary education for deaf persons, the local commission, composed of Milanese administrators and educators, split the number of school-age deaf people in two, and pitilessly stated that “Out of 7,000 deaf-mutes who are in the most suited age for education, only about 1,500 are redeemed to the condition of men – while primary education is compulsory for all Italians” (Raseri 1880: 7). But the situation of the deaf people in liberal Italy was even darker. The figures reported in Raseri’s survey, about deaf persons having been schooled in the nineteenth century were even less: “counting from the date when each institute for the deaf was first founded, the total number of those who concluded their school time, is 4419” (Raseri 1880: 29). This amounts to say that in about one century of education for the deaf, less than five thousand Italian deaf people had entirely completed the elementary school cycle. In conclusion, many deaf people lived in a situation of linguistic and cultural deprivation that risked compromising their cognitive development. Despite these limitations, however, there is no doubt that the possibility of being educated in an institution for the deaf was one of the most concrete opportunities to avert this risk. As it had been the case in France, also in Italy institutions for the deaf provided the chance “for deaf people to claim, for the first time in their history, to belong to a specific minority without territory or border, a ‘fraternity’ . . . that transcends social categories” (Encrevé 2012: 13). As a consequence, it is precisely in the nineteenth century that the first Italian deaf authors and educators began to leave historical traces: among them Giuseppe Minoja, Giacomo Carbonieri and Paolo Basso2 (Folchi & Mereghetti 1995; Pigliacampo 2000; Morandini 2010). They were part of the small minority of deaf people who had the privilege to attend one of the institutes. Finally, deaf people, although mostly with the support of their teachers, were acquiring the ability to participate in a reflection about their condition and to give life to the first associations of deaf people.3

2 Giuseppe Minoja (1812–1871) founded the Stabilimento dei Sordomuti di Santa Maria di Villanova and teacher in Pio Istituto Sordomuti di San Gualtiero di Lodi; Giacomo Carbonieri (1814–1879) was teacher in Educatorio per Sordomuti di Modena; Paolo Basso (1806–1879) became a teacher at Regio Istituto dei sordomuti di Torino. 3 The first association of deaf people in Italy was the Società di muto soccorso per i sordomuti, founded in Milan in 1874 and chaired by the deaf Milanese Felice Carbonera (1819–1881) and entrusted ‘for the care of souls’ to Giulio Tarra, rector of Pio istituto per sordomuti poveri di Milano.

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In Italy the contribution to deaf history by these first deaf authors was invaluable, but it did not affect the public image that deaf people had in the press of the time. Invariably, even in sector-specific press, two main roles were stably presented: “the unhappy one” and “the benefactor”. According to this narrative script, deaf persons were represented as the needy, the abnormal in need for a treatment that was typical of the nineteenth-century medical-assistive model that was being born just at that time. In his complementary role, the hearing, mostly an educator, represented the Christian and positivist philanthropist who took care of the derelict, and returned the derelict to the human assembly after having amended him. There is a lack of critical analysis about the representation of deafness in Italian nineteenth-century press. Italian press represented deafness by systematically resorting to rhetorical terms and constructions that confined deaf people in subordination. In those years, and again throughout the first half of the twentieth century, references to deaf persons were linguistically formulated in such a manner as to represent marginality and incompleteness, a lexicon was selected so that a deaf person was invariably unhappy, unfortunate, derelict, disgraced, sick and ignorant. Giuseppe Minoja, who was both the director of Stabilimento dei sordomuti di Villanova Siliero and “also was affected by that misfortune”, while appealing in favor of the institute he directed, summarized in a few lines the linguistic formulations I just described: I recommend the Stabilimento not only because of the great love I feel for those unhappy ones, with whom I share this misfortune . . . . Such unfortunate beings, who are however our fellow men and have our same rights, owing to their unhappiness circulate miserably, similar to automata, useless to themselves and to others. Why shouldn’t we not help them to return to their dignity, through education, since we can? Why should we not make them profitable for the common good? . . . I thank my father, and the very wise teacher D. Giuseppe Bagutti, who will indelibly enjoy my gratitude, who, by sharing an education with me, provided me with a second life, by far more precious than the first one. Oh, who could predict that, being myself deaf and dumb, I would become the teacher of my fellow sufferers!!! In this story about myself, you see the story of everyone else affected by the same misfortune. (Minoja 1852: 4)4

4 “Non è soltanto l’amore grandissimo che io sento per quelli infelici, con cui ho comune la sventura, che me ne fa raccomandare lo Stabilimento . . . Esseri sventurati, eppure nostri simili e aventi come noi l’istessi diritti, i quali per quella infelicità s’aggirano a guisa di miserabili autonomi, inutili a sé stessi ed agli altri, perché noi, che il possiamo, non concorreremo a restituirli per mezzo dell’istruzione allo loro dignità, a renderli profittevoli al bene comune? . . . infinite grazie rendo al padre mio, ed al sapientissimo maestro D. Giuseppe Bagutti, pel quale la mia riconoscenza sarà indelebile, che compartendomi quella educazione mi

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Printed sources concerning a controversy having as a protagonist otologist Eduardo Giampietro are equally interesting. Giampietro had a violent confrontation with his students from the Real Albergo dei Poveri in Naples and with the important deaf educators Giulio Ferreri and Carlo Perini (Perini 1889; Ferreri 1898; Giampietro 1902). These events took place at the end of nineteenth century, when the oralist approach (consisting in lipreading and voice education and excluding sign language) dominated both in institutions and, even more, in specialized publications. However, the oralist-oriented resolutions decided at the Congress of Milan were applied partially and intermittently, so much so that Giulio Ferreri, a very important educator of deaf students in Italy, lamented the partial failure of Milan’s resolutions: “We merely banned gesture from classes, but it was still accessible in the school, so that students and teachers would pick it up again at the end of school activities” (Congresso nazionale degli educatori dei sordomuti 1893: 100). There is no doubt that Italian institutes banned signs from the classrooms to confine them, with more or less tolerance, to personal relations only. A complex debate took place, centered on the accusation that Giampietro was carrying out unnecessary and inhuman treatment on his students. Giampietro’s deaf students as well left a documental trace, all the more important as it tells about their manner to construct the public discourse around deafness. Not surprisingly, Giampietro himself and the educators made use of the lexical repertoire just reported. But it is still more significant that even the deaf persons that took the word made use of the same terms and the same rhetoric. Deaf persons are unhappy and unfortunate also for deaf Roman activist Francesco Micheloni (1888, 10–16) and are “unhappy companions of misfortune” for deaf Biagio Maione (Roccaforte, Gulli, and Volterra 2017: 373). In this sense, the recommendations Micheloni addresses to parents of deaf children are typical: I hope that all parents who have had the serious misfortune of having a deaf and dumb child will not want to entrust him to the care of charlatans and impostors who promise miracles, always to serious detriment to the unhappy . . . [I wish] instead they will send them to boarding schools . . . where they will be loved and educated by intelligent and charitable tutors. (Micheloni 1888: 7)5

diedero una seconda vita, d’assai più preziosa della prima. Oh, chi avrebbe detto, che io sordo–muto dovessi poi essere maestro dé miei infelici compagni d’infortunio!!! In questa storia che riguarda me stesso, voi vedete la storia di tutti gli altri colpiti dalla medesima sciagura”. 5 Mi auguro che tutti i genitori che abbiano avuto la grave sventura di avere un figlio sordomuto non vorranno affidarlo alle cure di ciarlatani e impostori che promettono mari e monti e sempre con grave detrimento degli infelici . . . invece invieranno nei collegi . . . dove saranno amati ed educati da intelligenti e caritatevoli precettori.

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Micheloni (Figure 22) is not just any character, but one of the most important figures in the Italian deaf community of the late nineteenth century. This is how Edward Miner Gallaudet describes Micheloni, on his return trip from Europe: . . . a highly educated deaf man, with a good command of speech, who holds a position in the Royal bureau of statistics . . . the editor of L’Avvenire dei Sordomuti . . . in the year 1896. He attended the Geneva Congress of deaf-mutes of that year, as a representative of the minister of public instruction at Rome, and made a report to that official, in which he warmly endorsed to recommendations of the Congress in favor of the combined system, though he had been educated in the Royal Institution in Milan. (U.S. Department of Interior 1897, 643)6

Figure 22: Francesco Micheloni and his signature.

Yet, Micheloni hardly escapes the marginalizing rhetoric in public discourse on deafness that divided the field between “unhappy ones” and “benefactors”. A process of internalization of the dominant discourse was taking place: Gramsci has written on this topic, by the way of hegemony, and Italians scholars of subalternity have followed him (Gramsci 1975; Forgacs 2014). With respect to the history of Italian deaf people, Gramsci’s theoretical framework has been taken

6 In the English–speaking world, ‘combined system’ means an education system for the deaf, headed by the Scottish deaf educator Thomas Braidwood (1715–1806) who used signs, words, written language and fingerspelling (Kyle & Woll: 1994). It was “the glory of our great American system to take and combine all means and methods . . . and it has thus come to be known as the combined system” (U.S. Office of Education 1902: 113). In Italy the appellation ‘mixed method’ was given to a system halfway between the ‘method of gestures’ and the ‘oralist or word method’: it was a method “sitting between the two of them, and endorsed both methods” (Fornari 1897: 67).

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up to analyze deaf people consideration regarding sign language (Des Dorides & Sala 2020). Discursive power, the power to define who persons are, however, is not purely symbolic: it produces and presupposes reality. It is both the result of a power exercised by those who possess the means of production of discourse, and it acts through its illocutionary power in shaping subjectivities (Bourdieu 1998). The nineteenth-century deaf community, therefore, would have had to make a double effort of emancipation: both in acquiring the means of production of discourse and in structuring new epistemologies. Despite the great progress they had made, Italian deaf people would not be able to break the system of symbolic representations describing both the material conditions of their existence and themselves. Throughout the nineteenth century, therefore, relating to power and accessing the material tools for the production of discourse meant having to pass through hearing people, and through institutions for deaf education. Their support often took the form of plain and simple patronage. This state of affairs was progressively overcome only in the second half of the twentieth century thanks to the birth of deaf associations, such as ENS, Ente Nazionale Sordi (chapter 7b), and the diffusion of sign language research, as it was started by William Stokoe. This wave arrived in Italy in the late 1970s (Manfredi Montanini, Fruggeri, & Facchini 1979; Volterra & Stokoe 1985; chapter 11b).

5b.3 We still have a dream In 1988, Gallaudet University students started a sensational protest, “Deaf President Now!”, opposing the election of Elisabeth Zinser, the only hearing candidate among the three ones proposed to the board (Christiansen & Barnartt 1995; Gannon 2009). At that time, the American Disability Act (1990) was in preparation, and American media were prepared to interpret the struggles for the rights of people with disabilities in terms of battles for civil rights (Bond 2014). “Deaf President Now!” therefore received a great deal of attention from national press, bringing into the homes of Americans a representation of deaf people as a group fighting for their rights and no longer in terms of sad cases and supercrips7 (Haller 1992).

7 The word “supercrip” derives from the proud and provocative use of the term crip –crippled– used by people with disabilities. Instead of having a positive connotation, the term ‘supercrip’ is used to denounce the stereotype of the heroic disabled person who overcomes his/her own limits and/or develops special talents to adapt to the performance of able–bodied people. It is a term widely used in reference to the rhetoric around Paralympic athletes.

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For Gallaudet students, “Deaf President Now!” meant opposition to both hearing oppression and to the idea attributed by protesters to Jane Bassett Spilman, chair of board of Gallaudet, that “Deaf people are not ready to function in a hearing world” (Shapiro 1993: 78). The board was pressed between strong grass-roots pressures and the political will of several members of Congress that, by the way, was the first contributor to Gallaudet’s budget. After seven days of protests, on March 13, 1988, the board accepted and even exceeded the demands of the demonstrators. The unheard of became reality: King I. Jordan was to become the first deaf president of Gallaudet, Philip Bravin the first deaf chair of board, and half the new board was composed of deaf people. It was a real revolution, destined to change Gallaudet forever, and with it, the American and the international deaf community. The protagonists of the story were well aware of the importance of the event, and they announced the beginning of a new era to the world, through Jordan’s very hands, “This is an historic moment for deaf people around the world . . . we, together and unite, have overcome our own reluctance to stand for our rights and for our full representation. The world has watched the deaf community come of age. We can no longer accept limits on what we can achieve” (Shapiro 1993: 83). Gallaudet’s revolt was not only a struggle against a 124-years-long symbolic violence that had been lasting since the university was founded, but also a struggle for the empowerment of deaf people. In 1988, there was few deaf staff employed at Gallaudet and the contribution of deaf people to university political decisions was small. From 1988 onwards, the number of administrative and didactic deaf staff steadily increased from 25% in 1988 to 50% in 2012. Deaf presence also increased steadily in the board, passing from 4 out of 19 in 1988, to an absolute majority. After Jordan, only deaf presidents were appointed. With “Deaf President Now!”, Gallaudet progressively transformed into a ‘mecca’, and so did the American deaf community (Armstrong 2014). American deaf people were now able to participate in an academic discourse on deafness that had until then mostly been built by and for hearing academics, without deaf contribution, in a language that was not that of deaf people (Humphries 2014). Thanks to their greater involvement in top roles at Gallaudet, deaf students and academics began to structure new concepts of how deaf people, individually and as a group, could express their full potential, and claim their real linguistic, cultural and identity needs, through knowledge and participation (Holcomb 2012). However, “Deaf President Now!” should not be seen as a single event but as a process, since increase in deaf staff had started before and would continue after 1988, with the goal to finally control Gallaudet (Armstrong 2014).

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“Deaf President Now!”, within the context of this chapter, is a model for deaf persons taking a more or less stable possession of the means, skills and abilities to develop alternative epistemologies and claim the right to speak for themselves. Something comparable happened in Italy in the second post-war period, but was partly forgetten. In the second half the twentieth century, an increase has taken place in deaf people’s ability to speak for themselves, both politically and academically. Such a transformation has been favored by two factors: ENS becoming a political interlocutor of the Italian central government (chapter 7b), and studies on sign language becoming important in Italian linguistic research (chapter 11b). The Italian deaf community has just achieved recognition of LIS, Italian sign language, a recognition that has not yet been operatively enacted. In the past twenty years, struggles for the recognition of sign languages have catalyzed the hopes of deaf communities throughout the world (Pabsch 2017) and many laws have been approved. But at a closer inspection, results are still unstable, and include recognitions – such as in the British Sign Language laws in Scotland, acknowledging BSL as a minority languages (Lawson et al. 2019) –, side by side with implicit acknowledgments within provisions on accessibility and rights of people with disabilities – such as in the US Americans with Disabilities Act, or, for a long time before recognition, in 104/1992 law in Italy (Murray 2019; Geraci & Insolera 2019). The story of LIS recognition is significant in representing the challenges that deaf communities are facing at the beginning of the millennium. In Italy, a paradoxical situation has been occurring as sign language was recognized by many regional parliaments but not by the national one, although Italian law includes the concept of a non-territorial linguistic minority in law 482/1999 (Marziale 2018). Recognizing LIS within laws on rights of people with disabilities and accessibility had created a competition for resources between supporters and opponents of sign language. As a consequence, while hostility to sign languages was radically diminishing at a social level, it was still strong in parliament, in both right-wing and left-wing parties. The idea that sign language is not a real language was being proposed by many: it would be more correct to speak of “linguaggio o tecnica dei segni, anziché di lingua” [a code or a technique of signs, rather than language] (onorevole Molteni, Partito Democratico); “linguaggio o tecnica comunicativa mimico-gestuale” [a code or a mimic-gestural communication technique] (onorevole Binetti, Unione di Centro); “linguaggio o tecnica comunicativa” [a code or a communication technique], (onorevole Rondini, Lega Nord Padania) (Camera dei deputati, Commissione Affari Sociali 2011, 2–3). All of this, while within the international community of linguists since decades no one was either opposing or doubting that sign languages are real languages (Stokoe 1960; Pfau, Steinbach, & Woll 2012).

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Those opposing sign language rejected coexistence between minority rights and disability rights, denying deafness any interpretation outside the medical one: Crucially, in Italy the movement of persons with disabilities cannot conceive communities based on a specific type of disability. It would be paradoxical to legislate to promote a community of deaf, dystrophic, polio, blind, paraplegic and obese people. Rather, policies should be produced for social inclusion, to overcome handicap and to affirm personal autonomy and independent life. Therefore, today, recognizing LIS as the language of a cultural and linguistic minority, that is of the community of deaf people, would be anachronistic and misleading, would create a discriminatory stigma for deaf people, who, instead, are in need of protection. (FISH, Federazione Italiana per il Superamento dell’Handicap 2016: 2)8

All of this, while the World Health Organization has, in The Classification for Functioning and Disability, a parallel definition of disability that is both medical and social (WHO 2001; chapter 1b), and the United Nations, in their 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have recognized the right to sign languages (articles 9, 21, 24, 30). Having acquired the power to speak for oneself, the Italian deaf community today claims to overcome once and for all the “sick role” that has been built by a medical model. The recognition of sign language has been obtained. The claim at issue is now rather a political request, not so much about the recognition of a language, but about recognition and legitimization in one’s specificity (Honneth 2019).

8 “È indispensabile premettere che in Italia il movimento delle persone con disabilità non può concepire che esista una comunità fondata su una specifica tipologia di disabilità. Sarebbe veramente paradossale legiferare per promuovere una comunità di sordi, di distrofici o di poliomielitici, di ciechi o di paraplegici e di obesi ecc., piuttosto che produrre politiche per l’inclusione sociale e il superamento dell’handicap e affermare il diritto all’autonomia personale per una vita indipendente. Riconoscere dunque la LIS, quale lingua della minoranza culturale e linguistica ovvero della comunità delle persone sorde, apparirebbe oggi anacronistico e fuorviante, creerebbe uno stigma negativo e discriminatorio per le persone sorde che invece si vorrebbero tutelare” (FISH 2016: 2).

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6a First jobs In a time when Italy was transformed by Southern workers moving to the industrial north, one unique person was moving from the north towards the south, following a call into work: me. The Italian Law (n. 482, 1968) in use at that time, provided quotas for deaf persons in public and private employments. I enquired about a job in Florence banks, but they had already filled their quotas. I was asked if I was interested in a job in Sicily – I realized I could have grown up by leaving my nest. It was 1977. I was happy, I was a grown-up person, I would be living on my own, independent from my family, autonomous. This experience was going to be possible, even simple, and I would be managing my life with my own means. First thing, I had to have a home. But a flashback is essential at this point of the story. Among the social acquaintances of my “four parents”, there was Armando Giuranna, who was at the time the president of the Palermo section of ENS. Armando had a favorite niece, Rosaria, who was around my age. Armando began to strongly promote a friendship between me and Rosaria, “Anna, you definitely have to meet her!” I had little interest in this relationship, since I knew Rosaria was hard-of-hearing. My previous experiences with hard-of-hearing persons had been difficult, I thought hard-of-hearing persons put up their nose to profoundly Deaf persons as I was. I said yes to Armando, but I was not interested. At the same time, Armando was talking to Rosaria, “There is a Deaf girl from Florence, she is so good, you ought to be friends”. Rosaria thought to herself, “These persons from the North, they put up their nose to Southern Italians as I am”. Time went by, and one day Armando invited me, uncle Gastone and aunt Vittorina to spend our holidays in Sicily. The three of us got in the train to Sicily. It was August 1974, and we arrived in Palermo. Armando told my uncle and aunt that they were supposed to sleep at his place, and I was supposed to be accommodated at Rosaria’s place. Separately, Rosaria and I resisted, feeling forced to a solution we were dissatisfied about. I said to my aunt, “I’d better look for a hotel”, but she replied, “Too late, too inconsiderate, how could we ever motivate this decision?” I kept silent. In the meantime, Rosaria, instead of spending her time with us, organized to have a good time with sisters and friends. The time came we had to meet, at 6 p.m., in front of Armando’s house. Rosaria got off her car, with her sisters and a friend of hers. Everyone introduced oneself, hands were shaken. Rosaria approached me, I approached her, and we hugged tight and kissed. A friendship was coming into existence, that would last forty-eight years – https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-011

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until now, and is to be continued. Apart from my husband, no one else is so much a part of myself as Rosaria is. Her friendship has constantly been pure, true, unique (Figure 23). But what an uncommon manner to start a friendship.

Figure 23: Anna and Rosaria Giuranna.

Figure 24: The Giuranna family. The dark-haired beautiful woman standing on the right is Rosaria.

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The story of my arrival in Palermo has been interrupted at the moment I was looking for a home, so let us resume it. When I moved to Palermo Rosaria and I became inseparable. At first, I lived with her family (Figure 24), who was extraordinarily welcoming. Rosaria’s father used to say, “I do not have four, but five children”, with me supposed to be the fifth. Rosaria who had been living at home with her family, decided she would transfer as well, in order to share a flat with me. And we started looking for a place to live. When one looks for an apartment to rent, a colleague of Rosaria told us, one must be properly dressed, even elegantly dressed. Otherwise, the landlords are going to prefer someone else. Rosaria and I visited a beautiful apartment in the city center, in via Notarbartolo. It was in a prestigious area of the city, the judge Falcone, who has marked the history of Italian State fight against Mafia, was living not too far away from our door. The rent cost us a considerable amount of money, but we accepted it. The space at home was limited, but for seven years we have been very happy in sharing it. And “sharing” is really the word: we shared friends and free time activities, we shared the experience of LIS teaching, we shared our experience with theatre – additional elements of the theatre experience of my time in Palermo will be told in chapter 8a –, and we also shared work: we worked in the same bank. We were Siamese sisters. When my job at the bank started, everyone was peering at me. I was a woman, I had no boyfriend, I was pretty, I was one who had just transferred from the north to the south. All men were wagging tails. I was quick to understand that my uncle Gastone, when I had come of age, had told me something very, very appropriate. My uncle used to tell me, “You have to watch out, and mind how you behave. Be strong, and do not come to us to complain: men are hunters, they are just built that way. Be determined, do not be undecisive. They invite you out for a date, for a dinner – No, thanks. You lower your head – it is your problem. You play the game – it is your problem. I am not going to interfere, you are not a child, you are of age”. I did my best to be strong, I confronted this new context with my head held high. So, I took good care to occupy my time typing. As soon as my director brought me documents, I lost no time, I settled down to work. After some time, I enquired him: is typing going to be my job? I have more competences than this . . . But this is a story I have already told in chapter 1a. Truth is, three hearing fellow-workers of mine that I had contributed to professionally train have been appointed funzionarie, and have had a career in Palermo. I haven’t. With time, in Palermo, I have remained a simple employee. When we had section meetings (Figure 25), I used to say, “I am Deaf, may we have an interpreter, so that I can participate?”. But my manager used to reply,

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“Never mind, do concentrate on my mouthing, it will be comprehensible”, but then, after some time he turned around, and I could not lipread any more.

Figure 25: Group photos of my work environment in Palermo’s section of the bank Banco di Sicilia.

To be fair, I ought also to mention the time when the bank, which now was Unicredit – as Banco di Sicilia had merged with it –, organized activities in favor of Deaf and Blind employees. I used to say to my colleagues, “You use the wrong terminology – “non udenti, linguaggio dei segni”1 – your approach is wrong”, so I was requested to tell my experience in public, and report about how my colleagues related to me, more or less effectively. I made my position known and explained how many problems they gave me. But Palermo was not only work, and I was once involved in an extraordinarily upsetting episode. In 1979, I already had many acquaintances, and we used to be regular customers in elegant restaurants. In that period of time, robberies in restaurants had been reported. One Saturday night, I was at Palermo’s ENS, with Deaf friends and some plain-clothes policemen who were good signers. The proposition was made that we would dine out, and, incidentally, I light-heartedly said, “Let’s hope we will not be robbed”. “Come on! That would be really unusual!” was the obvious answer. So, we drove to the central restaurant “Cuccagna”. That evening, most tables were occupied, and the first table on the left, close to

1 “Non udente” means, word for word, “non hearing”. Italian Deaf signers prefer to be labelled “Deaf”, rather than being defined for a character they lack. “Linguaggio dei segni” refers to sign language by using the word “linguaggio” rather than “lingua”. In Italian, “linguaggio” is a general word, meaning a system of signs, a code; whereas “lingua” is a natural language, a human one.

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the entrance, was selected for us. I sat turning my back to the entrance door. At a certain moment, the person sitting to my left blocked my hand, “Don’t get worked up, sit still”. “What’s up?” I lightly turned my head, and saw two robbers with women stockings on their faces, one with a gun, one with a knife. I could not believe it, I thought they might be shooting a movie. Firstly, the robbers had the chefs and waiters exit, and then all the customers stand close to wall. One robber started to assemble everyone’s valuables in a bag. I remained sitting, as static as I could, as a sort of hostage. I had money, jewels on me. One robber pointed his gun on my face. I could perceive that he was talking, but his nose and mouth were flattened under the women stockings, and it was impossible for me to lipread him. I was trembling. “I am deaf-and-dumb”, I said. He nodded with his head as if comprehending. The one with the knife came closer, but the first one explained with a gesture that I was mute, and they left me alone. I relaxed. I was available to present them with my valuables, but they were not interested in them. They disappeared from sight. The proprietor of the restaurant approached, “Still, still”, she said. When she heard a car driving away, she signaled we might sit down. The two policemen we had previously met that evening entered, and an explanation was provided for them. “Anna, you had forecast this”, they signed to me. That evening, I had experienced a great fear. To overcome it, I returned to the same restaurant, in order to positively sense that all was well. After some months, the robbers were captured and secured to justice. I received a summon to appear in court. At the time, no professional interpreter existed that could guide me through the judicial procedure. I was worked up: I was potentially going to be unable to comprehend any of the events taking place in court, how could have I properly participated? I enquired around to see if I could decline. Practically anyone I talked to told me it was impossible, and I was given permission from my superiors at work. I had to present myself. That morning, the court was congested with plenty of people, lawyers, families of defendants, eight to nine robbers behind bars, and everyone was very worked up. I had seen a woman, whom I had identified as the moderator, and had told her about my identity and that I was Deaf, “I wished I did not have to be present”, I told her. “Don’t worry”, and when my time came to approach the judge, she informed me that my name had been called. As I advanced towards the judges, I had to walk along the area where the robbers were. The robbers were young, seventeen to eighteen years old. I did my best not to look at them. As I moved, someone must have said aloud “This woman is Deaf”, and I perceived that in the group of the defendants someone was agitating: they had recognized me. It was simple, I was the only Deaf. I was worked up, I took my place, they told me to raise my hand and place it on the Bible. They spoke clearly, “Were you there?”, “I was”. “Can you state that the

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events that were mentioned really took place?”, “I do”. “You can go”, “So, can I go?”. I perceived the group of the indicted men following me with their eyes. The thought of this adventure accompanies me to the present, it has been a unique, terrible experience. But in retrospect, plausibly, something good was to be found in those young boys as well, as they had not wanted the valuables of a Deaf woman.

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6b Deaf people from school to labor in ten European countries 6b.1 Introduction In most societies, a measure of one’s social role is the job one has. Since education has become of central importance in the labor market over the last century, this is the main motivation for students to engage in studies lasting years: getting a job, and possibly getting a good job through education, is generally considered a great achievement. How many deaf people work? And with what qualifications? Is education important for them to be employed and to get a qualified occupation? What policies have been successful in bringing them to employment? Were such policies meant for deaf people in as much as they are considered disabled? Do deaf people experience limitations in the form of barriers in their working environments? This chapter will disaggregate for the first time quantitative data about the employment of deaf people in Europe in order to tackle a series of issues that have been theoretically debated in the field of Deaf studies. On a more theoretical level, and possibly most importantly, this chapter will be able to provide evidence about a central issue in Deaf studies: is the intensive criticism that has characterized Deaf studies productions justified? Michel Foucault, influential on all Deaf leaders who are also scholars, proposed the notion of microphysics of power (chapter 1b): it is this notion that will be put to test in this chapter. But let us proceed orderly and consider in detail the theoretical assertions advanced by scholars in Deaf studies that this chapter will provide evidence to support or refute.

First research question. Do Deaf people benefit from labor legislation that considers them disabled? Deaf people usually claim they are not disabled, but rather a linguistic minority – still, legislation in most states align deaf persons and disabled persons. An important movement of disabled people originated within British academic environment and British disabled organizations during the Sixties, it subsequently extended to scholars in the United States and in other countries https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-012

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and produced its most important political results in the Seventies. It first introduced the idea that physical impairments are distinct from disabilities, and disabilities are in fact a product of the social environment. It is society that must change in order to adapt to disabled people, not disabled people to society (Oliver 1990: 3). The values supported especially by UPIAS, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, were basically mainstreaming, autonomy, habilitation, control over one’s own life, and, what is the topic of this chapter, employment for disabled persons. Strongly politicized as it was, the disability movement called all disabled people to unity, irrespective of the specific characters in the condition of each category. Deaf leaders and Deaf Studies scholars, however, were engaged, since the late Seventies and the Eighties, in defending a cultural representation of deafness, as opposed to a medical one (Padden & Humphries 1988; Lane 1984a; Lane 1984b; Ladd 2003. More on this debate in chapter 9b). Having in mind as an interlocutor not the disability movement, but oppressive society – for them, “hearing” society, but in fact, the same society that leaders of the disability movement denounced as disabling – Deaf leaders in fact ended up responding to the disability movement that Deaf signers, characterized as they are by their minority languages, i.e., sign languages, are not disabled (one quote among many, Lane 1999: 22. More on this in chapter 9b). The unity among disabled people was broken – and unity in labor struggles is generally considered crucial. Still, the disability movement continued to lead its fight, and successfully so. Do deaf people benefit from labor legislation that considers them disabled? This research question will be addressed qualitatively.

Second research question: Are deaf people treated equally, as compared to their hearing peers, as far as access to employment is concerned? Equity in the access to employment is a fundamental measure of social justice in a state. It is crucial to get to know whether deaf people are or are not treated equally as compared to hearing people, in their country’s labor markets. In addition to labor markets, Europe provides a system of welfare provisions that other States – the United States, to say one – do not provide. Are the employment rates the same between deaf and hearing people? What are the welfare provisions that have been effective in the European countries considered?

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Third research question: Is there an unequal distribution in power, as there is a systematic lack of reciprocity in deaf and hearing persons’ occupations? Persons exercise power on other persons throughout their professional roles. It is what Michel Foucault identified as a microphysics of power (chapter 1b). Whenever such power is reciprocal, if only throughout time, as the student of today evolves into the physician of tomorrow, one would say that the situation can be somehow more justifiable. But when access to occupations that are strongly influential on one’s condition is practically barred, a problem of power becomes apparent. Whoever enters the field of deaf education, or any other branch of the audist1 establishment, generally enters on the understanding that there will be no mutuality between the benefactor and the beneficiary. An imbalance is inherent whenever an adult teaches a child, because of difference in age and power, but that difference is multiplied many times over in deaf education, counseling and rehabilitation, for the client is generally not perceived as even potentially a provider one day. (Lane 1999: 77)

Incontestably, some occupations imply exercising power, and others only imply undergoing power. Deaf persons, with no exception, are subject to doctors’, speech therapists’, and teachers’ directive guidance and decisions. So, an unequal distribution of power for deaf persons would be not only in not being a supervisor in one’s factory or office (chapter 13b), but also in deaf people, as a category, never becoming a doctor, a teacher, an interpreter – and not only for a deaf, but also for a hearing public. An objection to this demand for reciprocity would be that access to some occupations is blocked by a person’s inability to hear. But in some occupations deaf persons might outperform hearing persons, being signers – a quality in which deaf people excel. In fact, as deaf persons are citizens, services to them are a state’s or a society’s duty. “The role [of deaf people] in programs that provide services to deaf people is severely restricted” (Lane 1999: 23). Deaf signers who are nurses for deaf elderly people whose sight has lowered and for whom lip-reading has become impossible; deaf signers as kindergarten teachers for deaf toddlers who need to acquire sign languages; deaf signers at all levels in education, to teach directly in sign language; deaf psychoanalysts to perceive the nuances of a deaf signer’s unconscious discourse; deaf cultural mediators for deaf immigrants who just landed on the European coasts; deaf researchers to become better aware of what the deaf condition is; 1 “Audism” can be defined as a form of discrimination based on different auditive conditions.

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deaf journalists to broadcast in signs; deaf politicians to represent the specific needs of the Deaf community, and on and on: for certain professional roles, a deaf signer is the best possible candidate. If only to also take care of signers, deaf persons need access to health, education, psychosocial, research, and political positions, in all sorts of Institutions. Institutions where their work must be performed side by side with hearing peers and, whatever the specialization, must equally address hearing and deaf persons. Is power unequally distributed between deaf and hearing people? Following Michel Foucault’s argument about a microphysics of power that is exercised throughout occupational roles, power would be unequally distributed in the case occupational roles were not equally accessed by deaf and hearing persons. To be more specific, this research question would be answered in an affirmative way in case deaf persons had a reduced access to powerful professional positions as compared to hearing persons, and a greater access to less powerful professional positions.

Fourth research question: Is research on deafness justified in devoting a great space to deaf education? It may seem inappropriate to treat a research question about education in this chapter, that focuses on employment – but it is not. Success in education is a prerequisite to favorably access the labor market. So, a distinction should be made between inequalities arising in the labor market or from ineffective welfare provisions, and inequalities generated by education, that are subsequently transposed to the labor market. This domain is usually labelled in terms of returns to education, or what one gets back, in terms of an occupation, income, etc., from the educational level he or she achieved (Psacharopoulos 1981; 1994). Access to employment, for instance, in the United States, is mediated by educational credentials. In the United States there is a gap between deaf and hearing people, as far as access to employment is concerned; such a gap varies for deaf people according to their higher or lower educational credentials. A study concerning 2014 data collected in the United States stated: “the employment gap between hearing and deaf people does narrow as levels of educational attainment increase. The largest employment gap between deaf and hearing people is found in individuals who did not complete high school education (26%), and the smallest employment gap is found in individuals with a terminal degree (14%). Having a bachelors’ or masters’ degree appears to reduce the employment gap to 16–17%” (Garberoglio, Cawthon, & Bond 2016: 6).

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Inequalities may exist in access to employment but also in access to managerial/professional occupations as opposed to manual occupation. We will consider whether inequalities exist, and whether they relate to the realm of labor or rather they lay their roots in education.

Fifth research question: Are deaf people comparatively in difficult economic conditions and exposed to the risk of poverty? During his intervention at the World Symposium on Deaf Theatre in 1977, Jean Grémion (chapter 8b) presented a balance concerning the social situation of deaf people and observed that in various parts of the world there are a series of different conditions for the deaf community to live in. He could observe “emancipation from hearing tutelage” in the US, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark; deaf people being “managed by official organizations”, in the USSR and the former Eastern communist bloc; deaf people having “started their fight for emancipation” in France, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, West Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela; deaf people being “low in the social ladder, and knowing nothing but destitution and hunger” in poor countries, such as Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Uganda, Soudan (Grémion 2017: 125). Jean Grémion’s remark about destitution and hunger is most unsettling. What is taking place presently in Europe, as far as the economic condition of deaf people is concerned?

Sixth research question: Are Deaf people disabled by hearing people who surround them? What Harlan Lane meant, when he subtitled his 1999 book “Disabling the Deaf Community [our emphasis]”, had mostly to do with the medical framework that, as Lane argued, is not the only, and not the wisest manner to understand deafness. There is another approach that, although quite distinct from Lane’s, uses the word “to disable” as a verb, meaning that disability is imposed, rather than natural: it is the International Classification of Functioning and Disabilities, briefly, ICF, issued by the World Health Organization. According to ICF, it is the social context that can be disabling (chapter 1b). The data used in this chapter will permit to answer to a more limited question than the one posed by Harlan Lane, more limited in space – Europe –, time –

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2011 –, and context – the working environment. The question will be: are social barriers removed from deaf people working environments, so that deaf people do not have to be, or to feel, disabled?

6b.2 As far as employment is concerned, did deaf people benefit from being considered disabled? It is very difficult to quantitatively address the question whether deaf people have benefited from being considered disabled. This hides in fact a counterfactual question, meaning that data should be collected to document a situation in which deaf people are considered disabled, and a corresponding situation in which deaf people are not considered disabled. Equality in front of the law excludes this possibility within Western countries. As an alternative, one would have to compare distinct countries in which deaf people are / are not considered disabled. To our knowledge, no such state exists at present, where deaf people are not considered disabled – with the exception of Scandinavian countries, whose legislation does not consider anyone as disabled, and provides for each individual need, by respecting its uniqueness. Even comparing deaf people with disabled people is not a good solution, as there are types of disabilities that may have a history of their own with respect to the labor market, due to objective difficulties that disabled people have and deaf people do not have. To make an example, persons with intellectual disabilities may experience greater difficulties than Deaf people in being recruited, or persons with mobility difficulties can find specific difficulties since adapted transportation means and working facilities are not adequately provided. The option that remains is to address the question qualitatively. In the specific, we will take in consideration whether disabled people’s fights for labor legislation have produced a situation more favorable to deaf people as well, and we will consider, country by country, whether deaf people have or have not been included in legislation on labor concerning disabled people. Let us start with a story that began in the Sixties, in the United Kingdom. It is the story of a debate, that was principally led by academicians and by UPIAS, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation. “In our view it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society”. (UPIAS 1975a; UPIAS & DA 1975). Mike Oliver, one of UPIAS leaders and an academic,

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coined in 1983 the phrase “social model of disability”. UPIAS strongly supported notions of inclusion, mainstreaming in society, autonomy, and employment, rather than assistive financial support. Campaigning for employment, as opposed to pensions, was one of the central topics of controversy between UPIAS and another British organization of disabled people, the Disability Alliance: “Benefits” which are not carefully related to the struggle for integrated employment and active social participation will constantly be used to justify our dependence and exclusion from the mainstream of life – the very opposite of what is intended. This is why the Alliance’s appeal to the state for legislation to implement a comprehensive, national disability incomes scheme is in reality nothing so much as a programme to obtain and maintain in perpetuity the historical dependence of physically impaired people on charity. (UPIAS & DA 1975b: 15)

All benefits that the State may allocate to disabled people should be directed to their work integration, “Financial and other help is placed here in relation to the achievement of independence and integration into ordinary employment. This is the fundamental principle by which schemes for meeting the financial and other needs of disabled people can be judged” (UPIAS & DA 1975: 15). This clearness of mind is extraordinarily valuable, but the story told here is not only about ideas and campaigning, but also about political success. In fact, not all political ideas are equally successful. A chronological sequence connects the values supported in UPIAS campaigns to International Organizations’ Charters of Rights. In 1983, the International Labour Organization issued a Convention on the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons. Just a coincidence? Maybe. But future developments would confirm this line, so that, at present, it is a generally accepted view (Lenz 2008: 718) that the 2001 World Health Organization “International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health”, and the 2006 United Nations “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” have strongly been influenced – or are even based – on the “social model of disability”, especially in their most innovative parts. The United Nation Convention’s Article 27, concerning work and employment, reads: “State Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to work, on an equal basis with others; this includes the right to the opportunity to gain a living by work freely chosen or accepted in a labour market and work environment that is open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities”. The European Union, in turn, supported the integration in work of disabled people with legislation and policies, “The European Community has actively promoted the integration of people with disabilities since the early 1980s. As

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part of the comprehensive European Union Disability Strategy adopted in 1999, the Commission set up or supported consultative bodies and committed itself to mainstreaming disability in its own socioeconomic policies” (Scharle 2013: 1). Such policies include Directive 2000/78/EC against discrimination at work on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation; articles 3, 21 and 26 of the 2012 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; and the European Commission’s European Disability Strategy 2010–2020. It is important to observer, however, that in addition to UPIAS’ ideas and international conventions, employment rights for disabled workers also have other roots. The story we just told evolved in a relatively recent history. Policies addressing disabled people were introduced in Europe much earlier, in the first half of the Twentieth century. In most European states, employment was provided to disabled persons with quota legislation that was first introduced since the early Twentieth century, specifically to provide for persons who suffered from war invalidity, either after World War I (Austria, 1920; France, 1924) or World War II (Italy, 1947; United Kingdom, 1944. See Thornton & Lunt 1997). In most states, with time, and throughout the Twentieth century, quota legislation has been enlarged. Of the eight countries here considered, only Spain, Poland, and Portugal issued quota legislation recently, but not so recently as to arrive after the promulgation of international Charters of Rights: they respectively introduced quotas in 1983 for Spain, in 1997 for Poland, and in 2001 and 2019 for Portugal. Incidentally, only two out of the eight European countries here considered do not have a quota legislation: Sweden, and, recently, the United Kingdom.2 In the United Kingdom, the 1944 “Disabled Persons Employment Act” established quotas that were only partially enacted and were then abandoned with the 1995 “Disability Discrimination Act”. Crucially, the United Kingdom is the state where disabled organizations had to lead their struggle for employment in the Seventies – a state whose legislation was quite at odds with the rest of Europe. Many recent policies, however, have a fourth, additional origin, distinct from UPIAS’ fights, international charters, and quota legislations. In parallel to social rights, something else took place, that is usually especially effective: to the discourse about rights, the economic discourse added. A series of economic evaluations were advanced by OECD about the economic costs of having an ageing population becoming growingly disabled and inactive (OECD 2008; 2010).

2 Additional discussion of quota policies is to be found in the following footnote and in the section within 6b.3 having as a title “Employment quotas as the most substantial European welfare intervention”.

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Over the next 50 years, all countries will experience a steep increase in the share of retirees and a large decline in the share of the population of prime-age workers. (OECD 2010: 23–24) Disability prevalence increases sharply with age, which is critical in view of population ageing. (OECD 2010: 37) The shrinking and ageing populations projected for most OECD countries over the coming decades mean that increasing labour force participation rates among people with disability will be important in securing labour force supply. (OECD 2010: 37)

“Disability policy” is then classed as “an essential economic objective” (OECD 2010: 22). Crucially, policies to employ disabled people, in all the countries considered in this study, addressed the disabled population without distinctions, Deaf people just merging into the more comprehensive heading of “disabled”. Only in Italy, between 1958 and 1999, there was a separate quota to recruit Deaf persons, separate from the quota relative to disabled persons in general (chapter 7b).3 In synthesis, not only the rights to employment, but also employment policies for deaf persons have historically depended on deaf persons being included in the category of disabled persons in general. Many factors contributed to these rights and policies. Disabled associations’ struggle has been one in at least four possible major factors, the others three being early Twentieth-century

3 Here is the situation regarding employment quotas, country by country: Austria –“There is no comprehensive disability legislation in Austria” (Thornton 1997: 31). France – Legislation is sometimes fragmented by sector. With regard to general laws, as far as 2011 data are concerned: 1910 Code du Travail, L5213 ; laws 23 november 1957, 30 juin 1975, 10 juillet 1987 and 11 février 2005. After 2011, loi de finances de 2011 and loi 5 septembre 2018. Italy: legislation for specific employment quota for Deaf persons: law 308/1958 valuable until 1999; laws for disabled persons in general: 482/68, 118/71, 104 /1992, 68/1999. Poland: Act on Rehabilitation (Dz.U. 1997 Nr 123 poz. 776). Portugal – as far as 2011 data are concerned, Despacho Normativo 218/80 and Decreto–Lei n. 29/2001; after 2011, Lei n.º 4/2019. Spain – as far as 2011 data are concerned: Laws 13/1982, 1451/1983, 198/1987, 51/2003, 49/ 2007; after 2011: Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2013. Sweden – 1974 Security of Employment Act intended for all employees, that covers disabled persons as well; 1977 Work Environment Act legally obligates employers to adapt working conditions to individuals’ physical and mental requirements; in 1994 a Disability Ombudsman is established to monitor about rights and interests of disabled people, lobby government, and annually report to Parliament (Thornton 1997: 308, 315); Law 628/2000 about Labour market policies. United Kingdom – Disabled Persons Employment Act in 1944. Disability Discrimination Act, in 1995. More recently: the 2010 Equality Act.

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war invalidity legislation, international Charters of Rights, and economic evaluations about the good functioning of labor markets. As long as a fight for one’s rights is envisioned, as can be necessary in countries that lack welfare provisions and where equality is not realized, unity is an asset: whether it be with disability movements – as it was suggested in the United Kingdom –; with civil rights movements – that is the umbrella covering the 1990 Americans with Disability Act in the United States –; or with trade unionist movements – as ILO reports as being taking place at present (ILO [no date]. More on this topic in chapter 13b). But when equality is realized, and we will shortly see this takes place in many Europeans countries, a very promising manner of treating Deaf people is the one that Scandinavian countries have developed. Such countries have succeeded in supporting any disadvantaged person, without grouping them in categories that were perceived as discriminating, but by treating them as individuals. In Finland, in fact, quota legislation, that could only be implemented by selecting categories, was never accepted, on the basis that defining a person as disabled was considered discriminating (Thornton & Lundt 1997: 98). In Sweden, general legislation has traditionally covered both non-disabled and disabled citizens rights, as in the 1974 Security of Employment Act.

6b.3 Are Deaf people treated equally, as compared to their hearing peers, as far as access to employment is concerned? Data presented in Figure 26 concern gainful employment – that is, employment that is paid – for deaf people in eight European countries. These data are published here for the deaf population for the first time. Data from Labor Force Survey offer a snapshot of what was taking place in 2011. Importantly, saying 2011 is to be considered a limitation: owing to the continuing effect of policies for employment being implemented in 2010–2020 in European countries, in recent years the rate of employment for deaf people, as well as for disabled people in general, is probably transforming, possibly by undergoing an increasing trend in some countries. What is more interesting to consider, country by country, is obviously the difference in the probability to be employed, for someone who is deaf or hearing. European States are variously engaged in correcting the effects of the labor market on the occupations of their citizens who have not so strong credentials to

37.3

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Figure 26: Employed Deaf persons, by country. Categories by ILO, International Labour Organization, Ages 15–59; 2011. Weighted N= 1 976.

0%

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0.40 Deaf

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Figure 27: Probability to be employed by country and hearing status. Ages 15–59; 2011. Weighted N=1 217 216.

offer on the labor market: most European states have a welfare system. But a State cannot be held responsible for inequalities towards its deaf citizens, when it is inefficient in providing welfare solutions for the labor force in general, that is, for hearing people as well. So, is the probability to be employed the same for deaf and hearing persons, from country to country? In Figure 27,4 we then see that the probability for deaf and hearing people to be gainfully employed is about the same in all European countries here considered, notwithstanding the fact that the share of employed people varies very much from country to country, as Figure 26 shows. As it can be seen in

4 In Figure 27 and the following, in this chapter, countries have only been considered whose sample size of working deaf persons is large enough as to allow a meaningful analysis. This has left out the Netherlands and Finland.

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Figure 27, Austria shows the highest probability (73%) to be employed for both hearing and deaf persons, while Poland hardly gets to 60%, and all other countries lie in between these two extremes. The difference between deaf and hearing people is negligible (and not statistically significant). In other words, in all the European countries considered, a combination of labor market processes and state norms on employment result in employment probabilities for deaf people that can be judged to be equitable, when compared to the treatment that labor markets and state norms reserve to hearing people. Although not all states have an efficient welfare system, in all countries employment opportunities are equally distributed to hearing and deaf people. Can one say that these results are due to the existence of welfare in European states? To provide a well-grounded answer, it would be necessary to compare countries with a more inclusive welfare system to countries with a less inclusive welfare system. One country that does not have a welfare system for disabled persons are the United States. Unfortunately, our data do not allow for a direct comparison between European countries and the United States, implying that we cannot propose a causal explanation of the reason for differences between the two, but only more or less reasonable suppositions. In the United States, nondiscrimination legislation exists, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. Statistical data about deaf people have been collected in the United States in various domains since some decades, and employment statistics exist since the Seventies. In the US, in 2011, 49% of deaf people were employed, as opposed to a 67% average for deaf persons in the European countries here considered.5 A recent study reported that in the US “employment rates for deaf people have not increased from 2008 to 2017” (Garberoglio, Cawthon, & Bond 2019: 3). Is this gap due to more extensive welfare systems in Europe, as opposed to the United States? Future studies are needed, to provide such a comparison between countries with a more or less inclusive welfare system. Future studies should also envision to differentiate among different welfare regimes. A comparison in terms of welfare, however, is partially possible in the case of European countries, considering the classic typology for welfare regimes proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990). According to this author, welfare regimes can be grouped depending on the type of welfare interventions they ideologically

5 In 2011, as far as hearing persons were concerned, an average of 72% were employed in the United States as opposed to an average of 62% in the ten European states here considered. The comparison is not perfect, however, since our sample’s age, for both deaf and hearing, is 15–59, while the US sample’s age is 15–65. (For US data: Garberoglio, Cawthon, and Bond 2019: 5).

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prefer, clustering European countries as Social Democratic countries, Conservative-Corporatist countries, and Liberal countries. Social Democratic countries are the ones where the State is the source of welfare provisions, and public policies tend to full employment (they include the Nordic countries); in Conservative-Corporatist countries the welfare is provided by state insurances only when family-based assistance dynamics have been exhausted (states in Continental Europe); in Liberal countries, welfare is reduced and strict entitlement rules are often associated with stigma (AngloSaxon countries). More specifically, the policies that can be enacted have been classified as follows: Policies promoting the labour market integration of people with disabilities may focus on the demand or the supply side. The former include anti-discrimination legislation, awarenessraising campaigns, employment quotas, wage subsidies and services for employers. Supply-side interventions may range from healthcare reforms, improvement of prevention and rehabilitation, regulation of the level and conditions of disability benefits, changes in public education with an aim to improve access and quality, through training programs and the integration of services. (Scharle 2016: 8)

Let us consider this list of policies having as an objective to improve access and quality.

Anti-discrimination legislation Within some five years of the collection of the data we are commenting upon, “anti-discrimination legislation” was to be equally adopted by all countries considered in this study: all of them have ratified the United Nation 2016 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and “empirical research tends to find no employment effect from anti-discrimination legislation” (Scharle 2013: ii).

Awareness raising campaigns It is difficult to provide evidence about the existence of awareness raising campaigns. However, there is one country about which we can fairly say that such campaigns exist and proved to be strongly influential: the United Kingdom, where the disability movement originated. But the United Kingdom presents other characteristics that differentiate it from the remaining countries, with respect to its politics for employment of

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disabled persons: it is the only liberal state, providing a very low level of subsidies (Priestley 2019: 13, 27–28, 33). As a consequence, it is hard to consider the situation in the United Kingdom as a result of awareness raising campaigns, as confounding factors may have intervened.

Employment quotas as the most substantial European welfare intervention Let us return to quota policies, this time to consider their effectiveness. As far as disabled persons in general are concerned, there is mixed evidence on the merits of quota systems. According to the World Health Organization, “the assumption that quotas correct labour market imperfections to the benefit of persons with disabilities is yet to be documented empirically, as no thorough impact evaluation of quotas on employment of persons with disabilities has been performed” (WHO 2011: 241–242). Typically, [in Europe] the stipulated share [of employees recruited with the quota system] ranges between 2% (Spain) and 7% (Italy) of the workforce. Generally, quotas are only valid above a certain manpower threshold, which ranges between 15 (Italy) and 50 employees (Spain) . . . . Alternatively, in some of the existing systems it is possible to conclude sub-contracts with organisations which feature a significant share of employees with disabilities, . . . In case the commitments are not met by the employers, usually they have to pay a fee to special funds. Those funds distribute the resources to employees with disabilities, providers of special activities and employers with disabled employees. . . . In most countries the degree of fulfilment ranges between 30% and 70%. (Fuchs 2014: 2–3, 5)

When it comes to our group of states, quota policies support employment for people with disabilities in France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and Italy. The United Kingdom and Sweden do not provide quota policies, and Poland, as to 2011, did not provide a quota system that had fully gone into effect (UK: Vickers 2019: 52; Austria, Spain, UK: Scharle 2016: 31; Italy, Poland, Portugal: ANED 2020). It might be said, then, that the average European country bases its employment policies on quotas, and quotas can be considered as a distinctive trait of European policies, as opposed, to, say, the United States. If the World Health Organization underlined a lack of empirical data about quota effectiveness to provide employment to disabled persons, as far as Deaf persons are concerned, it is reasonable to argue that quotas may be responsible for redressing unbalances in the European labor market, acting as a protection net. In conclusion, employment quotas, a policy meant for disabled people in general, might be responsible for the high employment rates of deaf persons

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throughout Western Central and Southern Europe, where it is implemented. More research is necessary to confirm this statement but if it is confirmed, it would be possible to say that European deaf people largely profit from being included in the category of disabled persons in general.

Wage subsidies Judging by the categories provided by disabled organization UPIAS, or by scholars reporting for the European Commission, wage subsidies are exactly the opposite of policies of integration in employment. Moving away from subsidies is the evolution hoped for. UPIAS, as noted above, recommended investing state contributions to disabled people by increasing educational chances of success and transforming working environments, so that more disabled persons may be integrated in work. European policies actively work towards the same outcomes, even though it does not appear as a simple task, “While there is mounting evidence of a convergence towards activation policies and away from generous cash transfers, actual practice lags behind” (Scharle 2013: i). Of the countries here considered, Spain and Poland provide wage subsidies. In Austria they were recently lightly reduced, (Austria, Spain, UK: Scharle 2016: 31; Poland: ANED 2020). They were also further reduced in the United Kingdom, that has ideologically banned wage subsidies, consistent with its liberal choices, so that it provides neither quota policies as we just saw, nor wage subsidies: “The UK . . . focused more on integration than on compensation in the period between 1990 and 2008, given that their compensation policies were already rather parsimonious in 1990” (Scharle 2016: 9).

Rehabilitation support policies – a future solution? Rehabilitation support policies are advanced by Scharle (2016: 10) as the most promising solution to support disabled people’s employment. With specific respect to deaf people, they are present in three out of eight countries. Rehabilitation support policies are enacted through public employment services in Sweden and France (Sweden: Scharle 2016: 10. Scharle excludes other countries; France: ANED 2020). Sweden’s 2000 Law (Swedish Law 2000: 628) made the Public Employment Services responsible for labor market rehabilitation policies concerning people with disabilities. In Sweden, a range of vocational rehabilitation measures and employment support measures are offered to job seekers with disabilities.

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Solutions are often individually adjusted and attentively targeted. “Existing empirical evidence suggests that personalised services such as supported employment rather than large scale uniform programs (training or sheltered workshops) are more effective in promoting a transition into the open labour market” (Scharle 2013: i–ii). Deaf job seekers, together with persons with a vision loss, are especially singled out as the category who illustrates service targeting: People with . . . hearing loss can be supported by a deaf specialist, . . . audiologist or other professionals in the field. People who use sign language can receive sign language interpreter (or writing interpreter, or an interpreter in tactile sign language) at meetings and activities at Public Employment Services. For employees who must attend a course or education at work, employers can apply for funding for interpreter costs. Self-employed can also get this kind of support. (ANED 2019)

If rehabilitation services are the future, they might entail an interesting transformation. European legislation may go on treating Deaf people at a par with disabled people in general, but grass-root policies might become more targeted, and personalization of interventions might result in programs specifically meant for deaf people: “partnerships may focus on the further development of training programmes and services that are tailored to the special needs of particular disabilities” (Scharle 2013: ii). Deaf people then might become the beneficiaries of a set of measures adapting to their needs, specifically meant for them, which also implies to their being signers, and to their individual variability.

6b.4 Power matters. Is there an unequal distribution in power, as there is a systematic lack of reciprocity in deaf and hearing persons’ occupations? Is research on deafness justified in devoting a great space to deaf education? There is an issue concerning the quality of employment for Deaf persons: in Paddy Ladd’s words it is referred to as “appropriate employment” (Ladd 2005: 13), in Harlan Lane’s words, as “underemployment” (1999: 5), in UPIAS’s words even as “poverty as a symptom of our oppression” (UPIAS & DA 1975: 4).

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In contrast, the words chosen for this issue by the UN 2006 Convention, Article 27, mention promoting not only employment opportunities, but also “career advancement for persons with disabilities in the labour market, . . . promoting opportunities for self-employment, entrepreneurship, the development of cooperatives and starting one’s own business”. There are states, such as France, that have entitled a recent law on the obligation to give employment to disabled workers, as a law “for the liberty to choose one’s professional future” (Loi n. 771–2018). As UN Charters and French laws evidence, the right not to be confined in low-skilled occupations, and to access occupations distributed along the whole range offered by the labour market is an equality right, and a recognized right. Such unbalances in the quality of occupations translate, for some authors, into unbalances of power. Michel Foucault wrote about a microphysics of power (Foucault 1975; chapter 1b). For microphysical power to be the object of a well-grounded criticism, one needs an uneven distribution: for deaf persons to be mostly occupied in low-skilled jobs – such as machine operators, elementary occupations –, and for hearing persons to hold the highest ranking positions – such as managers and professionals. This has long been the case, throughout recent history. In chapter 4a Anna Folchi testified to the effect that deaf people, over time, have been unjustly directed to gain qualifications only in manual labour. More quantitatively, Harlan Lane wrote: “data about deaf people’s labour exist in the US since 1970, when they evidenced an engagement of 87% of the deaf population in manual labour. A subsequent study of 1977 found the 30% of deaf men being in white collar positions” (Lane 1999: 294). Throughout time and across states, things can change. Data about employment rates in Figure 26 evidenced a better situation for deaf persons in Europe, as compared to the United States. Can the same be said about the quality of deaf people’s employment? That injustices are not everywhere would be a very important finding, able to tell us that the condition of deaf persons can be improved, and that power relations between hearing and deaf people may be transformed, so that working together can become more equitable and justified. Table 7 presents the share of deaf and hearing persons who were employed in 2011 and held a high-ranking nonmanual occupation, such as managers, entrepreneurs, professionals and assistant professionals. These occupations correspond to the first three major groups of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08) by ILO, the International Labor Organization (ILO 2012). As usual, on the top row, there are European states.

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Table 7: Share of Deaf and hearing persons in managerial and professional occupations (Isco-08 major groups 1, 2 and 3) in European countries. Persons aged 15–59, 2011. Weighted N=180 185 000. Sweden Austria Italy

France Spain

UK

Portugal Poland

Hearing % Total

.% 

.% .% .% .% .%     

.% .%  

Deaf % Total

.% 

.% 

.% .%  



.

Difference in percentage points

% .% .% .%     .

.

−.

−.

−.

−.

The bottom row in Table 7 measures the difference in the share of deaf and hearing people in higher ranking occupations. Countries are ordered, from left to right, according to the advantage enjoyed by deaf persons over hearing persons, as it can be read in the bottom row. Countries differ in the share of workforce employed in higher ranking occupations, depending on the structure of their labor market. For example, in Poland the higher occupational ranks of the occupational structure employ a lesser share of people (either deaf or hearing) than in Sweden or the UK; however, in Sweden deaf persons outnumber (in relative terms) hearing persons in these occupations by 10 percentage points (46.8 versus 36.8), while in the United Kingdom deaf persons are at a disadvantage, as compared to hearing ones, and the more so in Portugal and Poland. Therefore, considering the difference in terms of percentage points gives an idea of the advantage or disadvantage of deaf persons, over and above the share of people employed in higher ranking occupations. By and large, countries can be divided into two groups, depending on whether deaf persons are advantaged or disadvantaged with respect to hearing people. Sweden, Austria, Italy and France belong to a first group, in which deaf persons in the higher ranks of the occupational structure are more numerous (still in relative terms) than hearing persons. On the other side, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Poland belong to a second group, in which deaf persons are at a disadvantage, and especially so in Poland. However, this is not the entire story. In most societies – and in all countries considered in our analysis – education is key to top occupational positions (Psacharopoulos 1981; 1994), so that having achieved a higher educational level, for example a university degree, opens the doors of managerial and professional occupations. Therefore, taking education into account is necessary for

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drawing conclusions on the power imbalance between deaf and hearing people, as found in the labor market. As a matter of fact, differences between deaf and hearing persons in accessing higher ranking occupations become very little when education is considered (Figure 28).6 This can be seen as the minor (and statistically not significant) difference in the height of the dark grey (for hearing persons) and light grey (for deaf persons) bars in Figure 28. Figure 28 provides evidence that for accessing managerial or professional occupations it does not matter whether one is hearing or deaf, as far as he or she holds a tertiary degree. Indeed, the main difference lays in having or not having reached and completed tertiary education; but, provided one has completed tertiary education, hearing status does not matter. 0.80 0.70 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 Austria

Spain

France

Italy Hearing

Poland

Portugal

Sweden

UK

Deaf

Figure 28: Probability to hold a professional or managerial occupation for hearing and deaf persons with a tertiary degree (weighted N=1 221 517).

However, it must be considered that education is only one of the two main factors affecting the occupation that a person holds, the other being social class, or

6 The probabilities shown in Figure 28 have been estimated by means of a binomial logistic regression having the type of occupation (professional/managerial vs. others) as the dependent variable, and hearing status, tertiary education (yes/no), age, gender and country as the independent variables. An interaction term has been added between country and education in order to account for the differences between countries as for the share of the population holding a tertiary degree.

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status, of the family in which one was born. The influence of social origin deploys through two main paths, namely, directly from the job that parents had, and indirectly, through education. As an example of the direct influence, a lawyer’s son or daughter has a higher chance to become a lawyer, or anyhow a professional, than a manual worker’s son or daughter. In fact, lawyers, as parents, may provide their children with knowledge, networks, and economic assets that may lack to manual workers, as parents. The indirect influence instead flows through education, since better-off families may provide their children with more educational opportunities than families in the medium-low ranks of the social structure. Unfortunately, as we already said, social origin cannot be kept under control in our analysis, since this information has not been collected for everyone in the sample, but only when parents where cohabiting with respondents. Therefore, we are not in the position to assess whether differences in social background affect to the same extent the educational achievement of hearing and deaf persons. For example, social origin might play a weaker role for deaf than for hearing persons, either because the educational achievement of deaf persons could be influenced by their hearing status more heavily than the achievement of hearing people, or because some occupational options are deemed not to be suited for them by their families or by the system, therefore weakening both the indirect and the direct effect of social origin. In this case, fewer deaf persons would achieve tertiary education, which is the gate to professional and managerial occupations; however, as we see in Figure 28, once the gate of tertiary education has been passed, everyone – both deaf and hearing persons – would have the same opportunities to access those occupations. In sum, the fact that we do not see any appreciable difference in the probability of deaf and hearing persons to hold a managerial or professional occupation, once the effect of education is considered, does not rule out the possibility that the two groups have a different probability to access higher occupational roles, since deaf persons might have had less chances to achieve a tertiary degree. We know from chapter 3b that this is the case in many countries. This underlines the importance that successful education has for deaf people. If the labor market in many European countries does not discriminate between hearing and deaf people, but assigns different positions to people with elevated educational credentials and people who don’t have them – this means that deaf education deserves all the attention that it usually gets. Table 8 presents differences between hearing and deaf people, concerning distribution within manual occupations, that include assemblers and elementary occupations, plant and machine operators, craft and related trades

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Table 8: Share of deaf and hearing persons in manual occupations and armed forces in European countries. Persons aged 15–59, 2011. Weighted N=180 185 000. Sweden France Austria Italy

UK

Spain

Portugal Poland

Hearing % Total

,% ,%  

,% ,% ,% ,%    

,% ,%  

Deaf % Total

,% ,%  

,% ,% ,% ,%    

,% ,%  

Difference in percentage points

−,

−,

,

,

,

,

,

,

workers, skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers, service and sales workers – in addition, armed forces occupations have been considered. As we already suggested, being confined in the manual range of occupations means being – most often than not – subject to someone else’s power. When this happens at a macro level, namely, involving a whole category of persons, then it means that this category is (most of the times) subject to the power exerted by other social categories. Therefore, we now consider the share of deaf and hearing persons in manual occupations, as shown in Table 8. As in the previous analysis, countries are ordered according to the advantage enjoyed by deaf persons, which decreases from left to right. A first consideration while observing Table 8 is that in six countries out of eight there is a higher rate of manual deaf workers than manual hearing workers, as the difference in percentage point shows. Only Sweden and France present an advantage for deaf workers on hearing workers, as far as the distribution of manual work is concerned. This is a less positive picture than the one observed in the case of top ranking occupations, where in four countries out of eight (Sweden, Austria, Italy and France) Deaf persons enjoyed an advantage, being more often employed in top-ranking occupations than the hearing counterpart. In addition, when manual and armed forces occupations are considered, the size of the advantage itself lowers, as it is only of −4 percentage points in Sweden and just −1 in France. Sweden is indeed once again the most advantageous country for deaf persons, followed by France. Therefore, a first conclusion of this analysis is that these two countries are the fairest (or less unfair) in terms of power balance between deaf and hearing people. Austria shows a rather mild disadvantage for deaf persons (1.8 percentage points), while in Italy, the UK, and the more so in Spain, Portugal and Poland the disadvantage decidedly widens.

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This time, the descriptive results are confirmed by a more robust analysis: indeed, in all countries considered, deaf persons have a significantly higher chance of holding a manual occupation, net of other characteristics.7 These results provide evidence for an important issue in Deaf studies theory. As chapter 1b illustrated, with respect to Deaf Studies, Michel Foucault’s theory is placed upriver, being extensively influential, and providing a framework to represent justice and injustice. The domain of employment is closely related to Michel Foucault’s central notions of a microphysics of power. Deaf people over-representation in manual occupations in almost all countries points at the fact that a problem of power may exist: although not all such occupations entail subordination, most of them do. Therefore, considering these results, hearing people are really in the position to exert a power on deaf people owing to their professional roles, as Michel Foucault illustrated. In fact, the distribution of professional occupations among deaf and hearing people is iniquitous. Based on the data we presented, we can make this statement for two reasons. In the first place, access to professional and managerial occupations is mediated by good results in education – and educational systems in most countries are such that deaf people achieve lower in education than hearing people. Second, deaf people are more represented in manual occupations than hearing people. Conclusions were straightforward in this section, but they are, possibly, very central to Deaf studies as a whole. They tell that the general approach of Deaf studies, that is strongly critical, is still justified, at least in some European countries and for certain social and occupational roles, even as history moves away from the terrible stories that Anna Folchi related in chapter 2a, about her parents’ childhood. Data similar to the ones in Table 8 do not exist for the past, therefore it is not possible to evaluate whether an evolution has taken place, for the better. But our data allow to compare different countries, and positively say that such

7 We performed a binomial logistic regression, in order to assess whether the probability to hold either a manual or a nonmanual occupation (which is the dependent variable) differs between deaf and hearing people, net of the most relevant individual characteristics (gender, age, education) and of the effect of being a resident in different European countries – since each country has a different labor market structure. The probability for a deaf person to hold a manual occupation equals 58%, while for a hearing person it is 55%. Albeit small, this difference is significant on a statistical ground, since the probability that these figures are different only by chance is very small (p=0.01). Also, it should be noted that this difference is what is left when age, gender, education and country of residence are controlled for, which makes it a remarkable difference in substantive terms.

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inequalities are not an immutable constant. It is reasonable to think that situations can evolve. We will never be able to tell whether it has been an effect of Deaf studies’ fierce criticism and pugnacity, or a general evolution of Western societies, but some societies, such as Sweden and France, have been able to achieve a considerable level of egalitarianism. It is legitimate to conclude that social justice for deaf people can, and therefore should, be achieved. It is possible, and it is not the time to stop engaging, for it can be achieved everywhere.

6b.5 Are Deaf persons at a risk of poverty? Poverty is a concrete risk for disabled persons. Documents prepared by OECD in 2010 and for the European Commission in 2017 reported that In the late 2000s, . . . closely related to poor labour market outcomes, people with disability also experienced poverty more intensely than their peers without disability. (OECD 2010: 23) 30% of people with a disability are at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU, compared to 21.5% of people without disabilities. The degree of disability – severe vs moderate – does increase significantly the risk of poverty or social exclusion. (European Commission Staff 2017)

However, Figure 26 tells us that Deaf Europeans mostly have an employment, that, in most of the considered countries, is at comparable levels to the hearing population. As a consequence, one may wonder whether the gap in poverty between the disabled and the non-disabled population exists also between the deaf and the hearing population. More realistically and less dramatically put, one may wonder whether deaf persons’ earnings are equitable, as compared to hearing persons. Equitability in work remuneration is in many Western Constitutions, and is overtly supported for disabled persons in article 27 of the UN 2006 Convention: “the rights of persons with disabilities [are to be protected] on an equal basis with others, to just and favourable conditions of work, including equal opportunities and equal remuneration for work of equal value [our emphasis]”. We then consider which are the factors that may affect the monthly takehome pay and, particularly, whether the hearing status is one of them, country by country. In order to do so, we consider the probability that a person has to belong to the top 20% of the income distribution, which means being among the privileged ones in society. The data show that deaf people are slightly less

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numerous within these strata than hearing people (18.2% and 21.3% respectively); however, is this difference relevant, and does it persist once education, gender, age and country of residence are taken into account? The answer is negative: deaf and hearing people enjoy the same probability of belonging to the top 20% of the income distribution, once the other factors have been taken into account. Indeed, there are other differences that are noteworthy, the first of which is that women have a much lower probability than men to find themselves in the higher income strata of society, up to the point that women are found in those strata with a probability of 27%, as compared to 46% of graduated men.8 In conclusion, it cannot be said that deaf persons are unequally payed, once relevant factors are taken into account – rather, it can be said that deaf women are, and in this, they share hearing women’s lot. Let us keep this result in mind, which alerts about the complexity of deaf situation: more is to be discovered in chapter 13b.

6b.6 Are deaf persons disabled by the social environment they work in? The 2011 Eurostat data collection, which was especially dedicated to Employment of Disabled People, and from which data presented here come, was attentive to ICF categories by World Health Organization. It dedicated one question to facilitators and barriers in working environments. Respondents were deaf persons or relatives responding on their behalf, both employed and non-employed, and it concerned the capacity to work, rather than the performance. As chapter 1b explained, by enforcing its ICF model, the World Health Organization supported the notion that a person who has a health condition may not be disabled at all. What causes disability is a barrier that originates in the social context. Symmetrically, a facilitator, also originating in the social context, can expand capacities. Directions to collectors of data explained:

8 We performed a binomial logistic regression, in which the dependent variable is whether one belongs to the top 20% income distribution, and in which hearing status, country, gender, age and whether one has a tertiary education or not are the independent variables. The sample for this analysis amounted to 480 641 cases, once weighted. Sweden was not in this analysis, since the information on monthly take–home pay was entirely missing for this country.

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The types of barriers faced by disabled people include attitudes, for example, negative views of employers, policies, for example organisational rules which do not take disabled people into account; and physical factors, for example through the design of the work environment and transport systems. Although the focus of disability is barriers and facilitators, the experiences of different people are also important. This is because the disabled population is very diverse and there is a need to understand which groups face barriers and disadvantage, why they face such barriers, and how improvements to benefits and services can be targeted. (Eurostat Directorate F 2010: 16)

Figures 29 and 30 present some of the social limitations in work experienced by deaf people in their working environment. They are social, in as much as they are not caused by the hearing difficulty itself, but rather by the manners used by employers, co-workers, and family, and, more largely, by the result of past experiences and history. Figure 30 details the types of limitations in work experienced. Considering that most country samples are of a limited size, and that most deaf respondents are clustered in a single answer category (“No limitation in work”), in Figure 30 countries have been aggregated.

Sweden Spain France Portugal Austria Italy UK Poland 0

20

40

60

80

100

Figure 29: Deaf persons perceiving no limitation in work (not caused by hearing difficulty), by country in percentage. Age 15–59, 2011. Weighted N=1 858.

Figure 29 shows that in Sweden, Spain, France and Portugal, respondents almost did not perceive any limitations in work. A limitation in work was perceived at a maximum in Poland, followed by the United Kingdom: in these two countries half or more of the Deaf population declared they experienced limitations in work.

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0

5

0

0.2

10

15

20

25

30

35

1

1.2

Lack of appropriate job opportunities Lack of qualifications/experience Family/Caring responsibilities Other reason Personal reasons Lack or poor transportation to and from workplace Employers' lack of flexibility Affects receipt of benefits 0.4

0.6

0.8

Figure 30: Main reason for limitation in work for Deaf persons who declared they had limitations in work (not caused by hearing difficulty) in percentage. Age 15–59, 2011. Weighted N=1858.

The most often perceived type of limitation in work was “lack of appropriate job opportunities”, a perception that is in accordance with the data presented in Tables 7 and 8 and with our interpretation. The second most often perceived type of limitation in work was “lack of qualifications/experience”, a perception that is in accordance with results about Deaf education presented in chapter 3b. On the third type of limitation in work perceived, “family/caring responsibilities” we will return in chapter 13b, dedicated to deaf women.

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

7a Deaf awareness This chapter presents a long interview, lasting various days, that involved Anna Folchi and Emiliano Mereghetti – Emiliano has been introduced in chapter 3a and co-authors chapter 7b. The methodology used in this chapter is Weberian, in as much as it gives the word, or rather, the sign, to social actors, in order to gather their own interpretation of events. The topic of this chapter is the origin of Deaf awareness in Italy, i.e., the historic evolution that led Deaf people to the feeling of personal worthiness that has often been associated with an accepting – or even proud – use of sign language and the embracing of a Deaf identity. Recurrent topics in the interview are the interplay between the hearing research community and hearing society in its entirety on one side, and the Deaf community and its leaders on the other side. This chapter adopts the perspective of Deaf interviewees. Chapter 11b, centered on linguistic and cognitive research on sign language in Italy, will adopt the perspective of hearing researchers.

7a.1 Deaf awareness has evolved in recent decades Sara: In the Italian Deaf community, as in most Deaf communities in the world, there is the widespread notion that the accepting and even proud use of sign languages are associated with a feeling of personal worthiness for Deaf people. This might be a definition of “Deaf awareness”. What is the origin of this type of awareness, for Deaf Italians? Is it accurate to say that older generations did not share such an awareness – for instance, they preferred speaking in public rather than signing? When did this awareness come about, and what is associated with it? Anna: I have never been ashamed or apologetic for signing. And in general, in times past Deaf people have not been ashamed of signing with each other, in contrast, they might have been such when hearing people were observing them. Plausibly, this has happened to deaf children born in hearing families, who used to dissuade them from signing. Presently, as you just stated, such a shame does not exist any longer. Concerning me personally, my first conference in signs has taken place in 1989. After the conference, I have been criticized by some deaf intellectuals that used the oralist approach. “You did not speak, there was no voice”, they had blamed me. This event was https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-013

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one of the very first conferences ever signed in LIS, in Italy. Only Serena Corazza, a Deaf woman from Trieste, had signed in a public event before, she had already held conferences in signs in 1981, 1982. But I was determined to fight. The Deaf audience had had the opportunity of an entirely comprehensible experience: had I used my voice they would not have had such an opportunity. My previous interventions had been short, and relatively unimportant. But this one was centered on the Deaf world, and was a real conference.

7a.2 Integrated work of a hearing and Deaf team in Rome Sara: Tell me more about the work you shared with Serena Corazza. Anna: Before Serena and I had the opportunity to meet, there had already been exchanges between Serena’s family and mine. Personally, we met at a seminar, and we began to collaborate and be friends in 1984 (Figure 31). Serena was already working with Virginia Volterra [the hearing Italian scholar who established LIS, Italian Sign Language, as a field for investigation] and the CNR group [Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche is an Italian public research entity. Volterra’s laboratory is based in CNR in Rome]. I was introduced to Virginia and our collaboration began. For some time, this team of the three of us, Serena, Virginia and me, has been the group who interacted in signs with the purpose of investigating Italian Sign Language. This group of three, with new forces joining immediately after, has been working to produce the first lexical and theoretical map of LIS. Some work also took place in sociolinguistics and Deaf culture (Folchi 1990; 1992). At the time, I used to live in Florence, so I travelled back and forth to Rome. Other Deaf informants were Emanuela Cameracanna, Paolo Rossini, Paola Pinna. Elena Pizzuto was another important presence. She has been the first person who ever informed me that Sign Language is a real language. In 1979–1980, she had returned from the United States to Sicily, where I have met her (chapter 8a will present the Palermo experience in detail). Sara: I believe we might benefit of a flashback, here. Who were the hearing persons involved in the work of research on sign language? Anna: The first time I met Elena Pizzuto I was driving, to be precise, I was parking close to the Palermo section of Ente Nazionale Sordi. This hearing person I had never met approaches me, observes me, and enquires, “Are you Deaf?”, she signs. I felt like laughing, her sign language was funny to me: it was different from the proper signing of Deaf persons – and there had never been hearing persons signing, before then, except for CODAs, the children of Deaf parents. In addition, she had been living in the United States, and her signs were similar to ASL, more than to the Italian manner of signing, which, incidentally, had not yet been labelled as “LIS” at the time.

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Figure 31: Serena Corazza and Anna. I observed her back, with some oddity in my glance. Briefly, she explained she was investigating sign language –“Sign Language??” I thought to myself. So far, I had been thinking that signing was just a support to the real language, Italian. “What is this farce?” I was about to say. “No, sign language is a real language”, Elena replied. I was impressed, it was quite a revelation. “You see, speaking and signing are in a certain manner as two railroad tracks, they proceed in parallel”. “But Deaf people write an incorrect Italian”, I replied. “The reason for this is that sign language is their first language, Italian their second”, Elena said, “for hearing people Italian is their first language”. There it all began. But let us return to the events in Rome. Earlier than that, I was used to see Deaf and hearing people as separate. In 1984, I perceived for the first time that we were investigating together. It was beautiful, I was happy. In Rome, I observed interpreters at the telephone who were signing what they said. “This is so illogical”, I thought to myself, “she is at the phone with another person, and signs for me”, and I did my best to avert my eyes, as it did not concern me, I thought, as any well-behaved person would have. When she concluded the phone call, I could not refrain from inquiring, “Excuse me, but what is the reason you phone and sign at the same time?”, “Out of respect for you as a Deaf person”, she replies. “But the phone call is your business, not mine”. She concluded, “A hearing person would have heard it, so should you”. Hearing persons in this group were very motivated in signing. I was not used to this, and I perceived it as a positive innovation. I had already been in the United States (my international experiences will find space in chapter 9a). When I was there, I used to think that in Italy we would never have anything similar. In contrast, in Rome everything indicated that something was moving in Italy. The first book by Volterra’s group had just been published, I segni come parole. My own first contribution to research was to be I primi quattrocento segni (I will present this work it in detail in chapter 11a). Virginia was supportive and instrumental to this first publication of mine (chapter 11b will deal with the contribution of Italian linguists and psychologists to build up a new research sector and empower Deaf leaders). It was 1990, I was in Rome, and Virginia told me, “Oliver Sacks is in Rome, you have to meet him”. I can still envision in my mind the moment I met him, a man with a white

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beard, tall, big, he reminded me of Santa Claus. He was already working at his publication on the world of Deaf people, and he had a draft of it with him. The three of us went to a restaurant, Virginia used to translate from American English to Italian Sign Language. I gave him I primi quattrocento segni as a present, he made a present of his draft of Seeing Voices, with a dedication for me, that I preserve with care at home. I have been the first person who has had a copy of the Italian translation of Seeing Voices. Oliver Sacks asked us about schooling for Deaf people in Italy, and it was Virginia and I, who, on that occasion, provided him with the information that was to be published in the preface to the Italian translation of Seeing Voices. Sara: Might one conclude that Deaf awareness in Italy was an effect of the impact of CNR research on sign language? Anna: Well, this is probably too far-stretched. A distinction should be made between the awakening of the Deaf community, and the realization of hearing society that sign languages are real languages. Remarkably, the news that sign languages were real languages, in the short run, impacted more the hearing research community than the Deaf community. In effect, the impact of hearing research on Deaf people, in the short run and immediately, reached only those Deaf persons who became researchers. The group of those who became Deaf researchers was selected, small. They were intelligent persons, not all of them leaders – or not yet leaders – of the Deaf community. It is important to say that, from then onwards, Deaf persons would have been employed in research institutions, which we did not have in times past, in Italy. Deaf researchers who work as employees of CNR in Rome are Barbara Pennacchi, Alessio Di Renzo, Tommaso Lucioli, Luca Lamano. There are Deaf people collaborating to research as employees also in other Italian universities, such as in Venice. However, it is also appropriate to say that from those times to the present, the condition of Deaf people in Italy has undergone a major transformation. Possibly, this happened not owing to a direct impact, but rather owing to a mediated influence.

7a.3 Hearing society at large Sara: Let us briefly stay with the hearing world, but moving away from hearing research, and generalizing our perspective to the entire Italian society, in its relation to the Deaf world. Did you remark a transformation in time, throughout hearing society, with respect to the Deaf signing community? Anna: My idea is that mass media have been greatly influential: television and newspapers have really transformed hearing society. People would no longer say, as they used to when I was a girl, “Poor girl, she is deaf”. This does not happen any longer. Sara: Did the enforcement of the 1977 law, which mainstreamed disabled students in Italy, play a role in transforming hearing people’s attitude towards the Deaf signing community?

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Anna: No, I believe mainstreaming is completely unrelated to the evolution of hearing society towards a more considerate attitude with respect to Deaf people. I maintain that the presence of interpreters from Italian to LIS in broadcasts has played a central role. A television program, Nuovi Alfabeti, comes to my mind, which was aired once a week, which was one of the first ones with the presence of an interpreter. Public television, RAI, broadcast news interpreted in LIS, but only once a week.

7a.4 Mass media effect on lexical variation of LIS in Italy Sara: You appear to confirm the argument – supported also by empirical sociological research –, that using a minoritarian language in institutional contexts enhances its prestige and leads to a greater recognition for its users. Well, medias have also influenced the diffusion of LIS lexicon throughout Italy. At first, Deaf people from, say, Sicily did object to an interpretation from Italian to LIS realized with, say, Milan signs. Presently, all Deaf Italians travel, use social media and have multiple contacts in cities far away from their home. My empirical perception is that LIS variants throughout Italy have become comprehensible to every Italian Deaf signer, wherever he comes from. At the same time, Deaf people have become more flexible about their language. Some semantic families of signs have stably remained the same, it is the case with the days of the week. Signs from important cities, such as those from Rome, the capital, have also remained the same throughout time. In contrast, other semantic families, such as names for months, or colors, are constantly transforming. I can list various manners to sign January that continue to be valid in each Italian city they stem from. Some signs that were the same in all over Italy have stabilized and are used more and more extensively.

7a.5 The Deaf community Sara: Now, concerning my original interest in the genesis of Deaf awareness in Italy, let us leave aside the hearing world and their researchers. From the perspective of Deaf people, when has Deaf awareness started to develop in Italy? Anna: For the Deaf community, the reference point is Gallaudet [the Washington University in American Sign Language]. Before Gallaudet no awareness existed. An important narrative to me is Oliver Sacks’ on Martha’s Vineyard: the place where the majority was Deaf, and signing was the norm, to hearing people as well.

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Sara: What about the influence of the Fulbright scholarship, that promoted exchanges between the Deaf leaders of the Italian community and the United States, by funding one-year long stays at Gallaudet? Anna: I have been the first winner of the Italian Fulbright scholarship, in 1986. But at the time, I had just been in the United States, encouraged by Joseph Castronovo (Joseph Castronovo will be central to chapters 8a and 8b). The direction of the bank I was working in did not judge appropriate to give me another leave of absence, so I gave the scholarship up. The American experience for the winners of the Fulbright scholarship has been a good source of cultural growth, and, definitely, a source of Deaf consciousness. Deaf people returned from the States more determinate, and with a stronger acceptance of their Deaf identity. Their American diplomas, however, are not equally valued by the Italian State. What is important, anyway, is that they are enriched in their personal values. Emiliano: I have a remark to make, about the Deaf discovery that sign languages are real languages. Personally, I used to teach sign language when it was not yet labelled as LIS. It was at Istituto Neurologico Besta in Milan, where three physicians, three women, asked me to help them implement the use of sign language to support some hearing children who had not developed their first language. I met Virginia Volterra at a Congress about sign language in Hamburg in 1990. I called her to the sidelines, we sat on the stairs. I enquired about her scientific opinion with respect to the fact that our signs – that by the way, existed long before hearing people “discovered” them – ought to be labelled LMGI, Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale Italiano, or LIS, Italian Sign Language. In the meantime, Ida Collu, the then responsible of the department of language of ENS, was walking past us, back and forth. Virginia convincingly explained to me, and strongly argued for the label “LIS”. I took it as a scientifically informed position. I discussed the issue with Serena Corazza as well – a very intelligent woman. She convinced me. ENS was then employing the label LMGI, and it took quite a long time before it converted to LIS. With time, but only with time, there was a replacement in terminology. Gradually, a study group about LIS was created within ENS – previously, there had been, among other departments, an LMGI department. Four persons were chosen to study the issue, but they were not especially dedicated to the cause of LIS, if one judges from their subsequent departure from ENS to join Fiadda [an oralist association strongly opposing Sign Language]. I believe ENS woke up when Ida Collu became its national President. When Armando Guranna had been ENS’s President, Ida Collu had opposed the label “LIS”. But when she became, in turn, ENS’s president, she wanted Serena to participate. The Deaf community followed their leader, and everyone talked about LIS. That was the time when “LMGI” disappeared. As a consequence, ENS’s courses to teach LIS came into existence in every city section. Ida Collu and Serena Corazza were the Italian representatives, together with the hearing leftist political leader Paolo Ferrero, who participated in the meetings of the United

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Nations that led to the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – a Convention that includes support for Sign languages.

7a.6 French “Reveil Sourd” and its Italian counterpart Sara: You know that Deaf French people define the beginning of their “Deaf awareness” as “Reveil Sourd”. “Reveil Sourd” originated in the discovery that LSF, Langue Française des Signes, was a real language, and was substantiated by the foundation of a Deaf theatre in LSF, IVT, The International Visual Theatre. This process was crucially supported by Deaf Americans, like Alfredo Corrado, as Victor Abbou has told in his Une clé sur le monde. Would you say a “Deaf awakening” has existed in Italy at all, as it has taken place in France? Emiliano: [Emiliano introduces his intervention by playing with words: he compares “Deaf awakening” to Oliver Sacks’ book title Awakenings. Sara laughing explains, “Deaf awakening as in Deaf consciousness”, and playful Emiliano replies, consciousness as in Zeno’s consciousness, the title of a work by Italo Svevo, an Italian writer.] Well, if we compare Italy to France, in the French Deaf awakening the participation of American Deaf people was crucial. In contrast, the Italian Deaf community was not interested in what happened outside, it was only concentrated on its internal dynamics. When the news that LIS was a real language arrived, and it became clear that hearing people were interested and participated in courses of LIS, the process developed a further momentum. I believe hearing people saw the news interpreted in LIS, in television, and gained interest, started to gather information, enquired how it all worked. This is my reconstruction of the process. Previous to that, the hearing people who entered ENS were just the secretaries in the offices. The role of the Rome group has been to publish, publish and publish, they have propagated these ideas. Serena Corazza has been the first Deaf woman who worked in research on LIS, she has been active at CNR for long years, and she also went to the United States. I think CNR had a role in promoting LIS well before ENS did. As a result of their work, Sign Language entered in universities. But the role of Deaf persons should not be undervalued. Anna wrote I primi quattrocento segni, which was a successful move. It was a very economic, simple, clear book, very rational for a beginner, better than other thicker and more complete dictionaries. Another Deaf man, Rosario Romeo, also published a dictionary. If an Italian awakening ever took place, it was when each section of ENS realized that LIS is valuable. If I may be a little critical, at present courses to teach LIS have become a real business for ENS.

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Anna: In Italy there was the issue about Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale, in France, in contrast, they have immediately recognized LSF, French Sign Language, as their language. In Italy, as previous Deaf leaders had opted for Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale, for a while the Deaf community had been loyal to this notion. I have been one of the first Deaf persons who were convinced about the value of considering LIS a language. Someone in ENS even told me, “What is your opinion, Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale, or LIS?”, “It is LIS”, “Then you are invited to leave ENS”. And so, I left ENS. Only subsequently, there has been the recognition from ENS that LIS was scientifically supported. As you say, Sara, the entire process of awakening in France has been based on theatre, in Italy in recent years, it was based on research. The effects of recognizing LIS as a real language has been less important, in Italy, also because less Deaf people have been involved in research in Italy, than in theatre in France. Theatre is accessible to everyone, engaging. In contrast, in the field of research, only few, intelligent Deaf persons were involved, as Serena Corazza, the persons that Virginia Volterra met first, luckily for Virginia. Not everyone can participate in research. Consider also that the schooling condition of Deaf people in Italy is still unsatisfying, it does not allow us a series of choices that could otherwise be interesting for us. In addition, at that time in the Italian Deaf community there were prejudices: “A hearing person can exploit us, can take advantage of us, they involve us in their work for their own gain”.

7a.7 The fight for the recognition of the right to Sign Language Sara: So, we might say that French “reveil Sourd” was achieved by Deaf people, who activated themselves autonomously. In Italy, in contrast, we might say that Italian awareness in the present generation was first engendered by hearing researchers. There wasn’t a foreign impulse on Italian territory, even though the influence of William Stokoe on the CNR group is widely acknowledged. When has a stronger sense of personal worth for being Deaf and a signer reached the entire Italian Deaf community? Anna: Well, at the time of the events we are discussing, i.e. the beginning of research in Rome CNR, there was no sense of personal worth for Deaf Italians associated to signing. But presently, one can definitely say that there is. Deaf people criticize those who cannot properly sign. The situation crucially evolved when the community began its fight in support of the recognition of the right to sign language. From that moment on, not only a sense of personal worth can be perceived, but even of pride. Presently, many Deaf say, “Well, I cannot properly speak or write Italian – but my signs are excellent”, and they are proud about it. When fighting for the recognition of LIS, every Deaf person feels strong.

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Had I to say in which moment in time it really began, I would say ten years ago, not so long ago . . . And in Italy it has been more gradual, in France it has been quicker, more immediate. In Spain, I have been invited to give various conferences from 1985 on and I have been, I believe, the first person who diffused through the Deaf community the information that sign languages are real languages – I am still referred to for this reason, in Spain. Sara: This reconstruction is interesting. The fight for the recognition of sign languages is a worldwide movement, and it has been very strong in Italy. Are you proud about sign language? Emiliano: Some people think that Deaf people make “just” use of their hands. They can say, “Give me a synthesis”, meaning, “in this poor language, which does not allow for richness and detail”. I say, “Poor language my butt!” Each language has its rules, and its specificities. English has only three words to say, “Sara’s house”, Italian has four, “la casa di Sara”. Does this mean English is poor? LIS has as many signs as they are necessary.

7a.8 Future desirable awakenings for the Deaf community Sara: Emiliano, you wanted to add something . . . Emiliano: We are talking about the Italian Deaf awakening. I would like to add that there is one domain in which Deaf people should really weak up, and that is politics. The Deaf community has considerable limits whit respect to politics. We are used to watch television, but we follow the news infrequently and inefficiently. Many Deaf persons do not read the newspaper, or read only a small proportion of it, the one which is comprehensible to them. As a young man, I have been active in FGCI [Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana, the Italian association of young communists, a section of the then Communist Party, which has today transformed in the most important leftist political party], I did not always have the means to buy the newspaper, but whenever I could, I bought it and read its political section. I want to state it clearly, Deaf people have a problem in talking politics. It is not simple. They do not have enough autonomy, they follow others – but I have to concede that this is a behavior they share with hearing people. To Deaf people, politics means “My problem is deafness”. More general political topics do not equally engage them.

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The issue of migrants, to say one . . . I am personally proud when Italy welcomes migrants, but everyone else criticizes and attacks migrants. What I think is that the problem is for Italy not to be able to manage, organize, accommodate for them. They use the word “buonismo” [“buonismo”, “do-goodism”, is a disparaging term used by Italian right-wing persons: it singles out a sort of political correctness in acts, not in words]. What does “buonismo” mean? What does it mean?

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7b Deaf President then. Political pluralism in the unification of Deaf associations in liberated Italy One ought to remember the past, to properly build the future (Vittorio Ieralla)

7b.1 Introduction Well in advance on Deaf President Now (chapter 5b), in the Italy of the Fifties, a Deaf leader was to become the President of a powerful and rich Deaf association, recognized, funded, and legally supported by the Italian state. What led him to this result was a long walk of unification of Deaf Italians in order to achieve a strong representative mandate to negotiate with Italian politics. But still more: he was not alone. He was the representative of an extensive movement with – at least – ten prominent leaders (Figure 32), a diffused power in taking decisions, a network of associations scattered throughout the Italian territory, various high-quality newspapers just meant for a Deaf readership. What is more important to this chapter, the atmosphere in the Deaf movement was democratic and pluralistic: everyone was strongly aware that the management of the diverse perspectives and values of Deaf leaders was an invaluable richness to be fostered, a political strength. From these values and this strength, a unified, fully representative, politically very strong Ente Nazionale Sordomuti (today, Ente Nazionale Sordi – from now on, briefly, ENS) was to originate. Its action would be considerably effective in achieving political goals to the benefit of Deaf Italians. On top of this, this movement would take the world’s leadership and found the World Federation of the Deaf, transmitting to this new institution the same plural values that characterized ENS. None of this was a present by hearing people (Rubino Rinascita May 1948): it was the result of Deaf people’s selfless work, the political awareness of their leaders, the numerosity of their basis, their ability to self-empower, their generosity in valuing and putting to profit each other’s qualities.

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As long as it remained plural, Italian ENS remained strong. When it lost its plural character, this exceptional chapter on the world history of Deaf people came to an end.

Figure 32: Members of the Executive Committee of Ente Nazionale Sordomuti (the unified association of Italian Deaf people) during a meeting in Rome in 1949 – Vittorio Ieralla and Giovanni De Carlis are not in the main picture and are represented below. From the left, standing: Gino Brocchi, Edgardo Carli, Enrico Brogi; sitting: Leopoldo Sebasti, Antonio Magarotto, (his hearing son Cesare Magarotto, not one of the ten founding fathers . . . rather a son), Francesco Rubino, Vincenzo Ali, Carlo Comitti.

This is the story that this chapter will tell. The historical sources that have enabled telling it were preeminently Deaf: pictures of Deaf Italian associative life beginning in 1874, the newspapers that Deaf people wrote for Deaf people, printed by Deaf people, that are of excellent journalistic and political quality, and some previously unpublished memoirs by protagonists.

7b.2 Origins The protagonists labelled it “a new era” (Rubino, Rinascita October 1950), “redemption” (Rubino Rinascita May 1949) and “glorious redemption” (Ieralla Rinascita January 1951), “bright victory” (Rubino Rinascita May 1949), “human

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achievement of construction” (Brocchi Rinascita May 1948), “resplendent period in Italian Deaf history” (Carli Rinascita February 51) and were well aware that “Italy was taking the vanguard of nations” as far as the quest for Deaf rights and “human justice” was concerned (Rubino Rinascita October 1950). It all began in a time when Deaf people were “living in anguished sufferance, abandoned and forgotten”, as Gino Brocchi would later write (Rinascita May 1948). “Society ignored the existence of Deaf people to be redeemed, it ignored their precarious conditions, and left them at the mercy of several difficulties and in the most desolate neglect” (Ieralla Rinascita May/June 1952). Isolated as they could be, mostly illiterate, Deaf Italians from a past that is beyond a time within the span of memory of those who are presently living and their families, might as well have left no historical traces of themselves. No documents, would an historian say, no entrance in history. Well, this is not the case. There are sources telling this story, they are the ones that a Deaf association in Milan preserved (Società di Mutuo Soccorso n.d.): an album of photos dating from the second half of 1800. Besides short snippets from newspapers, this album preserves collective photos of Deaf persons, often below the emblems of their associations, sometimes mentioning all names of portrayed persons. To an historian, accustomed to think that history starts with documents, it would be simple to equate Deaf associations with Deaf collective entering in history. Associazione Benefica Cardano collected and preserved photos of Deaf associations from cities, provinces, and regions, mostly from Northern Italy: Turin (two associations), Vercelli, Lomellina, Alessandria, Region Piedmont, Milan, Cremona, Vigevano, Bologna and region Emilia, Genua, La Spezia, Verona, Padua, Venice, Trieste, Florence, Rome (two associations), Region Campania, Bari, Palermo. The most ancient of these association dates from 1874, it is Società di Mutuo Soccorso Gerolamo Cardano di Milano, and most of them stem from the end of 1800. The information that these photos provide are of a threefold nature: firstly, they tell about the existence of these associations; secondly, they tell about their being sections of “Società di Mutuo Soccorso”, that is Mutual Aid Societies, or independent associations, sometimes alternative to one another on the same territory; and thirdly, they tell about the numerosity of their members. A 1921 photo from Verona has approximately 100 persons portraited, a 1889 photo from Genua has some thirty persons, a 1906 photo from Milan has some 150 members. The 1911 first National Congress of Deaf people in Rome displays more or less 150 persons. These may not be the number of members in these associations, but one can imply there could be no less. Associazione Benefica Cardano had a good reason to collect these pictures: its president was Giuseppe Enrico Prestini (Figure 33), the author of reunification of these associations into a network. Anna knows that Prestini first founded a series

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of Deaf associations in the villages of Lomellina, an area of Lombardy, and subsequently unified them – but his action of reunification went well beyond Lomellina.

Figure 33: Giuseppe Enrico Prestini.

The reason to unite and establish what was to be labelled as FIAS, Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni tra Sordomuti, was clear and strong already in 1920: as FIAS Statute reads, its goals were obtaining from the State civil and legal equality for Deaf persons, integrating and coordinating associations, building awareness in Deaf people about their rights and duties, reaching to Italian peripheries where Deaf persons did not yet have an association by creating new ones, establishing schools, producing publications, organizing conferences (art. 3 of FIAS Statuto). “These associations lived mostly performing mutual aid and sport activities. Each was autonomously isolated in its province. There were two national associations, USI, Unione Italiana Sordomuti and FSI, Federazione Italiana Sordomuti, . . . but they were separated by strong feelings and had no real possibilities of development. Their leaders were Vincenzo Ali for Unione, a committed catholic, and Prestini for Federazione, a freemason” (Carli n.d.). These words are by Edgardo Carli (chapters 3a, 5a, 12a), one of the protagonists of Deaf history of the following generation, a partisan of communist faith with a clear understanding of politics and history.

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The story begins to become interesting: Deaf participation in associations was polarized in two principal identities. The leaders retelling the story of ENS in the pages of their newspapers would carefully avoid mentioning the reasons that divided them (Ieralla Rinascita May/June 1952). It is in the pages of Edgardo Carli’s private memoirs that a political interpretation conveys meaning to this duality: one association is catholic, and one is freemason – freemasonry had been one of the roots of republicanism during Italian Risorgimento.1 In subsequent times, the duality would remain between a catholic association, and a communist one. But while Deaf antifascists were active, also fascism was. In 1942, fascism had created by law a unified ENS, Ente Nazionale per L’assistenza e la Protezione dei Sordomuti. And Deaf leaders, especially Edgardo Carli, could not be happy with it. What was wrong with the 1942 law? Well, for one thing, it was fascist and one of the two roots of the Deaf movement was antifascist: “it had been created without the participation of Deaf persons”, Carli wrote (Carli n.d.; Rinascita 15 July 1946, Ordine del giorno). In fact, soon after the Italian liberation, precisely in opposition to ENS being founded by fascism in 1942, a new association was founded by Carli and Rubino, blending USI and FSI into UFSI – and this was the antifascist pole – partly partisan and communist, partly catholic. Carli and Rubino contacted leaders of Northern Italy associations: Ali, De Carlis, Ieralla – Vittorio Ieralla was the founder and President of the Deaf Association in Trieste, while Trieste was at the time occupied by Allied troops and not yet Italian (Verbale 1946). “It was a long work on the loom”, meaning that political and diplomatic skills were being developed (“waved together”) and put to use to build a unified Deaf community. But 1942 ENS existed, already networking local Deaf associations, and its leader, Antonio Magarotto, was not waiting in idleness (Carli n.d.). Antonio Magarotto, for his part, did not aim at anything different from UFSI: the reunification of Deaf associations. While Magarotto could put on the table the decisive asset of an organizazion, ENS, that the Italian law – albeit a fascist law – had already ratified, with all the invaluable simplifications that this implied, UFSI, quite crucially, had a partisan root, and, as Monsignor Giovanni Teruzzi, an open-minded catholic priest (Rinascita May 1949), quite clearly pointed out, this was a “provident coincidence” (Verbale 1946). These words were quite a euphemism, one would say, at that moment in history, words that told that partisan credentials were quite an asset at the time, an asset catholics were quite interested in.

1 Risorgimento is the movement of reunification of Italy, having its peaks in 1861, 1870, and the First World War.

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When the war ended, Deaf people were no more hindered by the fascist prohibition of association and by the difficulties of wartime. In addition, they had capitalized the empowerment that the labour market provided to categories usually left at home, that during wartime had been employed in replacement of the male labour force engaged in the military (Carli n.d.). So, in 1946, UFSI and ENS started nothing less than a mating ballet. “On one side UFSI, on the other ENS, both working for one’s own interest. UFSI decided it would organize a congress in Milan, and sent invitations to all Deaf associations, also the ones coordinated by ENS. The dates fixed for the congress were September 21 and 22. Magarotto answered by inviting UFSI at the ENS congress, to be held in Rome on September 14 and 15. This way, he secured timely precedence”. It was a real mating ritual, that UFSI accepted. Ali, Carli, De Carlis and Rubino left for a ten-hours-long train trip to Rome, on a devastated post-war railroad. “It was not a cordial meeting, accusation flied” through the air of the University lecture theatre that hosted the congress. On the verge of a breaking point, Antonio’s son, Cesare, calmed the situation, and proposed for the assembly to continue its discussion in the subsequent Milan congress. “A week of reflection would be useful to everyone” (Carli n.d.). The protagonists were well aware of what was at stake: “Insisting in breaking everything would mean to annihilate Deaf hopes, continue with unfruitful antagonisms deprived of future” (Carli n.d.). A second, skillful mediator stepped forward, Monsignor Giovanni Teruzzi, who proposed to form a balanced commission, with five components elected by each congress. ENS laid its roots mostly in Veneto, a catholic region in North-Eastern Italy. Its representatives were called the “Roman” ones, from the city of the Congress they had organised: Antonio Magarotto, Gino Brocchi, Enrico Brogi, Carlo Comitti, Leopoldo Sebasti. On its side, UFSI had been partisan and communist, stemming mostly from Milan and Turin and their regions, regions of intensive Deaf associative activities, and therefore bringing with themselves a huge number of card-carrying members (Carli 1988), as the photos from Associazione Benefica Cardano also attest. They elected their five “Milanese” representatives: Vincenzo Ali, Edgardo Carli, Giovanni De Carlis, Vittorio Ieralla, Francesco Rubino. The Aula Magna of Università Cattolica that hosted the Milan congress was filled with Deaf participants (Figure 34). The debate was passionate. The foundational values proposed were labour, in the discourse by Edgardo Carli; De Carlis supported coordination within ENS and with associations; Francesco Rubino – who is remembered to be the purest signer, in a time of either oralism or signed Italian – signed in favour of establishing

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Figure 34: 1946 Congresso at Aula Magna of Università Cattolica di Milano.

relationships to political authorities, trade unions, public entities. The Committee of ten men was already at work. And in the following months, this Committee continued its most fruitful work: ENS was to be recognized by the Italian state, the law founding ENS was to be modified, a statute was to be created. Relations with numerous national politicians were initiated, that were immediately extended as high as to the President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi. When the new ENS was born, Italy in its entirety was evolving from a partisanled state, with a majority of communists in its government, towards a catholic governed state, with a majority pivoting around Democrazia Cristiana party. Democrazia Cristiana had two types of reasons to support the Deaf “redemption” movement. One was its christian and charitable values. The other was its attitude to create electoral consensus through what Italians labelled as “assistenzialismo clientelare”, that is, benefiting specific categories in order to create a special dependency from the party, that would therefore be regularly voted (by the way, this is the same attitude that in following decades led Italy to build up a considerable public debt). ENS ledership was able to attract this sort of attention, having intentionally built its political strength in a compact, extensive network of Deaf persons that the associations organized and supported. ENS, in partnership with Istat, promoted collections of statistical data on the condition of Deaf people that took place in 1955 (La Settimana del Sordo 15 August 1982), and before doing that they

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had already made estimates of how many Deaf persons lived in Italy: according to a 1948 estimate there were “32.000 citizens who work and pay their taxes, who are a living part of the nation: they have rights that no one can misunderstand and reject” (Carli, Rinascita April 1948). In 1952 the estimate was for Deaf persons to be “45.000, among whom 25.000 who needed assistance, and 10.000 illiterate or semi-illiterate” (Rinascita September 1951: 2): they could be viewed as a political mass by communist Carli, or as a number of voters by Venetian Magarotto, supporter of Democrazia Cristiana. In fact, a group of politicians labelled “Amici dei Sordi”, “Friends of Deaf people” was to be organized (Rinascita March 1950). Its leader was a Democrazia Cristiana politician, who was a former partisan and a member of the Italian Constituent Assembly, Mario Saggin. He came from and was politically rooted in the same geographic area, Padua, as Antonio Magarotto and his hearing son Cesare. The Vice-president of “Amici dei Sordi” group was Umberto Terracini, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party and President of the Italian Constituent Assembly (Rinascita March 1950). This group started to act as a lobby in favor of the Deaf movement. As the Italian government in post-war years progressively shifted from being partisan – and often communist – to pivoting around Democrazia Cristiana, as already told, it was the catholic, Venetian pole that ended up contributing most to the success of the Deaf enterprise. This is attested in Deaf newspapers articles (Rinascita March 1950; September 1951), reporting meetings with various members of Democrazia Cristiana, including Giulio Andreotti. These reports presented these leaders as friends of Deaf people (to mentions just some: Rinascita January 1951; Rinascita September 1951; La Settimana del Sordomuto 11 June 1960). The result would be that of the two roots of ENS, the Venetian one would be the most celebrated, and Antonio Magarotto would start to be remembered as the one founder of ENS.

7b.3 The value of democracy An interesting story is the one about the sign for “democracy”, in LIS. Various signers used a distinct sign from the one that is used at present for “democracy”, among them Anna’s four parents, including uncle Gastone, who was engaged in leading roles in local ENS sections, elderly Florentine Deaf signers, but also Edgardo Carli, who was for Anna a third father (chapter 3a, 5a, 12a). They signed “democracy” with a three handshape of the dominant hand, hand palm

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pointing downwards, having the forearm rebound downwards, with the articulation of the movement starting from the elbow. This sign does not exist any longer, in contemporary LIS, but it resonates with another, still existing sign: “approving”, “confirming”, so that it semantically reminds concepts of enacting, approving, ratifying laws. It is a verb for persons who construct and have things done, as opposed to complain and protest. It is also a verb for persons who know what they want and work to obtain approval of their action. At present, the LIS sign for democracy is the more generic sign for “freedom”. This is a beautiful concept, but freedom, as Isaiah Berlin taught, has at least two meanings: “freedom to”, which somehow corresponds to the meaning of approving, and “freedom from”. In spite of what Berlin wrote, “freedom from” means to Everyman “being left alone”. While “freedom to” is political, “freedom from” is, with a bit of exaggeration, even unsocial. Sign languages are very flexible in adapting a sign to the concept that is behind it. Just to remain on the sign for democracy, the sign name for “Democrazia Cristiana”, a party no longer existing at the present time, was, also in Carli’s time, the same as “freedom”, followed by a cross on the signer’s forehead, that associates to catholic religion. What Deaf leaders meant by democracy at the time of the ten founding fathers was approval and recognition for their engagement, for their requests, for the products of their political, participative enterprise. They were skillful politicians, able to realistically evaluate politics: “Situations are not faced and cannot be solved by invoking more or less immortal principles, but keeping in mind the reality determining them, and the solution that reality allows”, Gino Brocchi wrote (Rinascita May 1948). Following the definition of democracy, the Deaf founding fathers acted in a plural mode: they were aware that their plurality was their strength. As for plurality, ENS originated from the reunification of at least 35 UFSI associations, as reported in the minutes of the Milan pre-Congress reunion (Rinascita 15 July 1946, Verbale) and the many associations reunited by the old ENS. In addition, plurality was important for the new ENS as it had been important for FIAS, where sections’ autonomy was preserved (Art. 1 Statute): ENS insisted on the initiative that local sections could promote and propose (Rinascita, April 1948, chapter 1 in Regolamento Interno), and the autonomy of pre-existing organization, now coordinated within ENS (art. 41, 42, 43 of ENS Statuto, in Rinascita, April 1948). In one word, ENS was as decentered and autonomous as the newborn republican Italian State was. In addition, ENS would reach Deaf persons throughout Italy, away from isolation and civil oversight, to organize them in a category, and this was an intentional

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preparation to achieve democratic political strength. Acting plurally was a product of the Deaf founding fathers’ determination to achieve political recognition. ENS was to be one, but it belonged to many: its patrimony belonged to all Italian Deaf persons by Statute (ENS Statute Rinascita April 1948). At the same time, having to mediate among many diverse ideas developed political qualities in the founding fathers: tolerance, acceptance of others’ perspectives, mediation abilities, diplomacy, self-awareness of being at a par with others (Deaf or hearing), evaluating abilities, solid values. Another important factor was the idea that conquests are earned in the first person by performing one’s duties and being aware of one’s rights, competence in perceiving themselves as subjects of political action side by side with other categories.2 “[We have] responsibilities towards our younger brothers, and in the name of these responsibilities, participants are invited to avoid contrasts and polemics and to keep the discussion lively, but serious and constructive”, with these words Vittorio Ieralla moderated the first assembly giving birth to ENS (Ieralla Verbale 1946). The program that ENS gave itself was “support and defence” of Deaf people as “citizens and workers”, to put it in words that were quite typically Carli’s (Rinascita May 1948). Their program in ENS Statute, the Statute that the ten leaders wrote, was as following: providing assistance and protection for Deaf persons both schooled and not-yet schooled; building professional schools for Deaf students; supporting Deaf workers, by enacting specific laws, and also by linking to Trade Unions; elevating the general cultural level; creating mutual assistance;3 further uniting Deaf associations to ENS, but continuing to secure them autonomy and democratic freedoms, and monitoring that moral and material interests of Deaf member persons be respected; coordinating Deaf institutions and providing Deaf associations to provinces that did not have one. All Deaf persons on the Italian territory had to be reached for, in order to provide for them (ENS Statute in Rinascita April 1948). ENS achieved most of what it planned. First of all, the 1942 Fascist law establishing ENS was overcome, and in 1950 ENS was re-founded, with a new, democratic Statute, and as a result of the Deaf bottom-up movement – not of a top-down decision. The Italian Republican State recognized and funded it, which meant that the Italian Interior Ministry monitored 2 As to other categories, blind people are often considered (Rinascita, May June 1952), and Deaf women (Rinascita 15 July 1946). 3 In fact, the intention was to rationalize and centralize mutual assistance, so that no other Deaf association would provide it (Rinascita February 1951, art. 5 of Ente Statute).

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on the appointment of ENS’s elected President – and the Ministry always confirmed Deaf presidents elected by ENS members –; support in parliament for ENS’s law projects – so that Italy was the only European state, to our knowledge, where a 1958 law established quotas for Deaf workers not in as much as they were disabled, but in as much as they were Deaf, quite an unicum in European legislation (chapter 6b). Assistance and pensions were provided to 16,000 “poor and ‘unable’” Deaf persons (Settimana del Sordomuto 11 June 1960). Funding for ENS projects was accompanied by a duty of publicity for its budget, for which Deaf people were made responsible, a responsibility they were aware and honored about (Rinascita February 1953).

7b.4 Deaf President then, but first among equals The ten-men committee continued its works until 1950. In a smaller scale, its activity compared to the activity of Italian Costituente, the assembly that wrote the postfascist republican Constitution, originating from both communist and catholic values. In 1950, the man who was first appointed by the Italian Government as ENS’s temporary Commissario, and then “democratically elected as ENS President, on the basis of the by then perfectioned and approved Statute”, was Vittorio Ieralla (Rinascita 16 August 1962: 2). Vice Commissario, Vincenzo Committi, was also a Deaf man: no hearing tutelage at all (Rinascita January 1951). Being recognized and funded by the State may be of little interest for American readers, but is considerable to the eyes of European readers, for whom the State qualifies as a welfare state, and is therefore very influential. Deaf newspaper Rinascita titled in big letters “Un SORDOMUTO nominato COMMISSARIO GOVERNATIVO all’E.N.S”, “A Deaf man appointed Government Commissar for ENS”. Vittorio Ieralla was a universally appreciated leader. In his young age, Ieralla had been strongly influenced in his values by Giuseppe Enrico Prestini, the founder of FIAS, who had been his mentor. After Prestini’s death, in 1941, Ieralla had become the President of FIAS (Rinascita October 1950). Politically, as Anna Folchi remembers having heard in her childhood from Edgardo Carli, Ieralla was a leftist, but not openly a communist as partisan Carli. He was present in and close to the lives of simple Deaf people in schools, as no other leader among the ten ones (Carli, Settimana del Sordo 15 September 1982: 2). As all ten members of the committee, he was a hard worker, sparing no energies for himself. But he shared this quality, working hard to rebuild the country, with

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hearing Italians of his generation, as well as with local Deaf leaders, such as Anna’s uncle Gastone Parrini, whose wife used to say he had married ENS – but about this, luckily, she was happy and accepting, as Anna recalls. Vittorio Ieralla was a patient man, always working to mediate, and he was able to listen. He was a Deaf man able to listen to people. As long as Vittorio Ieralla was President of ENS – a charge he kept for 24 years (Rinascita 15 August 1982) – he was the director of ENS newspapers, and he wrote in the newspapers a big quantity of articles that built political and personal awareness in his Deaf readers. Anyone who reads Rinascita today will find that Ieralla’s articles are an invaluable document about his personality. Having lived a long life, the obituary articles he wrote in memory of his fellow eight founding fathers (only Carli outlived Ieralla) are especially interesting, and have been selected by Anna as sources for this chapter. Anna reminds having been said that the ten Deaf leaders were close friends in spite of their political differences: this really stands out from what Ieralla wrote. About Giovanni De Carlis, Ieralla did not write that he had a bad character and was an opinionated catholic but that “his discourses were convincing and sometimes biting”, that “one had to know him well to comprehend his sudden starts”, and that “his ideas had not always been in agreement with those of Prestini, who had a larger and less traditionalist perspective” (Settimana del Sordo 30 June 1979). And one can believe this was not an exercise in hypocrisy, quite to the contrary, this report is very sincere, it is rather the product of Ieralla’s ability to find the good side in his fellows and put it to value. Without this attitude, the ten leaders would not have been able to achieve what they did. The sources that could be accessed by the authors of this article were not equally balanced in providing information on all ten leaders, also for the reason that not all of them were equally active on Deaf newspapers. And precisely as far as newspapers are concerned, Edgardo Carli’s personality can be very well characterized, as he was a founder and editor of newspapers, an activity he had begun during his time as a partisan that is documented in the Parma archives of the communist party (PCI. June 1945–22 October 1946; chapter 12a). The newspapers that Deaf persons published throughout time were several. Let us just mention four important ones among them. Riscossa was a clandestine, partisan newspaper founded and published by Edgardo Carli and Francesco Rubino in 1944, under fascism. At its fourth number, in 1945, Italy had been freed, and the newspaper changed its name to Rinascita: a title no less connotated for being communist than Riscossa was. In 1946, Rinascita blended with Antonio Magarotto’s Araldo Silenzioso to become Rinascita, Nuovo Giornale dei Sordomuti (Rinascita 21 October 1946), and when ENS was officially

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established, it would become Rinascita, Organo dell’Ente Nazionale Sordomuti. Not surprisingly, as the Italian government was transformed from a partisan one with a strong communist component to a government of the Democrazia Cristiana, Rinascita transformed its title, and became La Settimana del Sordomuto, Organo di Informazione dei Minorati dell’udito e della Parola: it was 1955. The first, invaluable function of these newspapers was to account to the Deaf people about what their leaders were performing – considering the unsatisfying educational situation of Deaf people at the time (Rinascita September 1951: 2), this was both a political duty towards the people that leaders were politically representing, and an educative objective, so as to raise consciousness. In 1951, Vittorio Ieralla wrote on Rinascita about the duty to subscribe, for every regional and provincial section of ENS, as “the newspaper is indispensable in documenting the real moral and material situation of Deaf people, to support their attitude towards redemption and their aspirations, . . . it documents the official acts in the life of ENS, . . . it allows Deaf people to form a realistic concept of the general situation about the silent movement and the progresses achieved, . . . it is the continuation of the noble tradition of the silent journalism active in the years of the glorious redemption, and its life is worth a gained battle, . . . it updates about the most significant events at a national and international level” (Rinascita January 1951). Rinascita covered all meetings with hearing politicians and government representatives, all results of political deliberations: the ENS statute, to say one, was specifically published in order for it to be approved: “the Executive committee [the ten leaders] by presenting Deaf people with the final text of the Statute and Regulation invites all “silenzionsi” [silent people] to adhere, invites all the Presidents of Association and Institutions that act in favor of Deaf people, who are by right components of the National Council of ENS, to collect accessions”. Even before it existed, ENS was acting according to its democratic institutions: a universal Congress, composed by delegates (one in 25 members), just quoted above, the Executive Committee that was writing on Rinascita this invitation, and the Council, composed of one representative out of each association that was an ENS member (Carli, Rinascita April 1948; see also Rinascita May 1948). But the topics hosted by Deaf newspapers were not only centered on Deaf politics and life. They presented the Italian and international political situation, provided clear biographies of international hearing leaders, reported about trade unions, interviewed important hearing and Deaf personalities, accounted for its budget, reminded Deaf people about their history, besides, as any other newspaper, writing about sport, art, religion. Francesco Rubino worked side by side with Carli in his journalistic enterprise, and is remembered by Anna as the third leftist member of the Committee, after

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Carli and Ieralla, but once again not openly a communist, in the group of ten. All other leaders were politically close to Democrazia Cristiana, and two of them, De Carlis and Ali, as already said, were catholic. As Rubino used to mostly work with Carli, having started their friendship and collaboration at the time of UFSI, Leopoldo Sebasti was close to Antonio Magarotto (Settimana del Sordo 15 June 1981). Enrico Brogi was active in mutual assistance institutions development (Settimana del Sordomuto, 23 May 1959); Carlo Comitti was an architect, he had attained higher education credentials at a time when this was so difficult that no one else could, and worked in Rome as a teacher for Deaf students (Rinascita, February 1951). It is noteworthy that no one of these representatives was from Southern Italy: the one born in the Southernmost town was Leopoldo Sebasti: and he was born near Viterbo, in the region of Rome. This is quite telling about the most difficult conditions in which Southern Italian Deaf people lived, as also Carli remembers in his memoirs: “in the South [of Italy], from Napoli downwards, a terrible problem was destitution, abject poverty, that reached staggering levels . . . For this reason, we started to struggle for assistance for destitute Deaf people. After a long time, we obtained that poor Deaf persons could be provided with a support of two thousand lire per month, which allowed for at least one kilo bread per day” (Carli 1988). In addition, it was a time when hearing women participation to politics was considerable, for they had been engaged in making Italy work in the absence of men and could therefore not be marginalized from politics in freed Italy. But the Deaf Committee of ten did not include even a single woman. If La settimana del Sordo’s obituaries are a comprehensive source on the lives and accomplishments of the ten leaders, an exceptional place is the one for Antonio Magarotto. Ieralla remembered him as an intelligent man, very dedicated to the Deaf cause. But Antonio Magarotto’s fame would subsequently exceed that of any other among the ten founding fathers of ENS. The beginning of Antonio Magarotto’s myth is in the chronicle of the Democrazia Cristiana’s political personalities sending condolence letters upon his departure: the Prime Minister Aldo Moro, the Foreign Affairs Minister Amintore Fanfani, the Interior Minister Paolo Emilio Taviani, the Minister for Public Education Luigi Gui, the minister for Industrialization Giulio Andreotti, in addition to less well-known Labour Minister, Post Minister, Budget Minister, Merchant Navy Minister, Transport Minister; there were also five Sottosegretari, fourteen additional Members of Parliament, four Prefetti, two Bishops and an Archibishop, two Generals, and so may more public personalities that they fill three tightly written columns of La Settimana del Sordo (14 May 1966).

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For a comparison, nothing similar took place at Ieralla’s funeral (Settimana del Sordo 15 August 1982). Democrazia Cristiana would further contribute to building Antonio Magarotto’s myth. To mention just one document that anyone can view, in 1962 Mario Saggin had a stone plaque placed on the wall of a Deaf school in Padua,4 remembering Antonio Magarotto in bold letters as the founder of ENS. In the plaque, a much-remembered 1932 episode is celebrated, when Deaf leaders met in Padua, – circumventing the fascist prohibition to assembly, and a specific fascist law against Deaf meetings –, by labelling their meeting a religious one in devotion to St. Antony. The names of the ten leaders would appear, in a much smaller font and less important position. Similar propaganda creations were agiographic biographies of Antonio Magarotto, such as in the Italian RAI, public television movie Con la voce del Cuore (Santi 2000), which has no parallel in biographies of the other ten Deaf founding fathers. The contribution of Magarotto to ENS has been real, especially in that he created the ENS program to found professional schools (Rinascita May 1948), after funding the one in Padua that still exists.5 Professional schools would provide the opportunity for Deaf intelligent students to gain a profession and a better position in life than they had had until then. Ieralla himself was a self-taught man, and in his obituary articles dedicated to Gino Brocchi and Leopoldo Sebasti he observed that, being intelligent students, they could not benefit of the education they had deserved (Settimana del Sordomuto 30 January 1965; Settimana del Sordo 15 June 1981). Professional schools were founded and personally directed by these leaders on the behalf of ENS: the first one was a typographic secondary school in Rome, to be directed by Antonio Magarotto, who was a typographist. Another one was a school of photography, founded and directed by Gino Brocchi (Settimana del Sordomuto 30 January 1965), in a domain that was crucial in Deaf perception of the world, and would remain such until video making would take its place (Padden & Humphries 2006; Trovato 2016). Education was for Deaf people a priority, and ENS worked hard towards this result (Settimana del Sordo, 9 May 1959). Therefore, Antonio Magarotto deserved

4 The school is the first one founded by Antonio Magarotto in 1946, and beared his name: “Convitto Statale per Sordi Antonio Magarotto”. The plaque is still there, in Via Cardinal Callegari, 6, in Padua. It had been inaugurated in 1961 by Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani. 5 In 1951 a second typographic professional school was founded in Rome by Ente, with a state contribution of 24 millions lire (Settimana del Sordomuto, 14 May 1966).

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the honors he received, but he was not alone, in his work of founding ENS, especially when the process of foundation was at its most decisive, historic passages. As a result of the political support specifically targeting Antonio Magarotto, a trend began that led to forget that ENS had originated plurally, from ten founding fathers, not just one, and that it owed its political quality to the debates between its two roots, including not only the Democrazia Cristiana side, but also the line stemming from FIAS, and continued through UFSI, the five Milanese representatives, the Carli-Ieralla-Rubino line, and the newspapers which had once been called Riscossa and Rinascita. The plural history of the origin of ENS would be neglected in such retellings, so that, among Italian Deaf people, it is today partially forgotten. But pluralism was the reason for ENS’s achievements. Pluralism was not only the way to keep together so many founding associations, but it built the political competence that made those leaders great, as great was their season in the history of Deaf people.

7b.5 The foundation of the World Federation of the Deaf In the opening speech of the first President of the Word Federation of the Deaf, Vittorio Ieralla, “brothers from all over the world, with different flags, languages and customs” had gone to Rome “with one heart, with one will” (Rinascita September 1951: 1–2). The World Federation of the Deaf was an Italian creation, with not only an Italian President, Vittorio Ieralla, but also an Italian secretary, hearing Cesare Magarotto, and its headquarters in Rome. To the first World Congress of Deaf people, delegates were arriving from 32 countries, while Italy was displaying its top politicians, from the President of Italian Senate, to the Mayor of Rome, and receiving greetings from The President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi, and the Pope, Pio XII (Rinascita September 1951: 1–2). In the speech of the Mayor of Rome, besides adjectives such as “minorati”, (handicapped), and words like “inferiority”, marking a not yet politically correct hearing perspective on deafness (chapter 5b), the recognition came for Deaf people to have “reached the capability to be equal to any other citizen” so that the Mayor saluted “a pacific and saint conquest of our civilization” (Rinascita September 1951: 2).

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Christian Democrat politician Mario Saggin was even programming to coordinate an interparliamentary group of international politicians, all of them “Friends of Deaf people” (Rinascita September 1951, 1–2). It was presumably at this time that UNESCO started to be interested in Deaf organizzations (Rinascita 1–30 August 1954), in as much as WFD had tasks of international coordination: the ones that are typically carried out by UNESCO and its sisters international organizations (chapter 8b).

7b.6 Conclusion “ENS has been and still is inside me”. Edgardo Carli was the youngest of the group of ten and was the one who signed Ieralla’s obituary. Today, Emiliano, a Deaf leftist, who finds a political model in Edgardo, uses the same words, when commenting about ENS. Carli’s attachment is uncommon at the present time. In present times, when things go wrong, the political mediation of the first times has left its place to impatience, and Deaf people are quick in tearing their ENS membership card when something goes wrong, as Anna testifies. And ENS as well, today, is no more the same as it used to be. The glorious chapter in which Italian Deaf leaders were at the forefront on Deaf world movements has come to an end. In 1979, ENS ceased to be an “Ente di diritto pubblico”. According to the Italian law, an “Ente di diritto pubblico” is perceived by the State as useful in targeting specific needs of general interest, and therefore is funded and monitored by the State. In 1979 ENS became a private association. What had happened? Maybe the ideals of social justice originating from antifascist resistance had disappeared from the Italian political scene, maybe Democrazia Cristiana felt it had already laid firm roots in Italian society and could now do without Deaf people, maybe this extraordinary generation of Deaf leaders had disappeared or retired, not to be equally replaced by the following one. Cesare Magarotto had written, “there is still a great deal to do, and we have to keep our action alive, as our brothers feel it should be, remembering all the sacrifices that the old generation made” (Ces. Rinascita January 1951). The overall situation of Deaf newspapers followed a similarly bending curve. In 1981, the tone of the average article had considerably lowered (no author, La Settimana del Sordo 15 June 1981). Noble words about Deaf people as the “authors of sacrifices” had left the place to requests worded as though Deaf people were entitled to all rights and disparaged of all rights. Comparison with other disabled people were instrumental to a war between the poor for resources, and

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comparison with other European countries were there to unwittingly say that Italy was dragging behind. No realism was displayed about effective manners in the political game, about the availability of resources, no diplomacy was used in requests, while the “non-Deaf” could just “not understand”. It was asserted that “no feeling of pity or commiseration were invoked”, but the half-complaining halfclaiming tone was such that the Deaf reader was invited to an angry victimization. No surprise that in 2011 Deaf Italians lost their newspaper in a legal controversy. What is most missing at the present times is the pluralistic, mediating attitude of those who accept differences, whatever the difficulties, and are ready to put to value the abilities they perceive in their “silent brothers”. It is an attitude that only political participation, and a positive idea of politics can provide – but such trust in politics is hard to find in Deaf as well as in hearing persons, in present times.

Sara Trovato & Graziella Anselmo

8a Theatrical activity. Joseph Castronovo’s story He was a gifted, talented and charming man. He was also a tragic figure, in some respects, and I suppose that somewhere along the way I decided that where he had failed I would succeed. (Bernard Bragg about his father, 1989: 140)

Spoken discourse is gendered, emotional – or unemotional –, personal – or impersonal –, and varies in voice, volume, pitch, prosody, attitude. Written discourse is somehow more disembodied and abstract: it selects some qualities of discourse to be conveyed, at the expense of others. Similarly, as far as cultural productions are concerned, in novels and essays, words can be disembodied – but they become embodied again in poems and, above all, in theatre – poetry and theatre are, in fact, labelled as performative arts. Sign-language words cannot be disembodied by writing them down: they are naturally performative. They take along with themselves an expressive or unexpressive visage, and movements that are stiff or dancing. The very idea of an expressive visage implies serenity or emotions, as the idea of dancing implies plenty of variations in style, speed, stillness and acceleration, grace, force, and so on. As a consequence, it appears that sign language and theatre share a series of features. Bernard Bragg, one of the greatest American Deaf actors, observed that there is “theatricality” in sign language (1989: 209). It will not surprise anyone that Deaf people – and hearing people working with them – attribute an extraordinary role to theatre: “It is the scene that, according to us, permits to exchange the most profound truths, without betraying them”, as Jean Grémion wrote, an extraordinary supporter of Deaf people in France (2017: 243; Abbou 2017: 121; on Jean Grémion more in chapter 8b). And it is probably not by coincidence that many of those among the world Deaf leaders that have been awarded the most important recognitions were actors, such as Marlee Matlin, Emmanuelle Laborit, or, again, Bernard Bragg. Emiliano Mereghetti (chapters 3a, 7a, 7b, 10a), thinks that theatre can be instrumental in elevating the Deaf community: “We must use theatre with the objective to both increase sign language and promote culture in the Deaf community. The contents of theatre plays should be linked to the life of the Deaf community. . . . Drama can be conducive of culture: instead of reading Dante, one can see it. Everyone can access culture by this means. In the Deaf community, who reads and, especially, who reads Dante?” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-015

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Theatre will be the main character of chapters 8a and 8b. Chapter 8a will present theatre as one of Anna’s cultural interests, and the narrative thread will lead us to shift focus on Anna’s first theatre guide, Joseph Castronovo. Joseph’s personality and his activities will be presented – what led Joseph to Sicily, since he was an American? Did he achieve his project? And by the way, what project did he have? Chapter 8b will place the story of Joseph Castronovo’s project in an international scenery, and trace back the institutional reasons why a grand theatre project, a project specifically aimed at empowerment for the Deaf community, succeeds or fails.

8a.1 Anna’s love for theatre and its origins Anna thinks that working in the world of theater was beautiful. Deaf people love theater, since it has a strong visual component to it. Personally, I appreciate theater actors better than cinema actors, as in cinema if one shooting is imperfect, it can be repeated, whereas in theater no mistakes are allowed. How did I start performing in theater? It was at school, I was 13 or 14 years old, in Florence, with a group of schoolmates who organized small shows, to showcase our talent. They were performances without a real script, we used to improvise, texts and plots were simple. They were not professional representations, but they allowed us to meet one another and to overcome our limits. As we became a little older, in 1975, we created a small theatre company within Florence ENS. Then, I moved to Palermo.

In the meantime, in Palermo, a theatre without a name had been established in 1975–76 inside local ENS – the Palermo ENS section was then directed by Armando Giuranna (Rosaria’s uncle, chapters 6a, 7a). As Anna tells, A Palermo theater company was founded by Rosaria Giuranna [chapters 1a, 6a, 9a], in the same manner as I had created a company of my own shortly before, in Florence. My company disappeared shortly after I moved to Palermo, in 1977. The Palermo company, instead, has been existing all along, till the present day. A crucial moment in its life was when it received its name, when Joseph Castronovo arrived, in 1980.

More on the story of the name will be told by Rosaria Giuranna, but first, let us discover who Joseph was, by observing the first impact that Joseph had on people meeting him.

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8a.2 An important presence Anna tells: I love to say that life is similar to a train: persons get on, persons get off. But I think that, even if Joseph Castronovo was not present in my life for a long time, he has left a permanent trace, I really owe him a lot. He was a peculiar character. Had I to describe him, I would say he was a genius. But he was also a little crazy. He was a great, great person, with a great intelligence, I never met anyone so intelligent as he was, but he also had a difficult character. He had bright blue eyes, similar to a husky dog, was a good-looking, personable man (Figure 35). What I know about his story is limited to his time in Sicily. He had been invited to Sicily by Elena Pizzuto, one of the first researchers in Deaf Studies in Italy (chapter 7a). Elena was Sicilian, she had become interested in Deaf Studies in the United States, where she had also met Joseph. Joseph was of Sicilian origin, so she invited him to follow his heritage, and hosted him at her place in Palermo. The time when this happened was the beginning of 1981. I met Joseph in Palermo in 1981, then he left Italy for Israel, and returned to Italy in June 1981, when I had just left for the United States. I do not remember precisely, but I guess all in all, Joseph remained in Palermo no longer that three or four months. But it was in Sicily that we worked together. At the beginning, we communicated in International Sign, but quite early, in a week or so, Joseph switched to LIS – a real genius.

Parallel to Anna’s, are Elena Mignosi’s words. Elena is today a professor in Education at Università di Palermo, with a rich record of publications and educational experiences in sign language. Elena Mignosi tells she has received a strong impression by Joseph, so that her life has been decisively influenced by him, similarly to Anna’s: The first time I met Joseph, it was in Rome at a poetry festival. It was 1987–1988. I had just graduated, and I was in Rome to follow a seminar at CNR on computer language learning through parallel processes. At the seminar I met Virginia Volterra, who had just published her 1984 volume on Italian Sign Language. She invited me to attend the poetry festival – at that time, I had no idea what sign language was. There, Joseph Castronovo performed a poetry recital. I can recall my emotions: how moved, how inspired and motivated Joseph’s performance made me. I was astonished, amazed. From that moment on, I completely forgot about parallel process computers and I plunged into sign language. I decided I would nourish the incredible curiosity that originated that evening, and Virginia Volterra promptly provided me with materials. I really thought that this man was an artist, he was an artist with a strong capability to convince his public about his artistic talent. He was proud – and this provided me with a beautiful approach to deafness. I did not think for a moment that he was a poor man, a poor deaf

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man. I did not approach handicap, but rather another modality, that was extraordinarily effective and expressive. My interest was immediately neither paternalistic, nor tinted with piety, nor curious about difference. I was admired.

Figure 35: Joseph Castronovo.

Let us concentrate on the period of time that Joseph spent in Italy in 1981, that is the real concern of this chapter. Elena Pizzuto, who had invited Joseph to Sicily, is unluckily no more alive to tell the story of Joseph’s permanence in Palermo. But Virginia Volterra, with whom Elena Pizzuto closely collaborated during her life within CNR, also recalls that “Joseph Castronovo was traveling to Sicily with a dual intent: rediscover his family roots and verifying the existence of some form of art in sign language among Deaf Italians” (Volterra 2011: 28). Rosaria Giuranna kept a yearly record of the theatrical activities of the Palermo theatre company (that she shared with us), and in 1981, she wrote: In 1981 a real theatrical group was formed, that considerably advanced towards professionality when Joseph Castronovo arrived – upon his arrival in Italy, he nicknamed himself Blackwater. Joseph proposed to teach a short acting course for our group. He also proposed to ideate a name for our company. Castronovo explained that the name should be chosen in order to adapt to reality, and proposed “Il Ciclope”, the Cyclops, following Greek mythology [that located the episode of Ulysses meeting the one-eyed giant on the coasts of Sicily]. The cyclops had one eye, similar to a disabled man, but he was powerful as well, as Deaf people are, and as our Deaf theatre company would be. Joseph arrived from Los Angeles. In the United States, he had been directing a special theater project, “3Project Date”, which performed for a hearing and Deaf audience. As part of this project, he helped in the development of the play “Children of a Lesser God”, (also Jepson 1992: 204), which had already received numerous awards and recognitions both in America and internationally. Elena Pizzuto had invited Joseph: she was a psycholinguist that had previously contacted our group. By inviting Joseph, she aimed at raising awareness in our group about the

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power of sign language. We had to discover [through a Deaf positive model, as Joseph could be] that sign language can express poetry on its own, rather than follow, or translate, Italian poetry

And actually, Elena Pizzuto was the first hearing person who had approached the Palermo Deaf group. Chapter 7a already told about the interpretations of this meeting on the Deaf side: Anna and her friends perceived the presence of a hearing researcher interested in sign language as quite unusual, and even more unusual, was to them Elena’s attempts to sign, in a time when only Deaf people signed. On the hearing side, Elena’s choice to look for Joseph’s support from abroad implies that she felt that the Italian – or Sicilian – Deaf community would greatly benefit from an empowerment arriving from more advanced Deaf communities (chapter 8b will tell more about such international exchanges). For the time being, what is interesting is that the element who was meant to create such an international connection was Joseph Castronovo. Elena Pizzuto’s personal involvement was to generate mixed feelings in Joseph. In effect, as Anna recalls, Elena could not find funding for Joseph’s stay in Sicily. Elena provided a home – her own home – for him, she cooked for him, and supported him from her own pocket. This created a difficult situation in their relation, so that Joseph became sometimes intolerant and once left Elena’s home, only to later return, since he had no means of his own to resort to. But what Elena Pizzuto had aimed at, that is, a shock effect on the Deaf group of people she used to meet, did take place. Graziella Anselmo, who would some time later marry Joseph, tells: Elena comprehended that we had not yet had the opportunity to receive information and lacked in awareness [about our Deaf identity]. Joseph had been touring Europe, he was experienced, he was brilliant, she proposed for him to explain to us that sign language was a real language. Open-mouthed, we observed him signing, we saw there was an interpreter [as there is one to translate real languages]. He told us, “stop using spoken language, because sign language is a real language”. We cannot say his word was enough to convince us on this point. But his general influence was such that, definitely, he opened up our minds.

Elena Pizzuto’s idea had been to provide evidence that sign language is a real language: it has to be a real language, if sign language poetry exists – and Joseph was the living proof that sign language poetry existed. Rosaria’s returning poetical image, in explaining what Joseph’s contribution had been, is that he has planted seeds: if not in 1981, sign language would be recognized by Rosaria as a real language shortly later, in 1983. But sometimes the process is more important than the result: one of the first strands of LIS poetry, if not the first, was born as an effect of Joseph

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Castronovo’s influence. Remarkably, Rosaria Giuranna, who was to be recognized as one of the greatest poets in LIS, has repeated many times, in public and in print, that her poetry has originated from the meeting with Joseph Castronovo, that Joseph transmitted her the dignity inherent in sign language. It is also Joseph’s merit if I became a poet. I followed him, followed him, followed him. . . . I used to think that poetry in LIS could be a translation from Italian, and when Elena Pizzuto told us about poetry in LIS, I thought to myself, how will we ever be able to write it down? When I realized that Joseph was creating poems directly in sign language, Elena Pizzuto told me: “Do you see? This is poetry. You can produce it as well!”

Graziella as well perceived that Elena’s intention “was for us not to translate poems from Italian, but to directly create in LIS”. At the time, in Italy, Deaf communication was considered a mimicry, a series of gestures, and no Deaf person valued it. Joseph conveyed awareness and pride, and the idea that sign language poetry is beautiful. Graziella tells Giuseppe Giuranna [Rosaria’s younger brother, at present one of the pioneers of Virtual Visual theatre after Bernard Bragg, living in Berlin and internationally celebrated as a poet and a performer in signs] was first exposed to poetry, in his young age, through Rosaria’s theatre group, and in turn, Rosaria’s theatre group crucially benefitted from Joseph’s presence. At the time, I was also already active as a poet, but I wrote in Italian, and thought that poems in LIS could only be translated. By observing Joseph, I realized I could compose poems in LIS, and that LIS had its own linguistic possibility, quite distinct from a translated creation – Elena Pizzuto was ready to film them.

8a.3 Joseph’s poetry Joseph composed poetry in ASL, in LIS, in English, in Italian. He used to play with languages and was extraordinarily creative with signs. Jerrod Grill, a student and young archivist at Gallaudet Library, tells that Joseph’s poems are presently studied in Galludet’s courses, where his poetry is appreciated especially for its richness. One of Joseph’s poems in signs, that Graziella and Rosaria recreate from memory, was about a thought that takes the form of a ball, bounces away, and then disappears. Then a thought appears again, money appears, and in like manner they disappear. There was a third repetition of appearance and disappearance. It was a poem about illusions, Rosaria explains, meaning that in life desires are many, but realizations few. Graziella explains the same poem saying that one

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talks and talks about money, but then it is one’s projects that one throws away, without acting to realize them. The wisdom in the poem is: concentrate on life, rather than on dreams. Rosaria appreciates the form in this poem, in addition to its content: the impact of beautiful signs that form a cloud, projects, thoughts, value, money – and one throws all of them away. Another poem that Enza Giuranna and Graziella recall is Nero, black. The Italian sign for BLACK was signed by bending two fingers, then only one finger, then three fingers, and then five fingers. The movement of the two hands in front of the visage of the signer opens up, and from signing BLACK, one ends up signing CLEAR. Between BLACK and CLEAR, the intermediate signs are a poetical transition, Graziella explains. Joseph had elaborated a manner to write down poems in signs, if only for his personal use as their author (there are examples among Joseph’s personal papers, that the family has preserved). Joseph mastered English – among his personal documents there is an English as Second Language Certificate Program, including in ESL methodology, from California State University Northridge – and, as one of the following section will tell, he was a teacher of English to Deaf foreigners. He loved to play and create also in writing. Sometimes he was playful with words, as Anna said he used to be with signs. Here is a short, simple and delicate poem about one center of Deaf attention in discourse, fingers. Each finger is used: to play with to enjoy to eat with to live to work with to earn to touch with to feel to sign with to talk.

And again, this time about God’s fingers: Cosmic fingerprinting Our Deity paints, Constantly at work, By the Galactical Easel, Making the open sky Light bluish black Into intense indigo Line-ns over pinkish puffs At the consumed Yellow Yolk, This transforming evening At 6:30 for 50 minutes. (23 october 87)

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Some time ago, an Arizona Deaf association sent fifteen cardboard boxes of materials to Gallaudet archives.1 While taking stock of the materials, young Gallaudet archivist Jerrod Grill, who was working on Joseph Castronovo’s theory of art for his Master’s thesis, discovered there was a letter and a videotape by Joseph Castronovo – and he was very happy about it. What allows to tell Joseph’s story are materials such as the ones preserved at Gallaudet, materials such as the ones that Joseph’s family and friends have provided to authors and testimonies such as the ones collected among his Palermo’s friends and among his Italian family. As we assembled materials for chapters 8a and 8b, an ordered digital collection of 115 items, often including more than one element each, has been conferred to Gallaudet archives. It includes 79 poems composed by Joseph, his personal documents, notes, short essays, theater scripts, pictures, articles, letters, and more. It is from these materials, that the above, unpublished poems are taken (but there are also some published poems, such as Castronovo, in Jepson 1992). Since this chapter centers on Joseph’s theatrical activities, here is one poem on theatre: A Standing Ovation: Hallelujah! Could it be true, and truthful that we are created to be the actors struggling to be, rebellious not to be, that still need the attention of the choreographing Director and his shepherding angelents?

The word “angelents” is one of Joseph’s creative inventions in English, as there were so many in signs. It might be a playful combination of angels and agents. While on the subject of sign creation, an activity that Italian Deaf people love to engage in, to the present day, let us mention that Joseph wrote a theatre script for a play to be titled KissFist. The sign for KISSFIST, Graziella tells, “was one of his own invention, consisting in kissing first one’s palm than one’s handback, and was inspired by a Sicilian sign [at that time, in Sicily one could kiss hands out of respect]. But what he really intended by it was something really cool, that one loves so much one cannot live without. I think that he brought this

1 Gallaudet is the most important University in signs in the world, a reference point for Deaf people and Deaf Studies, Deaf people’s “Athens and our Harvard combined”, as Bernard Bragg wrote (1989: 23).

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sign with him to America, where, as Jerrod Grill tells us, it is now very used” (Graziella). Joseph’s poems can also be longer, and much more complex. Here is just one more of Joseph’s most beautiful poems, at least, the favorite of the authors of this chapter. It refers to a subject that, as chapter 9b will tell, is central in Deaf Studies: The Idea of Myself I have rolled in an idea – a big wheel going a-spinning by, Another, a cool idea waves in – a lake which depth’s filled with mud, A bright idea forms me – a mirror reflecting my simple smile in cracks, A round idea packed in – a snowball hardened enough to throw out, A flimsy idea floats by – a cloud sailing its fluffiness without meaning; A hot idea rises – a radiant sun beaming and mellowly sinks; The best of all ideas – of myself . . . sleeping and dreaming my dreams. (Paris 1977)

8a.4 Joseph’s theatre laboratory in Palermo Creative as he was, rated at top level by his students in university courses, one would really like to learn what the theatre laboratory that took place in Palermo in 1981 looked like, and how Joseph directed it. Joseph used to play with configurations, say, A and B. He encouraged, he motivated, to produce sentences with one configuration only. (Graziella) Joseph played with arm movements, and then he asked: what does it look like? To say one, the verb FUNCTION, it looked like an engine. We learned to observe, to perceive. It impressed me, it was the first time in my life I saw anything similar. (Rosaria) We improved greatly our acting, our use of lungs, our use of scripts. We worked together for two months, but how far did we go in that short time! (Anna) Joseph taught us plenty of things, he was a volcano. He used to introduce one impulse after the other. He was vitalizing. (Graziella)

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Joseph taught us to use our body, to train sign language, to disregard manually coded Italian, that is what we used to use in public at the time. He encouraged us to open to the hearing world. “We must enlarge, contact schools”. We were not used to such things, it surprised us incredibly. And then there was poetry . . . (Anna) – – –

“Shall we go to Teatro Biondo to perform?” [Teatro Biondo is a central, important theatre in Palermo] “There’s no point in discussing it!” “It is under my responsibility”.

We went, I was skeptical. He introduced himself: “I am a Deaf American”, and he preformed his poem on a cloud of thoughts [see section 8a.3]. His project was accepted for the scene. “We have to knock on doors, I am sure they will really appreciate it. Believe me”, he said. And he was right. A plentiful public participated, with a large number of young people. I could not believe it. We were amazed observing him performing in front of them, open-mouthed. (Rosaria) I remember the poem Nero by Antonin Artaud. We translated it, and Rosaria and I performed it at Palermo university. Lots of students came to watch. (Graziella) He was a great master. He wanted for us not to copy, but to express what was inside us, what we felt. (Graziella) Joseph never received prizes. Only few years ago, in 2016, Il Ciclope organized a party for its fortieth year of activity and invited me together with our [Joseph’s and mine] daughters to receive a prize, a diploma, in Joseph’s name. (Graziella)

8a.5 The situation of Deaf theatrical activities in Italy and Sicily and Joseph’s contribution When Joseph arrived in Palermo, he carried with himself a rich American patrimony of theatrical experience and Deaf cultural awareness cumulated throughout a century-long history by the Deaf American community. In the United States the first Deaf theatre attested were the amateur shows performed at Gallaudet College in the last decade of the nineteenth century, produced by men and women in student literary clubs (Miles 1974: 5–7), and the drama groups in Deaf clubs in cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia (Miles 1974: 8–9), in the same period. An unsuccessful attempt to establish a Deaf theatre supported by the state is recorded also in Paris, in the same period of time, the last decade of the nineteenth century (Miles 1974: 10).

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It appears that the United States substantially preceded most European countries, and specifically, they preceded Italy by at least 65 years. In fact, in Italy, the first theatre activities outside of institutes are attested in 1957 in Milan, where Filodrammatica Silenziosa Milanese was founded, that would subsequently be followed by Compagnia Teatrale Senza Parole (Roma 2014: 98). In the United States, Deaf theatre had first been dependent on hearing theatre for the choice of plays to perform. Plays were first mostly translated from spoken languages and somehow adapted to the cultural context of Deaf communities (Miles 1974: 9–10), and only subsequently were they created directly in sign language with original contents. The dependence of Deaf Italian theatre on hearing theatre appears to be similar to the ones observed in the United States. Roman company La Mandragola, relabelled Laboratorio Zero in 1987, first performed in manually-coded Italian, Italiano Segnato (Roma 2014: 99). It was Laboratorio Zero that first transitioned from performances in manually coded Italian to performances in LIS (Roma 2014: 101). Roman company Arte&Mani Deaf Italy, established in 2011, distinguished itself for productions whose author and director directly created in LIS: “It proposes a type of theater programmatically defined as ‘Deaf theater in LIS’. Between the latter and a theater ‘translated’ from a vocal language there is a substantial difference: texts conceived and composed directly in LIS carry on with them cultural elements and linguistic peculiarities that are untranslatable into spoken language” (Roma 2014: 101). On the assumption that other Italian companies may not have systematically acted according to the same principles as Arte&Mani in terms of cultural autonomy from hearing texts, culture, and language, one may conclude that Joseph Castronovo, with his ideas of creativity directly in sign language, arrived in Italy in 1981 as a pioneer. Anna observes, “I am not a supporter of America no-matter-what. But I admire Deaf Americans in theatre. In Italy, there is such a mindset, that a hearing actor is chosen in order to represent a Deaf character. In the United States, a Deaf character is represented by a Deaf actor”. An important issue for Deaf theatre in a more advanced situation as the American one was, was for Deaf theatre to depend on a either a mixed, hearing and Deaf, or Deaf only public. Theatre is an enterprise that is successful when it sells tickets to a large public – and the hearing public is more numerous (more on this topic in chapter 8b.3). Reflections on such an issue are related by Bernard Bragg in his autobiography, with respect to the program that had to be offered by the National Theatre of the Deaf, the largest American Deaf theatre company (Bragg 1989: 193). Joseph Castonovo as well, thought to solve this

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issue by trying to create connections to the Palermo hearing theatre scene – which he identified in Teatro Biondo. “Joseph would have liked to link our company to hearing theatrical institutions, such as Teatro Biondo, Teatro Massimo, or private institutions such as Rotary. He had an American mindset, he would have preferred for the theatre company not to be funded by ENS”, as Graziella testifies. Attracting a hearing public would not be so difficult. In hearing theatre, a general renovation had progressively taken place in the twentieth century’s, involving theatre in activities such as therapy, such as support to categories in social distress, so that the hearing public was prepared to take interest in Deaf theatre. Especially in Italy, the movement known as Teatro Sociale, Eugenio Barba’s theatre anthropology, Giuliano Scabia’s experiences in Trieste’s asylum, Walter Orioli’s teatroterapia – the latter had a specific following in Palermo with Salvo Pitruzzella – laid the groundwork for a great potential interest for Deaf theatre. Elena Mignosi was a high-school and university student in Palermo at the time of Joseph’s visit, in 1981. In Palermo there was a lot of avant-garde theater at the time. The most important theater events found a place: I attended workshops with Grotowski, and there was a Living Theater happening in 1978. It was a period of great ferment; it is unlucky that Joseph Castronovo did not connect with them. At the time I was doing theater, but I was a student, and I hadn’t discovered the world of deafness.

The only event shared with a hearing public that Joseph would achieve was a recital with the famous Sicilian hearing poet Ignazio Buttitta, who wrote in Sicilian dialect. The flyer of the event, organized by Associazione teatrale “Porta di Castro” on May, 9, 1981, presents Castronovo having performed the poem “Il sogno”, and Ignazio Buttitta having read the poems “Ncuntravu u signuri” e “Lingua e dialetto”. The event left a trace, such that a Sicilian revue published an article on it: “Castronovo’s signs were, in their poetical quality, distinct from the ones used in ordinary conversation in ASL. He bent the signs to the forms he chose for his poetical construction. . . . He went so far as to introduce signs from other languages. As also the hearing actor did, he transgressed his language’s rules, and established new rules” (Isgrò 1982–1983: 52). The article also mentioned Anna’s words, and the situation of Deaf theatre in Sicily: “If in the office it is difficult to communicate, with the theater one can”. These words are by Anna Folchi’s, the Florentine girl who now leads the Palermo group. In the centralnorthern regions better services allow a better social integration for Deaf people. Just

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think of a Milanese group that works semi-professionally with “normal” audiences. But here in the South the path towards Deaf socialization has still a long way in front of it. (Isgrò 1982–1983: 52) The group is aware that it in a sort of minority condition, subordinate to hearing culture, lacking connections with other groups of Deaf people acting in the world at large, and therefore lacking an adequate information. (Isgrò 1982–1983: 52)

Had one to follow Isgrò’s suggestions, many Deaf theatres actually existed in Italy at the time, to connect with, as Anna remembers: In Turin, there was “Maschera Viva”, in Verona, “Balconi”, in Rome, “Laboratorio Zero”. Deaf theatres were also in the South: in Catania there was “Teatro del Sole”, and others were in Cava dei Tirreni near Salerno, and in Bari. In Milan, the prevalent – if not the only – style was mime, while other Deaf theatres in Italy produced comedy, dramas, mime – a variety of styles.

Even if yet unconnected, Palermo had now its own Deaf theatre, with its name, provided by Joseph – a theatre that, thanks to the work of Rosaria Giuranna, was there to stay. “It must be appreciated that, always remaining an amateurish theatre, Il Ciclope has persisted in time. We have adopted the new practice of using scripts, and, what is most important, Il Ciclope still exists” (Rosaria). To conclude: Joseph arrived in Palermo with a rich endowment of Deaf awareness, awareness about the dignity of sign language as a real language, and of its potentialities in artistic creation. Joseph’s baggage as a proactive American Deaf and his own personal creativity were by far more advanced than the ones he found in Italy in general and in Sicily specifically, and this was particularly evident with respect to Deaf theatre. He was strongly motivated to innovate, to organize, to create – although he might find a limitation to his plans in his difficult character. The Italian theatre scene was prepared to get interest in Deaf theatre. Had Joseph fully succeeded, his action could have reached very far. In what form of organizational work did he specifically engage, in Palermo?

8a.6 Joseph’s project. Deaf Sicilians opening to the world Decidedly, Joseph had a project for the Palermo theatre group. His vision was far-reaching. Joseph intended to produce an opening of our group onto the world. He sent Anna to make theatrical experiences with a Deaf theatre school in the United States, Rosaria and

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Rocco, another actor in our company, to a congress of the International Theatre Institution [an institution founded by UNESCO] in Spain. “Go and observe what they do, profit of it, advance!” (Graziella) Joseph intended to lay the basis for a shared international project between our group and the International Theatre Institute. (Graziella) He gave us the opportunity to leave Palermo and make experiences. We transformed into new actors, much more professional. (Rosaria) We subsequently had contacts with Paris, Joel Liennel was invited to a workshop that Rosaria Giuranna organized. (Graziella) Joseph Castronovo mentioned Bernard Bragg’s name. I invited Bernard Bragg to Palermo, and really, he did come. (Rosaria) Il Ciclope kept the contacts that Joseph Catronovo had established for a long time. Bernard Bragg taught a course in Palermo in 1990. Another time, it was a Spanish theatre company, Madrid Altatorre Centre, that was invited. (Anna) He planned to organize a theatre festival for the Mediterranean area, reaching out to Northern Africa. (Rosaria) The objective of these exchanges were to both improve actors’ professionality, and personally enrich us. (Graziella) When Joseph left, contacts with France stopped. But our level of competence had already been transformed for the better, forever. (Rosaria) Rosaria and Enza [Giuranna] continued to interact with the hearing world. They projected some 23 shows that have toured all over Sicily. The contact with Teatro Biondo did work out: the collaboration first established by Joseph with Salvatore Tessitore, led us to stage shows with hearing professional actors. Il Ciclope was enriched by the participation of four hearing actors, in addition to the eight Deaf actors. Giusy Cataldo guided them in the production of an original play of ours, “Voci Buie”, in 1993–1994. After Sicily, I concluded my theatrical experience, but I was happy to see that my company developed and succeeded. (Anna) Anna got on a plane and left, Rocco and I got on a ship and left. Joseph had plenty of ideas, but their realization was much too difficult for us. We would have liked to properly follow Joseph, but we were young and unexperienced. Especially, we were not prepared to find funding for projects. When Rocco and I came back from Spain, Joseph was gone. (Rosaria) Joseph would have liked for us Deaf people to autonomously create a stable, wellestablished theater resembling Teatro Biondo. He believed he could provide us with an institution, something of value, a heritage – but he lacked funding. He looked for our collaboration, but we were not able to achieve anything similar in the field of fund-raising.

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He would have wanted to create, to organize. He thought he could not provide for himself, could not have a home, a personal life, some stability. He thought, what am I doing with my life? And so, he began to think he had to leave. Actually, the time that Joseph’s scarce funding allowed us was really brief, and that is the reason why he did not stop with us. He told me, “there is no money, there is no job”. Economic problems would terrify him all his life long. (Graziella)

Joseph had indeed planted a seed, as Rosaria Giuranna’s metaphor goes. But he had not conquered Italy, and, most importantly, he had not been able to personally pick any fruit, neither for his theatre group, nor for himself.

8a.7 Joseph’s genius In two letters to his daughter Asava (December 28 1999), and to both daughters, Ami and Asava (22 August, n.d.), Joseph tells about his successes in deciphering the Phaistos Disk and the Fegato di Piacenza Etruscan Disk – two puzzles that most scholars consider, at present, still unsolved. Naturally, he wished to convey his girls a positive idea of their far-away, not-so-well-known father, as the girls grew older when he lived in the United States and they lived in Italy. But these letters also tell us that Joseph Castronovo did embark in difficult adventures. He was brave and intelligent. He thought big, he acted big. He had a strong interest into deciphering, possibly for the reason that he was an expert in signs. It might have been a trait in his personality that he needed to prove his value, as though his personal value represented the value of Deaf people in general, for whose recognition he worked (letter to Gunilla Wagstrom, February 12 2000: 6). And actually, Joseph was always active as an organizer, as an artist, as a researcher or, better, as a Deaf researcher, since what prevailed in his topics of interest was his specificity with respect to deafness. Sign decipherment was his domain, in all its possible meanings: in painting, in archeology, in writing systems. His creativity was in poetry where he switched from one language to another, his word games were in spoken as well as in sign languages. Another domain of interest for Joseph’s multifarious creativity was signs in the history of art. When Joseph was in Palermo in 1981, during a discussion, our talk shifted to Pinturicchio, “There is a famous painter, who was Deaf”, he told me. He would later provide the image of a woman who holds the middle finger of her left hand with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. “This is a manner to sign a ‘P’, and the manner Pinturicchio used to sign his work, through his initial”, Joseph told me. (Enza Giuranna)

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Joseph’s Castronovo Ph.D. thesis, discussed in 1998 at the University of Arizona, Tucson, concerned fingerspelling in classic European painters (this theory was reformulated in signed video conferences: Castronovo 1995; 1996). In it, Joseph proposed the theory that classical painters, among them Pinturicchio – who was Deaf –, signed their paintings with their initials in fingerspelling. Joseph extended his thesis to the analysis of other classic works of Western art history, including The Virgin of the Rocks in Louvre, in which Leonardo da Vinci would have aligned the hands of three characters from top to bottom to fingerprint the initial letters of his name, LDV, Leonardo Da Vinci (Figure 36).

Figure 36: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks in Louvre.

In other words, as far as Joseph Castronovo’s theory goes, in their great masterpieces Western artists made place for sign language. There is something beautiful in this idea: great history has not passed next Deaf people without noticing them, their culture and their language. The geniuses of Western civilization would not have left Deaf culture on the sidelines but rather have represented it in their classical works. Conceivably, history is the story of hearing and Deaf people together, not a story of marginalization, but rather of intertwining, and precisely so in its most important and most acclaimed manifestations. What is beautiful in this idea is the perspective of an empowerment, an empowerment that Joseph had personally so strongly realized that he really believed in Deaf centrality in history. He wanted to share this empowered vision with Deaf and hearing persons, and he wanted to empower Deaf people. Graziella remembers that Joseph intended to publish a book out of his Ph.D. thesis, so he applied to Gallaudet University Press, but Gallaudet UP did not

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accept his project. Anna as well tried to find an Italian publisher for an essay based on Joseph’s Ph.D. work, but without success. Apparently, the manuscript does not exist any longer. Gallaudet archivist Jerrod Grill has been looking for it in the rooms of Gallaudet University Press but could not find a trace of it. What remains of this project is only a 1996 documentary movie, “The Sign of Artistic Signature”, that has been aired twice in the United States (email to daughters, December 14 2001), and that is preserved in a series of VHSs videos that Gallaudet has fortunately recovered, through the Laurent Clerc foundation, and has subtitled in English. In the documentary, Joseph can be seen telling his theory, as he moves in a museum, from painting to painting. It might appear that the project to publish was unfortunate as it was not properly grounded. Naturally, scholars may have asked for documentary and historical evidence for Joseph’s theory that it is difficult to collect, as it refers to daily life in past times. But the original thesis by Joseph has been subsequently corroborated by research by Anna Folchi and Roberto Rossetti, at least with respect to Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks. Anna and Roberto Rossetti provided evidence that Leonardo, upon his arrival in Milan, went to live in the home of a family of painters, the De Predis. One of the De Predis brothers, Cristoforo, was a signing Deaf (Folchi & Rossetti 2007: 86–91). Therefore, Leonardo could have learned from him about the existence of a sign language and fingerspelling. A piece of evidence Joseph provided, as far as Leonardo da Vinci’s intention went, was a 1508 quotation: A good painter is to paint the two main things, namely, man and the intention of his mind. The first is easy, the second is difficult, for it is to be represented through the gestures and movements of the limbs. And these may best be learned from the dumb, who make them more clearly than any other sort of men. (Leonardo da Vinci 2006: § 176, quoted in Castronovo 1996) Do not laugh at me because I propose an instructor without speech, who is to teach you an art of which is unaware, because he will teach you better through what he actually does than others can through their words. . . . And do not despise such advice because, the dumb are the masters of movements and understand what one says from a distance when one accommodates the motions of the hands to the words. This opinion has many enemies and many defenders. Therefore, painter, thread a path between one and the other faction. Follow what actually occurs, according to the rank of the people who speak and add the nature of the things under discussion. (Leonardo Da Vinci 2006: § 112, quoted in Castronovo 1996)

Joseph’s theory about fingerspelled signatures in paintings was disseminated, and credited to Joseph, in the conferences of those who knew and loved him, such as Anna, and it has circulated. But unfortunately, Joseph had not published

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it, and new publications have appeared since, proposing the same idea, without attributing it to Joseph Castronovo, perhaps in perfect good faith (for example, Pirulli 2018). Such publications provide evidence that it was a brilliant theory, that it is alive and circulating, that is was worth exploring, so that it could and has been re-proposed to the present day. But one cannot but agree with Anna that the fact that Joseph Castronovo’s claim is now successful without mentioning his name is a misfortune.

8a.8 Joseph’s life story Documents tell that Joseph Castronovo was born in Chicago in 1950, where he attended elementary school. He studied in Wisconsin, in California, at Gallaudet, and got his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. But Joseph’s life story will be better told in Graziella Anselmo’s words, his wife: He was the son of two Deaf parents and had three brothers and one sister. As far as his heritage goes, his paternal grandfather was originally from Sicily. In the role of an actor, he participated in the National Theatre of the Deaf [the world’s first professional Deaf theatre company, co-founded by Bernard Bragg, where a large proportion of U.S. Deaf theatre artists were trained]. In theatre, he worked with Bernard Bragg and Phyllis Frelich [the Deaf woman for whom the theatre play “Children of a Lesser God” was first created], also acting in one of the many productions of “Children of a Lesser God”. He loved to tour the world, mostly in search of his identity. He went to Paris at the age of twenty-four, twenty-five. He participated in French IVT (International Visual Theatre) European tour in fall 1976, in Cracow and Stockholm, where he was one of the animators of the ateliers offered (also Grémion 2017: 64, 67. More on IVT in chapter 8b). In Sweden he collaborated with Gunilla Wagstrom in theatre and in cinema, and in France he had relationships with IVT at the time when it was established. It was around 1980 when Elena Pizzuto met him in San Diego, California. When she discovered that his grandfather was from Sicily, they began talking in Sicilian. As Elena Pizzuto realized he was in Europe, and precisely in the United Kingdom, she asked Armando Giuranna [Rosaria’s uncle], who was then President of Palermo ENS section, to pay the flight for Joseph to travel to Palermo. He is a good actor, she told Armando. Joseph was always keen to participate, to contribute, so Palermo’s ENS paid for Joseph’s plane ticket. If I remember correctly, Joseph’s permanence in Palermo did not last longer than a few months, in which he principally worked in our theatre atelier.

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And in Palermo I met him, I was twenty-two, he was nine years older than me. He was our instructor in the theatre atelier. After his short stay in winter 1981, Joseph returned to Sicily, in 1982, for a dozen of days, to inquire about his genealogical tree. He had grown up Catholic but upon his return to United States he became a Mormon, and so did I. After three years, he was in America, I reached him, and we got married. After I stably moved to the United States, in 1986 and 1989, we had two daughters, Ami and Asava. It was the moment when travels and theatre came to an end, in Joseph’s life: he thought it was his role to support his family. He was intentioned to find a good job, and he applied to various American universities for a teaching position, but nothing materialized apart from temporary jobs. He continued his researches in art and poetry and worked as a teacher of English as a second language for Deaf foreigners. We lived in Los Angeles, in Fremont, in San Francisco. It was difficult for him to find an appropriate job, since he was a person with rich ideas, and plenty of projects to realize. He was an excellent teacher, a university in Los Angeles employed him as a teacher of English for Deaf foreigners, but only shortly, as funding failed. His objective would have been to become a professor at Northridge, where a department of Deaf Studies existed. His results in work trial periods were excellent, but in order for him to get a permanent position, funding would be necessary, but it never arrived. In conclusion, he had to settle for a job whatsoever. The difficulties he experienced during his life were extraordinary. He had plenty of brilliant ideas. He wanted to be accepted.

Anna has also a story to tell about Joseph’s life story: He married my friend, Graziella. All girls in the Palermo theatre atelier were opposed to Graziella leaving for the United States, both as we would have preferred for Graziella to live with us in Palermo, as she had a good job at the Italian Ministry of Finance. But she preferred to follow him, and left it all. Their life in the United States was not easy, but she was brave, she learned English and ASL [American Sign Language]. They had two beautiful girls. Unfortunately, in the following years, problems emerged of incompatibility in characters. Joseph had his own idea about life, he created theatre scripts, organized seminars, he had loved to travel to Northern Europe and to Paris. He did dozens of things, but all of them were temporary: no one really took him in the consideration he would have merited. It was a pity. I could perceive his value, he merited a place at the top. I would have been happy to help him, but I was young and powerless. My life has been completely transformed thanks to him, since he sent me to the United States. His contribution to the Sicilian Deaf community and to our theatre has been extraordinary.

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Asava, Joseph and Graziella’s daughter, tells Their marriage did not last long. In 1997 my mother, my sister and I returned to Italy. At that time, my parents had already divorced. What I still bear in mind was that, when they discovered that I was Deaf from one ear, my dad accentuated his care for me, and applied himself to support my education in the best possible way. He thought highly about instruction and was a little apprehensive about my situation.

Witnesses, however, tell also that Joseph’s genius was accompanied by a difficult character, and, although with some shyness, they remind and refer about moments of hardship with him. Joseph Castronovo tragically died in 2002, only aged 52, while most of his projects were still unrealized. But Joseph’s story has to be concluded on a positive note, “a joyful element”, as Asava required to the authors of this chapter to do. It is Asava that provides it: A nice thing that I remember about him is that besides his concern about our education, the education of his daughters, there was a concern for us to use our creativity . . . I remember that he made me do drawing exercises on the letters of the alphabet, and on many more subjects. As a child, I was – and I still am, sometimes – in the habit of sitting at the table with a bending knee and my foot resting on the chair, so that my knee emerged from the table. Once, my father drew a face on my knee, saying that there was another guest at dinner with us. It was a kind of comic-theatrical reproach.

8a.9 Conclusion A series of moments in history have marked critical advancements for Deaf people, either globally or locally. Some of them have engendered stable consequences. Abbé de l’Epée in the second half of the Eighteenth century established education in signs for Deaf students, that would spread worldwide. This advancement stabilized when the de l’Epée’s “method” was established in the United States. When Europe lost its education in sign, at the end of the nineteenth century, America was proud to be admired and considered a reference by Deaf Europeans (Padden & Humphries 2006: 69). What Deaf Italians labelled as a “new era” in the Fifties (chapter 7b), was stabilized by the institution of a unified Deaf association, that would lay its

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roots in every major city in a country, like Italy, that is strongly decentralized. It would also bear its fruits through the foundation of the World Federation of the Deaf. In the Sixties, William Stokoe, by providing evidence that sign languages are real languages, laid the bases for a new domain in linguistics: the study of signed languages has extended to all domains of present-day linguistics, and would in turn empower Deaf researchers and attract them to linguistics (chapter 10b). In Washington, in 1988, the movement labelled as “Deaf President Now” would establish a decisive reference mark in the right for Deaf persons to speak for themselves (chapter 5b) and govern their own institutions, and be considered a model by Deaf people all over the world. Who knows how many similar decisive moments have taken places in the history of Deaf communities, that are usually separated from one another, if not outright isolated. Most of such historical moments may have remained untold or unpublished. Narrating about Teatro Il Ciclope has added one more story to this list – a story that has remained very localized, and has affected few people, at least, directly. But the reason why this story is interesting is not only documentary. As Anna concludes, “the work with Joseph has been a false start”. And yet Joseph Castronovo was an intelligent, talented man, although with a difficult character. This leads to conclude that another story, then, needs to be told: when is it that the decisive moments here listed produce stable consequences? When is it that innovation succeeds? What support can an institutional context provide, so that genial projects become reality, and the talent and goodwill of a man like Joseph Castronovo results in a multiplied effect, rather than in local, personal fond memories? This questions are the material for chapter 8b. Chapter 8b will engage in trying to explain the reasons for this lack of success, whereas a parallel experience, led by a Deaf American landed in Paris in the same period of time, Alfredo Corrado, was to sparkle the great French Deaf Awakening of the Eighties.

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8b A genial man in the wrong institutional environment. Deaf empowerment in Italian and French theatre experiences Most of all, I wanted to show hearing people that Deaf people could stand on their own feet (Bernard Bragg 1989: 159)

Not every generation of Deaf persons has been so lucky as to live in a time of progress for their community. Participating in a process of growth not only creates better life conditions for the generations to come, but also provides a feeling of achievement and can only be accomplished by persons who are growingly aware of their capabilities and can carry responsibility. In other words, it implies a process of growth in autonomy, strength, self-determination, ability to represent one’s and one’s community rights and interests, namely what is usually referred to in social sciences as empowerment. An interesting factor of complexity, however, is that Deaf communities are not always closed or limited in space, (as the Deaf Italians founding ENS in the Fifties had been at the beginning of their endeavour, as told in chapter 7b). Exchanges can take place between Deaf communities living in societies that are more or less advanced in the civil and legal conquests for and by Deaf people. The story of Joseph Castronovo in Sicily in the early Eighties, as told in chapter 8a, was such a story of exchange, an exchange between the United States and Palermo. It was a story of a man who meant to bring empowerment. The United States’ Deaf community, in the Eighties, was far more developed than European ones, having made use of its sign language, ASL, in school and even in higher education, since a century or so. One university especially distinguished itself, Gallaudet University in Washington, as the one where research on sign language brought to the discovery that American Sign Language is a natural language (Stokoe 1960), and where a Deaf man, Dr. I. King Jordan, was to become the first Deaf President of a University, in 1988, as a result of a movement gone down in history as “Deaf President now”. Advances in research and in politics, closely associated, conferred to the United States the status of the most progressive state in the world, with respect to the condition of Deaf persons. This advancement of the United States as compared to the rest of the world may also have been due to the fact that the 1880 Milan Conference, supporting “oralism” that is, Deaf education excluding sign languages, was strongly felt https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-016

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everywhere in Europe, and much less in the United States. The rest of the world had to make up for the time it had been left behind. And actually, starting few years before Joseph Castronovo’s arrival in Palermo, just North of Italy, France had just begun its “Deaf awakening”, – and these very words, “Deaf Awakening”, are a translation from French “Réveil sourd” (as used by French Deaf people, and published by various French authors, among whom Minguy 2009; Abbou 2017: 95; Cantin 2019). French Deaf awakening, a process of empowerment, is universally recognized as having had a crucially important root in the work by an American Deaf man, Alfredo Corrado, who moved to Paris to work in a theater laboratory together with the French Deaf community (Abbou 2017: 12). Deaf people – from the United States – led Deaf people – from France – into autonomously engaging in generating empowerment, pursuing full citizenship in society by their own initiative and work, sharing leadership on a par with hearing people. Deaf leadership is central, in this process. Having to accept hearing people’s leadership as a pre-requisite for any project, means that Deaf people need a special, hearing permission to be allowed to make plans. In contrast, Deaf leaders’ shared work with hearing people may be considered achieved inclusion, and then it is a way to share society, to share the world. The parallel is striking: American Corrado arrives in Paris and begins in 1976 a theatre workshop, and American Joseph Castronovo arrives in Palermo in 1980 and becomes the leader of a theatre workshop. However, Alfredo Corrado’s theatre workshop generates a snowball effect that leads Deaf and hearing France, working in cooperation, to the empowerment of French Deaf people on a national scale; while in Palermo Joseph Castronovo’s action is limited to few people, who will in turn become influential, and is described as “bringing a stone block, in which, as Michelangelo, Joseph already saw a David”, as Rosaria Giuranna words it, or to “plant a seed”, as Graziella Anselmo, Anna Folchi and Rosaria Giuranna describe his influence. As chapter 7a told, the Italian South had not provided leaders for the “New era” Deaf movement of the Fifties that had achieved the foundation of a strong and rich unified Deaf association, ENS. Nonetheless, after the Fifties, the Italian South had been blessed by the foundation of local sections of ENS well distributed on the Italian territory. Plausibly, since the presence of Deaf intellectual figures is attested in the second half of the Eighteenth century (to mention just one, in Naples: Roccaforte, Gulli, & Volterra 2017), what the South was lacking was a network rooted in the territory that could be put to use for the realization of political or social projects: a network that was already existing in the North.

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So, the South could have benefitted greatly from the arrival of a Deaf American cultural organizer. For his part, Joseph Castronovo was in the position to become, for his intelligence, his creativity, his capabilities, his leadership qualities, the Alfredo Corrado of Southern Italy, the Deaf leader sparkling awakening. In other words, the reason why Joseph Castronovo is so important is not only for his personal story, but because he could have had a crucial role in Deaf empowerment, potentially reaching very far. Thus, comparing the French and the Italian theatre experience deserves close attention: what differentiated the two situations? Which factors were present in France, which were not there in Italy? This French-Italian comparison is of crucial importance, going much farther than the lives of the two protagonists. To the present day, not all generations of Deaf people have experienced an advancement, not all Deaf communities in the world have lived through historical moments of participation and achievement, not all minorities in the world have gone through an empowerment. This story, the story of a comparison between Joseph Castronovo’s and Alfredo Corrado’s theatre projects, between Italy and France, is a more universal story than one could think: it is the story of why and how empowerment is made possible by societies and institutions that provide an adequate or inadequate context for social projects.

8b.1 French Deaf Awakening: For Deaf people, with Deaf people, by Deaf people French “Deaf awakening”, a major transformation for the whole Deaf community, began in 1976. It was a collective movement involving the extensive participation of the Deaf community and of hearing society; it built on creating awareness that sign language is not mimicry, but a natural language that stands on a par with any spoken language; it empowered Deaf people into believing that they are the equals of hearing people. The lines that originate, compose, enlarge, enrich, and finally stabilize the results of French Deaf awakening are various, according to Yann Cantin – curator of the 2019 Paris Pantheon exhibition on French Deaf history –, and extend to distinct domains: from 1975, sociologist Bernard Mottez first published on the Deaf condition; in 1976, a theatre was founded, the International Visual Theatre; in 1978, Académie de la Langue des Signe Française was founded and sign language and teaching activities were developed; in 1980, the association

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Deux Langues pour une Education was founded, and bilingual bimodal education was first established; starting from 1980, linguist Christian Cuxac researched on French Sign Language. The principal Deaf association in France, the Fédération Nationale des Sourds de France had no role in French Deaf Awakening: it would only be ten years later, in 1990–1994, that FNS would decide to have sign language as its preferential option in its associative practices. But this complex of factors should not confuse the reader: Bernard Mottez was the first to recognize, in a 1979 publication (a number of the revue Autrement entitled “Les Révolutions Minuscules”) that “in the years 1976–1977–1978 the movement for the emancipation of Deaf people has been born again, in France” (cit in: Grémion, 2017: 212). General agreement is that, within a complex panorama of contributions, the crucial element for French Deaf Awakening was IVT, the International Visual Theatre. The foundation of International Visual Theatre has been told in rich detail in two recently published books, by Victor Abbou (2017) and by Jean Grémion (2017). Victor Abbou, a Deaf man, has written an autobiographical account of his personal awakening, due to IVT, such that his story is at the same time the story of a person and the history of a community. Jean Grémion has told the same story from his perspective of hearing organizer of and fund-raiser for IVT, working at the interface between the Deaf and the hearing world. Before 1976, Abbou writes, in France the Deaf community lived inward-looking. No communication means were accessible to us: no fax, no minitel, no mobile phone. The frontier between us and hearing people was unbridgeable. We could by no means conduct a comprehensive discussion with them. We could not contact anyone from a distance: neither Deaf nor hearing persons. During weekdays, we stayed at home. No public place ever welcomed us in sign language. Original language movies with translation in subtitles at cinemas were limited, no guide in sign language was provided in museums, no qualified interpreter existed – at least, to our knowledge. Sign language was only used among Deaf people. When we left home, it was for well-known places, or for appointments decided well in advance. Every meeting was of major significance to us. (Abbou 2017: 24) Before 1977, sometimes Deaf Americans visited [French] Deaf clubs . . . When I saw them discussing, I was convinced that they were well superior to us. I did not dare to approach them, I was cowed by their discussions. I feared they would realize I was an idiot. (Abbou 2017: 32)

Victor Abbou’s story is one of “a metamorphosis” (Abbou 2017: 12), and presents the perspective not of a leader – but Victor Abbou would become one, as the theatre workshop progressed – but of a man who grows from page to page, and while doing so, observes and is aware of the process transforming him.

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These two main sources permit today to tell how a successful social innovation works. These sources tell a story that had two sides: a Deaf and a hearing side, as well it had two leaders – only two, at the beginning, but many more with time –, a Deaf and a hearing leader: Deaf Alfredo Corrado and hearing Jean Grémion. Their work addressed the Deaf community as well as hearing society, so that Deaf Awakening should be properly interpreted as an awakening of the Deaf community as well as of hearing society – the latter, “awakening” with respect to the Deaf condition. There are reasons to believe that without both sides, the extraordinary success of French Deaf awakening would not have been such. This theatre experiment is going to be the subject matter of this chapter, to be compared with the theatre experiment that took place in Sicily four years later, as told in chapter 8a. The elements that compose the French success will be considered one by one: the style in leadership, relationships to the hearing world, networking, access to resources, and impact. After this review of factors generating success, a theoretical framework will be provided.

8b.2 Factors that can generate success in France: The role of leadership. The Deaf side On October 1, 1975, Alfredo Corrado landed in Paris from the United States. At that time, an interest for non-verbal theatre existed in France (Abbou 2017: 39), and Jean Grémion invited Alfredo to stay. If I came to work in France, Alfredo would tell me one day, it was because I knew that in your country Deaf people are still oppressed. It is not that hearing people here are bad people. They are simply ignorant. This is the reason why I would like to be able to change the view they have on my people, through the creation of a Deaf theatre. (Grémion 2017: 13–14)

Alfredo and Jean had a vision of how far their theatre workshop wanted to reach. They rolled up their sleeves, but with the awareness that their role was just to accompany: “In the process of birth of IVT, Alfredo and I were the midwives, but young Deaf actors were the true heroes” (Grémion 2017: 88). The theatre workshop started as any other theatre workshop: “Actors’ training is based on fundamental body exercises that I used to practice at Théâtre du Double and other ateliers” (Grémion 2017: 84; Abbou 2017: 43). Gradually, it

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became more specific by further potentiating the participants’ strengths, by working with images, by training observation capacities, by drawing (Abbou 2017: 85, 52, 53, 55). But all of this was just preparatory work, as focus soon moved to communication, and quite surprisingly for Deaf participants, to sign language: “For Jean Grémion, the driving force of our community was sign language, he found it sublime, as he used to frequently tell us. It was just the opposite of what I thought: I thought it was shameful. Many of us shared this opinion. These words sounded to us as just absurd” (Abbou 2017: 51). A linguistic work began, aimed at recognizing French Sign Language – that at that time still had no name –, and not confusing sign language with signed French [lexical signs following the spoken language grammar] (Abbou 2017: 54). Role-play activities, games, and debate simulations were staged, and participants were led to realize that information can go lost, or that they might digress: communication can be poor, but can be made to become effective (Abbou 2017: 67). Sign language was discovered to be rich in registers, able to adapt to specific domains (Abbou 2017: 56, 57), it could create humor, and most of all, poetry (Abbou 2017: 57). But the workshop was not only about theatre, and it was not only about language. Theatre and language were instrumental to larger objectives. They opened the way to a work of “consciousness raising in our collective status, and of personal introspection” (Abbou 2017: 42), and into a reflection on identity. The rich detail that Victor Abbou uses to tell his story reveals his ability: he relates what progresses he made in his personal feelings, as he gradually conquered more and more self-esteem: What thrilled me was our work on culture, language, our identity quest, that satisfied my immeasurable thirst for knowledge and finally transformed me into the actor on the scene of my own life. This continuing, long-term work made me more and more audacious, I did not fear ridicule, I dared posing questions, I gained a new level of selfconfidence. It was the primer of an emancipation that would take years. I felt more and more happy. (Abbou 2017: 77. See also: Abbou 2017: 48, 65, 66, 67, etc.)

One’s own position as a Deaf person in daily life was not everything that existed: a collective position existed as well, as Deaf people in the world. This type of awareness was achieved by learning about Deaf history (Abbou 2017: 59) and by comparing the Deaf minority to other minorities, to other representatives of oppressed people that were invited to the workshop, such as Tony Shearer, an Indian Sioux (Abbou 2017: 68, 69). Both Alfredo Corrado and Jean Grémion organized the workshop, but the man who was really in a dialogue with the inner feelings of the Deaf participants, or at least with Victor Abbou’s inner feelings, was Deaf Alfredo Corrado.

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Alfredo’s work began where the participants in the workshop intervened (Abbou 2017: 57): participants were at the center of his attention. Alfredo’s style of leadership was non-directive, and therefore quite motivating: He intentionally left us the choice: when we liked the activities to be carried on together, we were welcome to join; whenever the contrary was the case, we were entirely free to not participate. It may seem unimportant, but well, it was important: leaving with us the responsibility to choose was quite unhabitual for us, as we had always considered a good thing to obey what we were told to do. But there, we were there out of our own choice, perfectly aware, all the more as we knew that IVT could not exist without us, our work, our researches. Had we all left, everything would have come to an end. (Abbou 2017: 72)

The result was that “we did not indulge in rest, and we were happy. We made our time useful, we learned plenty, we were in full exchange, solidarity, trust, construction, richness . . . It was formidable” (Abbou 2017: 79). Leadership style was obviously crucial. But there was more to Alfredo. Alfredo was Victor’s “first identity model” (Abbou 2017: 58), and from the very first moment: “I admired Alfredo, who was the catalyzer of those instants outside time. In his presence, I felt I was a child again, amazed, filled with wonder. I observed his every smaller gesture, I respected his intellectual capacities, this man was so rich” (Abbou 2017: 42). These words and this perception are telling about the importance for a work of Deaf empowerment to be realized by Deaf people. Had Jean Grémion tried, he would have failed: not only he would have been too distant, too far from a model a Deaf person could identify with, but all his qualities would have been considered quite natural in a hearing person, in one of “them”, one who was not Deaf. No emulation would have taken place. In addition, workshop interaction laid its roots in the specific richness of Deaf people: their language, sign language. But the positive, fascinating qualities of sign language would have simply fallen in disbelief, since Jean Grémion’s admiration for sign language, as read in the quote above, was just not understood by the participants in the theatre workshop. No evidence about the beauty and richness of sign language would be displayed and made evident, as Jean could not master sign language, as Alfredo did. Deaf participants were reminded that sign language belonged to Deaf persons as their own endowment, their own identifying character, as what they were. Transforming it into a richness would mean letting Deaf people feel inherently rich. Pointing out that signs can create poetry, working on awareness about one’s identity: this should ring a bell in the reader. Joseph Castronovo had been working with the same objective in Palermo. But before returning to Joseph, Jean Grémion, the hearing protagonist of the project, needs being met with.

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8b.3 Factors that can generate success: the role of leadership. The hearing side and the Deaf-hearing interface Jean Grémion (Figure 37) was a teacher of philosophy, a theatre director, the co-founder of a Paris theatre, Theatre du Double, and a journalist. He had been working with politician and cultural promoter Jack Lang. When Deaf people met him, they attributed him the sign name “Angel wing”, as he had been working with a series of minorities throughout the world “as a guardian angel flying from cause to cause to re-establish a form of human justice” (Abbou 2017: 31).

Figure 37: Jean Grémion.

As Alfredo Corrado was working in the empowerment of the Deaf community, Jean Grémion knew that nothing in Alfredo’s work would remain as a stable conquest, if it did not belong to the larger society as well, the society of the hearing. A double intervention needed to take place, on two fronts: targeting the Deaf world and targeting the hearing world. A hearing awakening was crucial, with respect to the Deaf condition, no less than a Deaf awakening. “Our theatre work is of cultural interest for both Deaf people and hearing people”, he wrote (Grémion 2017: 185). This implied a work of conscience-raising among hearing people, as well as a work on the interface between the two worlds. The linguistic side of this work and the linguistic interface was taken care of by an American interpreter, Bill Moody, who had arrived in Paris with his

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friend and collaborator Ralph Robbins (Abbou 2017: 64, 65). Their presence secured for communication with hearing persons to be effective, and for linguistic research to proceed on the right tracks, building on an existing experience that had already taken place far away, and needed to be rendered available not to reinvent the wheel. “These four persons [Alfredo Corrado, Jean Grémion, Bill Moody and Ralph Robbins] together have greatly contributed to the Deaf awakening in France”, as Victor Abbou recognized (2017: 65). A role as a producer and an organizer was perfect for a man of theatre working behind the scenes, such as Jean Grémion was, oriented as he was towards creativity and innovation. It was a role of a one-man show, in which Jean excelled. “I had no secretary, no assistant to help me in the tasks that I had to accomplish every day”, he wrote (Grémion 2017: 92). The location of IVT activities was the Tour du Village of the Vincennes Castle, where IVT was born and where it remained for eight years (Abbou 2017: 142). In Jean Grémion’s idea, what happened within the tour, had to be made visible outside of it. “When we created IVT, our objective was to favor the emergence of Deaf culture within the hearing world and to make the richness of its past history to be discovered. To a large extent, at that time, the diversity of sign languages was totally ignored by the hearing world” (Grémion 2017: 252). Victor Abbou recorded: So, we were surprised to see for the first time in the big hall a new person, evidently, a hearing person. It was a journalist. We were flabbergasted. Jean answered the visitor, probably talking about Deaf people, about what was taking place in the castle. He expressed himself, told, showed, answered, questioned us. (Abbou 2017: 43) Journalists used to regularly visit our premises and observe our group. Sometimes, they interviewed one of us . . . such visits intensified with time, television and press journalists used to interrupt us all the time, we even had a hard time concentrating on our activities. (Abbou 2017: 61) These visits that we were not able to explain were the result of an intensive work performed by Jean. He had operated with unbelievable effectiveness to bring our language and culture to the public. He had propagated information on a large scale through his journalist networks: press, television, radio, ministers, important politicians, writers, philosophers, theatre and cinema directors . . . We have been interviewed by an impressive number of journalists, and appeared in a variety of newspapers: Le Figaro, Le Monde, France Soir, Libération, . . . (Abbou 2017: 62)

Newspapers did arrive, and their reports to hearing France were quite interesting, as they document the discovery of a Deaf world as no one had imagined in advance. Colette Godard, the theatre critic of Le Monde: “In France it is the first

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time, outside schools, that we lean on the Deaf world without seeing them as mutilated, but rather, on the contrary, as rich with a different perception that ought to be cultivated and developed” (Grémion 2017: 29). And of course, comments concerned theatre activities as well. The impact on theatre critics was considerable: they realized that something strongly original and much needed was taking place: “We discover a new form of art, invented to fill a void left by the art world of the hearing” (Roy Jenkins, Paris Metro. In Grémion 2017: 164). “Their expression cannot be translated in words, it does not relate to the visual theatre that we know” (Colette Godard, Le Monde. In Grémion 2017: 163). The hearing world was reacting with growing attention, interested to discover, understand, participate, ready to welcome the transformation, and recognize the merits of the initiative. But not only the general and the specialized press were reached out for. The world of culture was especially important, for Grémion: “A plan [was carried out] consisting in launching operations of information and communication through television, radio, the press, to organize congresses, seminars, meetings with the Deaf community” (Grémion 2017: 92). And, further still, Jean Grémion’s objective was to reach society in its entirety, the society where Deaf people belonged, and where they had to be made to feel at home: “As a hearing person, part of my responsibility consists in going to spread the word in schools, speech therapy centers, hospitals, the associations of parents of Deaf children, cultural places, the press . . .” (Grémion 2017: 141). External observers did attest for the tower castle in the Bois de Vincennes to have been transformed into a hub opened to the world, and even more, an operation center. Bernard Mottez wrote: “The castle has never been a simple place of teaching among others. It has been a sort of ‘motherhouse’, an exchange place, a pole of development” (Grémion 2017: 92). Jean Grémion was succeeding in letting Deaf people leave their ghetto (Grémion 2017: 137). It is also interesting to remark how Deaf people who had already made the experience of Deaf-hearing relationships in other countries evaluated this movement of rapprochement. Alfredo Corrado is reported to have said, addressing the French public, “I am sure that you as well, one day, will accept to let us live our difference. With respect to this problem, in France you have a twenty-years delay on the United States” (Grémion 2017: 145). In other words, as Alfredo Corrado was introducing the problem, Jean Grémion was responding by providing a solution, one that consisted in taking his responsibility as a hearing person – for himself and for the French hearing society in its entirety.

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But in Alfredo’s words there is also a protesting, critical note, the one of a person that thinks of its community as the victim of a history-long oppression. Alfredo arrived in France from an Anglo-Saxon society, and he brought with him its mindset. Anglo-Saxon societies are multicultural, meaning that they have built relationships with minorities by encouraging and culturally supporting the creation of identities and of communities. In multicultural societies, the problem of a past of oppression has often taken the form of a trend towards a self-organized isolation. But our story, although presenting an American protagonist, took place in France. As opposed to the American model, the French model has been universalist since the times of the French Revolution, when everyone was supposed to be a citizen and an equal. French attitude seeks integration and not distinction among communities. As one specifies what multiculturalism and universalism mean in practice, and, specifically, in Deaf theatre projects, even those who live in a multicultural society and think in multicultural terms often recognize that isolation does not succeed. It is the case with Bernard Bragg, who had co-founded in the United States the National Theatre of the Deaf, in 1967. NTF had first staged plays for a mixed, Deaf and hearing public. In spite of his commitment to create plays for a Deaf public only, meant as a form of emancipation, Bernard Bragg had to recognize that plays for a Deaf-only public were less successful than plays for a mixed public: The sad truth that sank into me is that deaf audiences are simply too small, the Deaf being so small a minority, to sustain a thriving Deaf professional theatre. To survive, plays about the Deaf must be geared to hearing audiences by focusing on universal experiences and conflicts between the hearing and the Deaf worlds. This accounts for the success of such plays as Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God. (Bragg 1989: 193)

The second co-founder of the National Theatre of the Deaf, David Hays: “the subtle problem we have always had [is] that if an appearance is totally sponsored by the Deaf, hearing people do not understand it as a professional entertainment, but rather as ‘help for the handicapped’” (1978 letter of David Hays to Bernard Bragg, quoted in Bragg 1989: 177). Addressing both a Deaf and a hearing public was perceived as a limitation by Americans raised in a multiculturalist environment, such as Bernard Bragg and David Hays, but was not a limitation for French Emmanuelle Laborit, Deaf actress recipient of prestigious Prix Molière, and first Deaf director of IVT. In her autobiography, Le crit de la muette, she observed “The two worlds need to blend, the world of sound and the world of silence” (Laborit 2003: 33).

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Involved in a European society, or, better said, in the most universalist of the European societies, France, also Alfredo stated: “ We have much to offer to the hearing, as they ignore everything of the richness of our world. By showing them certain aspects of our culture, they will change their look on us. According to me, IVT must be first of all a place where two worlds meet . . .” (Grémion 2017: 83). Far from being a theoretical matter alone, however, similar topics were central in the atmosphere in which the IVT project was created. And in one episode where discussions on this point took place, the protagonist was Joseph Castronovo – who, as we will soon discover, was a travel companion of IVT. Jean Grémion tells this story that involves a young collaborator, Maurice, who had been supporting IVT activities abroad. Deaf Joseph Castronovo, Gunilla Wagstrom and Tommy Lundquist were complaining to hearing Jean and Maurice: “During this tour, Julianna, Gunilla, Tommy and I have the thorns . . . Maurice and you have the roses!” (Joseph Castronovo, as reported in Grémion 2017: 76). “In life, we Deaf people sit on chairs, as we watch you dance, you hearing people!” (Gunilla, as reported in Grémion 2017: 77). During such exchanges, the situation might have become tensed, with the result that Maurice resigned. Jean Grémion comments: “In the hearts of many Deaf people, the poison of resentment is still present, after centuries of discrimination. Was Maurice so naive to believe that his simple goodwill would be enough, as if by magic, to erase this resentment? In an apartheid world, the first to cross the Rubicon must expect to be crucified first” (Grémion 2017: 77). A very clear criterion was directing the collaboration of the Corrado-Grémion “binome”, that Grémion describes with these words: “When I met Alfredo, I discovered that it was possible to build a bridge of communication between our two worlds. But on one condition: that everyone made the effort to go halfway. This is what Alfredo and I are striving to do, because we trust each other” (Grémion 2017: 83).

8b.4 Factors that can generate success in Italy: The role of leadership We have just discovered that Joseph Castronovo worked with IVT. But let us reflect on timing: Joseph Castronovo had arrived in Sicily four years later that IVT was founded. Interestingly enough, Joseph had been a travel companion of IVT, and he might have been inspired by it.

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In fact, in November 1976, Joseph had participated in a tour with IVT founder Jean Grémion and others, to Poland, Czechoslovakia, the German Federal Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden. In Sweden, Joseph had established a long-lasting relationship with the Tyst Theatre, a theater that, after a threeyears period of collaboration with hearing artists, had become the only theatre in the world to be totally managed, both artistically and administratively, by Deaf people (Grémion 2017: 23, 61–80; and as Gunilla Wagstrom and Graziella Anselmo report). When Joseph came to know the Tyst, in 1976, Gunilla Wagstrom was its co-director, with Tommy Lundquist. Gunilla Wagstrom and Joseph remained friends for a long time, as Graziella Anselmo remembers, and as Joseph’s drafts of letters to her attest. It must be recognized that Joseph Castronovo had a long experience of his own before meeting IVT, having collaborated with the National Theatre of the Deaf – Bernard Bragg had in fact been Joseph’s teacher (as Anna Folchi reports). All the same, it is possible that Joseph might have been inspired by IVT as well in his Sicilian project: creating awareness about the status of sign language as a real language, managing workshops of poetry where one plays with language, generating empowerment in a Deaf Sicilian theatre group, reflecting on Deaf identity, working with hearing people in hearing theatres, trying to reach outside of Italy towards international connections, sending workshop participants to Spain or the United States; ideating a Mediterranean Deaf theatre festival. Many of these ideas may have been inspired to Joseph Castronovo by his participation in stages and theatre performances at the National Theatre of the Deaf in the United States, or French IVT, or from his contacts with Swedish Deaf theatre Tyst. Joseph Castronovo’s courage was that he planned to realize his project alone, without a hearing partner, such as David Hays – or for that matter, Edna Levine or Mary Switzer – had been for Bernard Bragg in founding NTD, or Jean Grémion had been in founding IVT. His chief model was possibly the Swedish Deaf-only enterprise of Tyst theatre. As Amartya Sen observed, choices should not be determined by the ‘elite guardians of tradition . . .’ (1999: 31), and Joseph Castronovo did not share his choices with the hearing elite. Had he succeeded, it would have been an extraordinary endeavor – achieving for Deaf people, with Deaf people, and, for the first time in the history of Deaf theatre, by Deaf people alone, and doing so immediately, at the very moment when a theatre project was established. Joseph Castronovo felt ready for a one man show, as Jean Grémion had been. What an empowerment it would have been! And what a test of inclusion for hearing society, for hearing Institutions, for their ability to support initiatives and projects where they arise.

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Anna Folchi remembers: “Some hearing persons did collaborate with us. There were a hearing woman and a hearing man who could understand some sign language, who translated in Italian and provided a public voice to Deaf male and female actors as they performed. But we would have needed interpreters – neither of these hearing persons was one”. Rosaria Giuranna adds “There was a person working at Teatro Nuovo who thought for a moment to produce Children of a Lesser God, but this project did not materialize, since we were all employed, no one of us was a professional actor, we could not have gone on tour”. This man was Salvatore Tessitore, working at Palermo’s Teatro Biondo, who had organized the recital with Joseph and Sicilian poet Ignazio Buttitta. But apart from this, there was no one to hire interpreters, no stable relation to hearing theatre world, the flexibility of French employers allowing holidays when IVT had to be on tour (Abbou 2017: 105) found no matching in Italy. In addition, Elena Pizzuto, Joseph’s most stable reference in Palermo, was a linguist, not a theatre producer. Elena Pizzuto was to leave for Rome in 1982, where she would occupy a position at CNR – in Sicily, she had no position and no institution to support her work. Moving to Rome, much became possible for her, as she became active in research. But with respect to our Palermo story, the experiment with Joseph Castronovo did not move to Rome with Elena Pizzuto, it remained in Sicily, and so, it permanently waned. For her part, Elena Mignosi (we met her in chapter 8a) was still too young in 1976: her first project with Deaf people in Palermo would take place in 1995. She comments: “Joseph would have needed to be introduced around by a hearing partner”. The inclusion test for Palermo Institutions failed. Palermo proved not to be Stockholm. But what makes us most sorry is not so much the institutional failure, that may be redressed with time, as the individual failure. Joseph Castronovo’s initiative would have deserved better, and so would a generation of Deaf Italian people that could not be involved.

8b.5 Factors that can generate success: The role of networking in France and in Italy After I discovered the world of the Deaf, I was struck by the fact that the majority of them seemed to live closed inside, in a microcosm, in a relegation from French society. (Grémion 2017: 137)

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Jean Grémion correctly interpreted his role in IVT as though it was not just a theatre workshop that was taking place, but an empowerment project. He contacted schools,1 newspapers and revues,2 radio broadcasts,3 television broadcasts,4 movie directors (Grémion 2017: 92). He invited American Deaf professionals.5 He activated relationships throughout Europe, so that, when the theatre company was founded, it participated in international theater festivals, beginning already in 1976,6 IVT world theatre tours followed, organized within both Deaf and hearing institutions.7 He was active in the most prestigious cultural institutions in France and in the international cultural scene.8 He activated contacts with Institutions working

1 In February 1976, schools are contacted in order to organize an atelier with children. Contacted schools are: Institut National des Jeunes Sourds, Cours Privé Morvan, S.I.P.S.A. in Centre Augustin–Grosselin, Centre E.M.P. pour déficients sensoriels, C.A.P.P. déficients auditifs in rue de Sévigné, and other less known schools. 2 From February 1976 onwards, articles appear on Le Monde, Charlie Hebdo, la Revue de la Fondation de France, Informations Théâtrales Internationales, Paris Metro, Le Matin, Libération, Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, Autrement, Animer, Sandwich, Maintenant (Grémion 2017 : 29, 84, 134, 164, 165, 166, 206, 208, 213, 215, 221) and many more. When IVT travels abroad, the local press is involved: in the Netherlands, NRC Handelsblad; in Germany TZ, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the München Merkur; in the United States the Soho Weekly News, Baltimore Daily News, etc. 3 Matinales de France–Culture, Radio France, the Maison de la Radio (Grémion 2017: 92, 145, 148). 4 FR3, TF1, (Grémion 2017: 92), the first television news in LSF is broadcasted by Antenne 2 in 1978, and the first bilingual television program in 1979, always on Antenne 2. 5 One was Julianna Fjeld (Grémion 2017: 30). 6 The first one is the Festival of the New Theatre in Baltimore, in June 1976 (Grémion 2017: 35), organized by the same International Theatre Institute whose reference Joseph had used to have Rosaria Giuranna travel to Spain (chapter 8a). 7 Theatre tours of IVT were in Poland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, the German Federal Republic, the Netherlands (fall 1976), under the patronage of ITI, the International Theatre Institute, and the American Revolution Bicentennial; a tour in Bergamo, Italy, with Eugenio Barba (summer 1977), at Lausanne in Switzerland (Grémion 2017: 181), in Baltimore in 1978 (Grémion 2017: 193). IVT participated in the Deaf Theatre World Symposium which took place in Stockholm, funded by UNESCO in 1977 (Grémion 2017: 66). In fact, the World Congress of ITI (for hearing theatre) was planned in Stockholm, in 1977, so that Jean Grémion had the idea to reunite Deaf theatres from the world in Sweden, on the same occasion. “Five Deaf theatres existed [in 1976], whose work was of professional quality: in the Soviet Union, in Israel, in Poland, in Sweden, in the United States” (Grémion 2017: 21–23). The objective of this first world reunion of specialists of Deaf theatre was to gather all those who had worked in the Deaf theatre, including the Third world (Grémion 2017: 120–121). 8 Jean Grémion organized, in collaboration with American, Polish, Swedish, Eastern–Germans Institutions and the UNESCO, after the 1977 Symposium, a Congress in December 1977 in the UNESCO premises, attended by the French President of the Republic, and many ministers (Grémion 2017: 147–148); meetings of the ‘happy few’ of the Parisian intelligentsia (Grémion 2017: 150);

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with Deaf people throughout France and throughout the world.9 He had IVT participate in international congresses of the World Deaf community.10 For his part, Joseph was no less far-sighted – or better said, visionary – than Jean Grémion was. The limits that he encountered were structural to Sicily and related to a lack of credit at an international level. I asked Elena Mignosi what was missing in order for Joseph Castronovo to be successful as Alfredo Corrado was being in France. She gave me a threefold answer: in the first place, she told me, Deaf Sicily was ready, judging from the progresses made by Anna Folchi, Graziella Anselmo, Rosaria and Enza Giuranna, who responded to Joseph’s proposal with as much interest as French Deaf people did to Alfredo’s proposal. In the second place, Joseph would have needed the support of someone who was into theatre. In the third place, Palermo is much too far from “the center”, as opposite to Paris. This third answer is telling. Of all places in Italy, Joseph reached Sicily since it was his ancestors’ land, but he happened to arrive in a place that is peripheral to Italy while Paris is central to France. Sicily is an island and is far away from both Rome, the capital, and influential Northern Italy. Not only: contrary to centralized France, Italy is decentered. Jean Grémion used France centralism to reach out to national decision centers, as well to Paris’ international institutions, such as UNESCO, exactly as Abbé de l’Epée had done in the Eighteen century. What Joseph Castronovo did not know, was that he was engaged in a scaling endeavor, “the process through which an example of social innovation moves from one country to another one, thereby increasing its impact to better

a conference at Collège de France (Grémion 2017: 153); two congresses in collaboration with Ministère de la Sante in 1979, one of which resulted in the decision to constitute an inter–ministerial commission (Grémion 2017: 214). 9 In France, the Centre Régional de Documentation Pédagogique, the Union Nationale pour l’Insertion des Déficients Auditifs, la Fédération National des Sourds de France, the Bureau de Coordination des Devenus Sourds (Grémion 2017: 92). Institutions around the word: Gallaudet University (summer 1976, Grémion 2017: 44), also instrumental in finding funds for the project (Grémion 2017: 48); the World Federation of the Deaf (Grémion 2017: 175); the Salk Institute in San Diego (Grémion 2017: 197–203). 10 One was the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf which was held in Varna, Bulgaria, in 1979, where Jean Grémion talked in front of 5000 participants, translated into tens of sign languages of the world (Grémion 2017: 238–245).

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match the magnitude of the social need or problem it seeks to address” (NESTA et al., 2015: 10, as quoted in Moulaert et al. 2017: 38) Some projects engage in ‘scaling’, i.e. the inter-regional and international replication of social innovation ‘best practice’ models. Given the heterogeneity of European experiences, more attention should be given to institutional context analysis, and to identifying problems that might arise from such ‘scaling’ of social innovation experiences. (Moulaert et al. 2017: 6) What may represent a social innovation in one place at a given time may not be such in another place or another time. (Moulaert 2007: 18)

Joseph did not imagine that a project needs conditions to be realized, a favorable institutional environment, as well as a plant needs fertile soil. With respect to international networking, Joseph Castronovo was unlucky in two respects: once in transplanting in Palermo a plant that was fit for another environment and climate, once in the international links he tried to bind. In fact, by reason of his connections with IVT, Joseph participated in the 1977 World Symposium of Deaf Theatre in Stockholm (Grémion 2017: 119), where he was very active in the meetings aiming at constituting an international organization of Deaf theatres of the world, for which he proposes the title “000”, that would later be approved as the definitive name (Grémion 2017: 126–127, 208). Joseph became the Secretary General of “000” (Grémion 2017: 129), and as such he participated in the first meeting of the European Deaf Theatre, in the Netherlands, in October 1978 (Grémion 2017: 207). Subsequently, Joseph addressed a letter to UNESCO, to be precise the letter is addresses to Lars (probably Lars af Malmborg, Secretary General of the International Theatre Institute. This letter can be read in UNESCO archives in Paris, protocol CCi01n/1443, CREA, which I could read). The letter is dated August 7, 1981, and arrived from Palermo, with Joseph providing as his own address the one of Anna Folchi in Palermo. Joseph wrote he had just returned from Israel, and he planned to have Palermo as his “work base” to develop the “OOO Festival/Mediterranean project”, for which he asked for funding. No answer letter to Joseph Castronovo appears in the same archive folder. In fact, UNESCO wasn’t probably the right door for Joseph to knock at. Deaf associations would have been more adequate. With its international character, it might have been appropriate for the World Federation of the Deaf to support Joseph’s project. And once again, how unlucky Joseph was, as WFD took steps towards Jean Grèmion, while Joseph was probably not even accredited with them. This leads us to the third important factor in Deaf Awakening success: the provision of resources.

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8b.6 Factors that can generate success: Mobilizing resources Not much distinguished Joseph Castronovo’s theatre workshop in Palermo from Alfredo Corrado’s theatre workshop in Paris. But much distinguished Joseph Castronovo’s organizational work from Jean Grémion’s organizational work. Had one to compare strengths and weaknesses that led to more or less successful results, keeping in mind the twofold structure adopted in Paris with respect to leadership, what was lacking in Palermo was the organizational side in the project. In other words, what the Palermo project missed was the hearing side of the empowerment process, not the Deaf side. Similarly to Alfredo Corrado, Joseph was an American in a foreign country, he would have greatly benefitted from being introduced to local institutions. In total contrast, not only Jean Grémion was a Parisian, but he was preceded by a good reputation and had strong connections. “As Grémion worked for several years with Jack Lang at the Nancy festival, he used his networks, and succeeded in obtaining the then-abandoned Château de Vincennes for rent” (Schwaab 2017). Mobilizing resources was not simple for Jean Grémion, but not impossible either. All along his work for IVT, Jean Grémion was connected to the International Theatre Institute, a world organization for theatrical arts, founded in 1948 by theatre and dance experts and by UNESCO, whose chief role was creating international links – it was based in ninety countries. IVT itself was born as a project sponsored by the French and the American centers of the International Theatre Institute.11 Jean Grémion did not spare himself, and his first objectives were precisely those resources that Joseph Castronovo sorely missed in Sicily.12

11 Jean Grémion involved American sponsors, namely the International Theatre Institute in New York, so that he could support Alfredo’s work in Paris (Grémion 2017: 18–19, 23–24). His effort involved, in summer 1976, the United States State Department for Western Europe and for Eastern Europe and the United States Agency for International Development (Grémion 2017: 42–43), the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (Grémion 2017: 48), that would also finance the European tour in which also Joseph Castronovo would participate. 12 The first provision that Jean Grémion was able to offer to Alfredo Corrado was a studio apartment rented in the Bastille area of Paris (Grémion 2017: 12). Soon after, he recruited Bill Moody, one of the best hearing interpreters from ASL that was to give voice to Alfredo Corrado (Grémion 2017: 64). In Palermo Joseph Castronovo, as chapter 8a told, had not even a home to live in, and felt he was dependent on the generosity of Elena Pizzuto, which created a series of difficulties in their relationship.

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When asked whether Joseph Castronovo had been to Italy what Alfredo Corrado was to France, Anna tells: I cannot tell, since I know Alfredo too little. Corrado and Castronovo’s interventions might have been the same in many respects, but for one thing: in France there was much more generosity. Deaf French people were lucky because they were funded by ministries. Unluckily, the situation in Sicily was not that good. The Municipality of Palermo did not help our theater project, nor did the administration of Sicily as a region. I know that the administration of Regione Sicilia used to provide yearly contributions to all Sicilian Deaf associations. At that time, the president of Palermo ENS was Armando Giuranna, a great man who would later become ENS president at a national level. He was the only one who funded Il Ciclope, with the limited contribution he could give. No one except ENS funded us. The premises of our workshop in Palermo were property of ENS. The first locations we had were a school, a hotel. Sometimes resources for the theatre workshop were just out of our personal pockets. This was, this is Italy. (Anna)

Back to Paris, in order to have access to the Vincennes tower, in December 1976 Jean Grémion met the Directeur Régional des Affaires Culturelles de l’Ile–de–France and the General in command of the Place Militaire of the Vincennes castle (Grémion 2017: 81). After the success of the children’s workshops, Jean Grémion understood that he needed to find funding if he wanted to further develop the IVT project (Grémion 2017: 33). He wrote, “I cannot count my meetings, all along the spring 1976”, with functionaries from the Secrétariat d’Etat à la Culture, Ministère de la Santé et de l’Action Sociale, Ministère de l’Action Culturelle Artistique, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Bureau d’Intervention Culturelle, Fond d’Intervention Culturelle, Fond National des Travailleurs Sociaux, Ministère de la Jeunesse et des Sports, Fondation de France, Ministère de l’Education Nationale, . . . (Grémion 2017: 33). In 1977, he had not ended, he successfully involved the Allocation Familiales et de la Formation Professionnelle des Adultes (Grémion 2017: 96). More organizational work was provided to transform the juridical structure of IVT, not adapted to open courses of LSF, the French Sign Language, into a new juridical “entity”, the Centre Culturel des Sourds. But efforts were to be sustained in time, as “IVT has been supported, although in a temporary and fragile manner, by public partners”. To the present day, what is still lacking is “institutions that can assure them continuity and effectiveness”, Jean Grémion wrote at the end of his book, in 2017 (Grémion 2017: 253).

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8b.7 Factors that attest success: A snowball effect IVT theatre performances turned out to be both a creative achievement and a public success. Alfredo had told, “We are not going to play hearing theatre plays. We will play shows that we ourselves are going to create” (Grémion 2017: 83). “Alfredo worked to convince us that every person is provided with talent” (Abbou 2017: 104). The first IVT show “[]”, was represented in May 1978 at the International Theatre Festival in Munich, when the public stopped at the end of the performance to tell the troupe that they too would have liked to found in Germany a Deaf theatre on the model of IVT (Grémion 2017: 171). A second time, the second IVT show, “] [“, was represented in May 1979. The second IVT show was also staged in Hamburg in 1979, at the Festival of the Theatre of Nations, an international cultural manifestation created by IIT, and then in Nurnberg. After “[]”, and “] [“, plays titles were “1 x 80”, “LMS”, “Ednom”, “Hanna”. Play after play were performed in France and abroad – Holland, Denmark, Germany – and then sold out in theatres such as Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Abbou 2017: 105, 82): success came quick and internationally. “Standing ovations, recalled on stage a quantity of times, the public thanked us with his applauses, we felt alive, beloved” (Abbou 2017: 110). “Each time that we succeeded to climb a step, Alfredo pushed us towards the following” (Abbou 2017: 107). The least of the evidences these Deaf actors received was that sign language can do all, can adapt to every style, can translate everything. Little by little, Deaf authors began to ideate scripts and choreographies: as Chantal Liennel and Levent Beskardes did (Abbou 2017: 109, 142). Much earlier than theatrical success arrived, the core adult theatre workshop IVT project had branched in a series of additional projects: in February 1976, a theatre atelier with children was established, that immediately triggered word of mouth among parents of Deaf children. It was the workshop that changed Emmanuelle Laborit’s life. Emmanuelle Laborit was seven years old when she first met Alfredo Corrado (Laborit 2003: 31–32): the first grown-up Deaf person she had ever met in her life of a deaf child raised as an oralist. She wrote in her autobiography: what I did realize right away was that I wasn’t alone in the world. It was a startling revelation. And a bewildering one because, up till then, I had thought, as do so many deaf children, that I was unique and predestined to die as a child. I discovered that I could have a future since Alfredo was a deaf adult! (Laborit 2003: 33)

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That meeting was also the moment her father first accepted her deafness, Emmanuelle recalls (Laborit 2003: 32). The atelier for Deaf children (Grémion 2017: 28) was to be followed by shows in schools (Abbou 2017: 116, 117). “Educators and speech therapists would not comprehend what was taking place: they had never seen Deaf children so calm. They were used to see agitated, uncontrollable children, and had concluded that that was what Deaf children were: children with a nervous, turbulent profile . . . [here] they were concentrated, and participated more and more” (Abbou 2017: 118). The project was soon to bridge from children to the grown-up people that lived and studied with them: “We quickly realized that parents of Deaf children, speech therapists, educators, teachers, waited for us to fulfill other needs: ‘How do you expect us to communicate with Deaf people, if we do not have a place to learn their language?’” (Grémion 2017: 185; also Abbou 2017: 115). After some time that hearing Bill Moody had been teaching French sign language, with a political and strongly empowering move, he offered this role to the Deaf participants in theatre workshops. Some of them became teachers in the sign language courses organized by IVT (Abbou 2017: 77, 78). “One year after the beginning of the sign language courses, there were eleven Deaf professors at the castle . . . and 120 hearing students” (Abbou 2017: 95, 96, 124,135). Soon after, the Centre Socio-Culturel des Sourds was established, followed by a workshop of communication and expression for Deaf persons who had been living in psychiatric hospitals – often for the only reason that they had no other place to live (Grémion 2017: 113; Abbou 2017: 130–133). “Some persons we had used to meet in our schooltime had dropped out of sight. We had never recovered their traces. Jean [Grémion] took our remarks seriously and led his searches. What we discovered froze our blood: many among them had been institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals. We wished to meet them, which Jean permitted us to do” (Abbou 2017: 130). This discovery evolved into exchanges with health professionals working with Deaf persons (Abbou 2017: 130–133): in Grémion’s words, the group met “various hundreds of” French psychiatrists, physicians and students in the Centre Hospitalier Saint-Anne (Grémion 2017: 109), in addition to French speech therapists, in Toulouse (Grémion 2017: 208). In 1978 the workshops had become eight (Grémion 2017: 167), and two new ateliers were opened after Jean Grémion’s visit to Ursula Bellugi at the Salk Institute. One workshop was meant to write a grammar book of French sign language, and one to write the first LSF-French dictionary (Abbou 2017: 139, 141), a course for interpreters, and, temporarily, even a workshop for foreign Deaf actors.

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Among the persons participating in stages organized by IVT in collaboration with Ministère de la Santé et de la Sécurité Sociale, “many have become leading figures in the activist movement of the Seventies and Eighties, and still are at the present day. One of the Deaf participants, Christian Deck, contributed to the foundation of the association 2LPE, Deux Langues Pour une Education, that saw the light in 1979” (Abbou 2017: 70). In 1977, Harry Markowicz, an American linguist working in Paris, and Bernard Mottez, working at a French research institution, C.N.R.S., founded the review Coup d’Oeil. It is just the first in a series of initiatives: associations were subsequently founded, such as Gestorale, ISM, SERAC (Abbou 2017: 71, 175), the first professional service for interpreters was established in collaboration with AIIC, the Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (Abbou 2017: 163, 180). Along these lines, Deaf persons took responsibilities in the management of associations, and gradually assimilated the necessary competences. (Abbou 2017: 71) Eventually, many among [those Deaf persons who had participated in the first IVT theatre workshop] ended by having new jobs. One became editor in a television broadcast, another a director, others actors or anchormen and anchorwomen, or school educators. (Abbou 2017: 138)

In 1978, Jean Grémion was invited to become a member of the commissions of the World Federation of the Deaf – which he refused (Grémion 2017: 176). A collaboration took place with Paris VIII University, that introduced accessible curricula at bachelor and master’s level (Abbou 2017: 181). Bernard Mottez declared, “Limited to the Parisian region and the south of Loire in a first time, the movement [consisting in teaching LSF] ended by involving the whole France, winning at the same time some neighboring country” (as quoted in Grémion, 2017: 91). “Our method, practiced in the castle, has started to seduce number of parents and teachers in all over France. In one year, it has spread to Bordeaux, Albi, Chambery, Marseille . . .”, “and then to Reims, Poitiers, Toulouse, Grenoble” (Grémion 2017: 189, 206). One will never be able to establish a causal link between the foundation and the activities of IVT and all that came next. But one can list what did come next: “End of the prohibition of sign language, end of pure oralism, recognition of bilingualism; creation of the profession of interpreter; creation of the first televised broadcast meant for a Deaf audience; new job opportunities and access to new professional careers; new technologies for visual communication . . .; access to university”. (Grémion 2017: 251). Jean Grémion’s own balance, in 2017, was that “in forty years, the promise of this theatre established in France, which has become today the first in Europe, has been kept” (Grémion 2017: 252).

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In spite of what Jean Grémion himself asserts, I do not share his idea that “the hearing community has not evolved at all during the same time period” (Grémion 2017: 251). Even though “laws have been voted but they are not applied, Deaf children are medicalized, cochlear implants are generally promoted, and new oralist practices are being developed”, something really important has happened in France: the choice is given to parents, and sign language has become an option. That this option may be taken more and more often, depends on the attitude of hearing society at large – not only specialists of Deafness –, on the attitude of the same hearing society at large that Jean Grémion had extensively addressed (more on the importance of addressing society at large in chapter 11b).

8b.8 Social innovation: A theoretical framework The story comparing the Paris and the Palermo projects may be interesting. But as long as it is a story without a theory to frame it, it is quite hard to fully evaluate it in all its dimensions. Well, let’s now interpret it as a story about social innovation. Distinct notions of social innovation have been provided by various authors in sociology. According to one fortunate definition, social innovation is participative, involves a number of actors and stakeholders who have a vested interest in solving a social problem, and empowers the beneficiaries. It is in itself an outcome as it produces social capital. (BEPA 2010)

Other aspects underlined in literature are a focus on “the process rather than product dimension of innovation” (Mouleart et al. 2007: 19), and “the satisfaction of human needs, the mobilisation of resources for the local social economy and the organizational as well as institutional dynamics of civil society – including empowerment” (Moulaert et al. 2007: 22); “the creation and accumulation of social capital in marginalised places and/or within deprived social groups”, and an increase “in access rights (e.g. by political inclusiveness, redistributive policies, etc.)” (Moulaert et al. 2007: 19). In other words, a group of people acts on its own account, on a grassroot action, to gain rights such as inclusion, and its action results in self-improvement thanks to the very process of its activation. This is an exact account of the narration this chapter has just presented. A narration about two projects with the same objectives: one, in Paris, that has reached its objective, the other, in Palermo, that has only attempted to.

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This chapter has analyzed the processes taking place in Paris and in Palermo in terms of leadership, networking, activation of resources, impact. In the two projects differences were in the style of leadership – since Joseph Castronovo had a more difficult character than Alfredo Corrado –, but there were no differences in terms of creativity in leadership; in the presence of a hearing co-leader – since no figure parallel to Jean Grémion’s existed in Palermo; in the availability of resources; in the success of networking; in impact, i.e, in generating of a snowball effect reaching out to the entire society. It is in fact the impact that measures the success of a social innovation. Impact has been described as “the effects of social innovation in terms of . . . development” (André, Brito Henriques, & Jorge Malheiros 2009: 157, 162). The impact of the French project was extensive: it created human and social capital in the Deaf community: it multiplied opportunities for participation, it multiplied the groups a Deaf person could access and belong to; it created an extensive, aware leadership in the Deaf community. The French project reshaped social ties and power relations. Alfredo Corrado was in a different function, but absolutely at a par with Jean Grémion in his creative role, in his role of leader. This role as a competent equal was not so much a result, as rather a model to both Deaf participants and hearing observers: as such, it would multiply its effects. In France, the Deaf community and hearing society were shown a path of solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity. They even invented, I would dare to say, a new relational ethics, based on the effectiveness of a success, that, having been produced once, could be reproduced. The result was that what in previous times had been perceived as a “normal” failure in hearing-Deaf relations, could not be considered normal anymore. Only in France, the theatre project led the Deaf community to create in subsequent years its own social movement, its own political claims, mostly connected to the status of sign language in legislation and in education. In conclusion, something crucial took place in France, that did not take place in Palermo. This crucial difference is what this story has to tell, well beyond the time and place where facts took place. What this story provides evidence for is that what is called social innovation cannot take place without an available society. Leadership, resources, networking, the intentional search for impact were nothing but an instrument to reach society at large, and its institutions. Social innovation is not institutional in as much as it aims at changing Institutions: it is institutional in that it activates Institutions in its making. But what does this mean, out of an abstract definition? Institutions are, according to Emile Durkheim, language, beliefs, modes of behavior, arts and culture, the representations that a society shares, but also

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family, educational Institutions, medicine, the legal system, mass media, the research community, civil society at large, and in it, peer groups. What took place in Paris – and did not take place in Palermo – was the involvement of persons that, by participating in Institutions, could transform them. It is difficult to reconstruct the dynamics that took place after Jean Grémion met journalists, functionaries, persons responsible for crucial choices. The story told in this chapter is based on sources who did not get to know what the public experienced in theatres, what was discussed in newspapers rooms, what was perceived as valuable within the state machine in which functionaries decided. What can be told for sure, however, is that these many power poles could appreciate the value of the Paris project as they met it in the phases of its development. What is probable is that a series of persons who did not know each other, who were mostly not working on deafness and knew very little about it, could perceive the potential in the project. Mostly uncoordinated, and sometimes unawares the ones from the others, journalists, functionaries, people in charge of completely distinct sectors acted so that the project succeeded. Each of them was doing nothing more than single, small choices – but correctly evaluating the implications of their acts. Considerations of social justice, political equity, respect for the entitlement of citizenship, the very French value of equality, political correctness – all of this might have played a part in such decision. A substantially sound society responded appropriately to the Deaf community’s call (chapter 1b, chapter 11b). The effects of social innovations extend beyond the immediate meeting of needs. For most authors, there is a normative aspect to the definition of social innovation, in that it has effects that – in a range of different ways – improve society. At the least, social innovations improve long term opportunities for individuals and/or communities, or produce more efficient, effective and/or sustainable means for society to deal with its challenges. (Moulaert 2017: 25)

8b.9 Conclusion During the 1979 World Deaf Congress in Bulgaria, after he spoke in front of 5000 people from Europe, Asia, Africa and America, translated into about fifteen sign languages of the world (Grémion 2017: 237–238, 241), Jean Grémion decided he would leave IVT. “I thought that time had come for IVT to be managed by a Deaf, not by a hearing person” (Grémion 2017: 247). To Jean Grémion’s surprise, however, Deaf participants in IVT chose, after him, two more hearing directors. But in 2003 Emmannuelle Laborit, winner as an actress of

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the prestigious Prix Molière in 1993, and one of the first children who participated in IVT theatre workshops, became the first Deaf director of IVT. Jean Grémion’s generosity and vision in leaving IVT presidency, thinking that a Deaf person would have taken his place, created no difficulties to IVT, which had already become solid enough to stand on its own feet. But, quite far away from Paris, it created considerable difficulties to Joseph Castronovo, who was then trying to build international theater associations in Northern Europe and Mediterranean Europe. The full-time organizing work for the Deaf community performed in France by a Jean Grèmion – this type of work, Joseph had wished to take over, courageously and independently. One of the most far-sighted politicians of our time and one of the main architects of the European Union, Romano Prodi, has stated that, in the construction of a European Union extended to Eastern European countries, it has been crucial to seize the opportunities that history presented to his leadership. Social life as well is populated with such opportunities. Knowing how to seize them is mostly a matter of awareness, often an act of social justice. Facing the sparkle that can lead to social innovation, individuals in institutions always risk something, and are always forced to make choices, often painful, between priorities. Joseph Castonovo’s Palermo project was one such opportunity – one that no one would seize. Joseph Castronovo lacked the possibility to reach institutions, and therefore lacked institutions to support him. He lacked contact with individual hearing people that could be aware of the social implications that a project could have, when it was built entirely by Deaf people. He lacked a hearing society that could be aware that the Deaf community could be empowered through theatre, a society capable of social innovation. As ICF, the International Classification of Functioning and Disabilities states, disability is in the environment (chapter 1b). But, and this is the conclusion of this chapter, also building capacity is in the environment.

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9a A citizen of the world

Figure 38: Anna in New York.

One might think that, having been the unique daughter of “four parents”, I have been spoiled. On the contrary, a sense of measure has always been present in my education. Naturally, since I was a kid I could ask and be given what I most longed for, comic books, ice creams – but with a limit, no more than one or two per week. And the same has happened with travelling. I have always longed to travel, but my family set the condition that I must work and earn my living, before I could travel.

9a.1 Paris And that’s how, after I got a job and moved in the Palermo apartment with Rosaria Giuranna, Rosaria and I organized our first trip abroad, to Paris. It was the time when Moulin Rouge was legendary and unconventional, and we decided it would be an essential part of our discovery of the city. We read on the flyer, “show and drinks”, and this meant to us that the drink was included in the entrance we had paid for in advance. We were young and not especially rich, we were preoccupied that we might be robbed in the big city, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-017

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so we left the hotel almost without cash on us. We had a seat and drank someone else’s champagne. The waitress dropped briefly by and explained we had misinterpreted. In turn we explained, “We had already paid”, “No, no, this has to be paid for”, she replied. My God! We realized we could not pay, and we had ordered valuable champagne, it was an untimely discovery indeed. We worried for the entire evening and did not have a good time at all. Should we spend our future days doing the washing-up? Should we go home, get all of our fortune and consume it in one evening? How will we interact with the French-speaking waiters? Eventually, as the waiter approached with the bill, our anguish increased. And he announced that . . . the bill was settled. Well, no comment. But Paris was a useful experience: managing money, being autonomous . . . Told today, this is a laughable, unoriginal story, but at the time not so many young persons traveled throughout Europe.

9a.2 First journey in America As it has been told in chapter 8a, Joseph Castronovo, the coordinator of our theatre project in Palermo, proposed I should go to the United States. I was indecisive. My “four parents” were apprehensive, “What are you going to do on your own in America?” My perception was that leaving for the States was similar to leaving for Rome, and this considerably worried my “four parents”. My life up to that moment had followed quite a standard route: work, social life, the theatre project. The world could wait. And now, this proposal, in contrast, that was unique, unusual, and would have been quite inconceivable without Joseph. The Deaf Drama school Joseph was talking about was organized yearly in Waterford, Connecticut, it was attended by professionals, it was a great opportunity. I applied for a paid leave of absence in my bank, I applied for the Drama school, the remarkable summer school of the National Theater of the Deaf founded by Bernard Bragg and David Hays, and they both accepted my requests. It was 1981, I was twenty-two, I left on my own. I flied to New York airport, where a series of misadventures was waiting for me. No one had explained to me that New York airport was a huge, limitless hub. I had no idea I had to change my flight towards a further city. I felt lost. Where was my connecting filght? Then I thought to myself, “I have my passport, I have my money, I have my ticket to fly back to Italy. This is not the time to despair, it is time for determination!” I approached some persons, but I could not say a word in English, I could not effectively interact with them. Eventually, I met a hostess, and I realized there was a bus driving around the airport, I hopped on, without knowing exactly where I should

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hop off. Fortunately, I got to my connecting flight on time: I had to reset my watch, time-zone was no more the Italian one. The second airplane was not so big as the previous one. Weather condition was unfavorable, it was misty, we landed, and an announcement had been made on the loud-speaker, of which I was totally unaware. Everyone got off, and took a bus to transfer to another flight, I quietly went my way. I saw persons talking, someone calling me, “No, thanks”, I replied. I persisted in my way, I was really opinionated. A woman tried to sign to me, but this was not Italian Sign Language, it was American Sign Language, not really comprehensible. At a certain moment, someone had an idea, and suggested me to take my flight ticket. He pointed to the city name on the ticket and the city name of the airport: this was not where I was meant to arrive! Now I realized! There had been a detour, owing to the weather conditions, and we would continue by bus. Ah, everything was so difficult! I began to regret having chosen to fly to the United States, but then, no, no reason to regret. Eventually, my interpreter came, I went to school and . . . well, it has been a great experience. I learned a lot, I experienced cultural diversity, I visited Gallaudet University in Washington. I did not become conceited, I did not change my values and my manner to see the world (Figure 38). Talking of cultural diversity, one episode is worth telling. I had met many persons in the Drama school, I had a happy social life. My birthday approached. I said to my friends, “I would like to buy a beautiful cake and throw a party”. “No, no, I can’t, I have a prior engagement, I believe I have to go”, was everyone’s answer. “Such a people, these Americans, so cold, so inconsiderate”, I thought to myself, “but maybe these are their habits . . .” The evening of my birthday, I was a little depressive, a couple of friends proposed to go smoke marijuana, another proposed we should visit a fellow actor who had broken a leg. “I would like to celebrate, at least a little bit”, “No, come on, come on to the hospital”. I felt so sorry, but “Be patient!”, I said to myself, “Americans are just like this”. We opened the door, and persons, standing in three ordered rows started signing, “Happy Birthday”. I was speechless, totally inarticulate. It was so unexpected! I had been depressed for no reason at all. I got plenty of presents, there was the beautiful cake that I wanted, I started to cry. Never in my life such a beautiful thing had happened to me. It was the happiest birthday of my life. In the United States I also built up some durable friendships. One valuable friendship was with Bernard Bragg (Figure 39), the world-famous Deaf actor, founder of the National Theatre of the Deaf and inventor of the Visual Vernacular acting style. I had first met him as a child, when my aunt Vittorina had accompanied me to the theatre in Florence, to see him performing with the National Theatre of the Deaf on tour. The performance was great, with Deaf actors on stage signing, and hearing actors simultaneously translating for the hearing public. At the

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Figure 39: With Bernard Bragg.

subsequent meeting with Deaf American actors at the Florence ENS section, Bernard was the most elegant, the most glamorous of the guests. During my American stay, Bernard has been my theatre professor in the National-Theatre-of-the-Deaf seminars. He was a man of great value, everyone admired him, he had a special savoir-faire to himself. He got attached to me. I met him again during his stay in Palermo, where Rosaria Giuranna’s company, Il ciclope, had invited him on a seminar, following Joseph Castronovo’s idea that we had to open up to world (chapter 8a). On his subsequent two stays in Italy, he required me to host him at my place, and then our friendship had the chance to considerably strengthen. For his part, he invited me to visit him in the United States, at his place, with my husband Mario. I had almost made up my mind, but it was the time when my mother was ill, so I asked her permission to leave. She told me she was afraid to remain alone and asked me not to leave her. I chose to stay with my mother, but Bernard and I frequently met at distance on conference calls. When I resumed the project to go to the United States, Bernard told me he had had a bad fall. At the time he was already in his elderly age, so he went to live in an assisted living facility, and there, little by little, he died. This is the story of my friendship with Bernard. At the end of my time in the United States, when I returned to Italy, my travels intensified. Not only because I was living in Florence and travelling to Rome to work with the research group of Virginia Volterra, but also because Serena Corazza and I began to attend workshops and seminars throughout Europe, throughout the world. And I travelled the world, round and round (Figure 40). I realize many of my first trips were the ones of a tourist, I was happy to return with my pictures, and to be able to say I had been there. Presently, my travelling style has changed, I want

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Figure 40: Lecturing in various countries.

to be introduced to persons living in the places I visit, listening to what they have to tell. I prepare myself by researching on the places I am about to go, I intend to treasure and conserve my travel experiences. Something I am happy about, is having worked for Alitalia, as I have been the person who signed the security announcements that for a long time have been displayed in Alitalia airplanes before taking off (Figure 41). It has been a small reason of satisfaction to me, to be chosen by Alitalia.

Figure 41: Me, in the security announcements for Alitalia.

9a.3 Comparing institutions I consider the Scandinavian social and school systems – Denmark and Iceland included –, as having the best institutions for Deaf people. Deaf Scandinavian people work and earn like professionals, they have a cinematographic center of their own, they have a professional theatre company . . . Nothing similar exists in Italy. A Deaf professional in Italy is an exceptional event. Deaf people in Scandinavia are perfect signers, since they all begin acquiring sign languages

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early, and they master their signed and spoken language, in a perfect bimodal bilingualism [one terms bimodal the bilingualism in two modalities, visuospatial and auditory-oral]. A Deaf woman who used to be my friend told me she was a teacher of Swedish. When I demonstrated my amazement, she was upset, and so I had to explain to her that in Italy a teacher must forcefully be a hearing person.

9a.4 A matter of noses In 1984, I have been invited to be a lecturer in Japan (Figure 42).

Figure 42: My trip in Japan.

Judging from the number of Deaf persons who attended my lectures, many Deaf Japanese had never seen a Deaf person from abroad. I may well have been one of the very first Europeans they have invited. I addressed students in schools and lectured, not in International Signs, but rather in American Sign Language. My hosts inquired about my intention to really live the country from the perspective of its inhabitants, and I accepted enthusiastically. I slept on the floor, bathed in public baths in the open air even if the weather was cold, ate in popular or in time-honored places. A Deaf man was selected, to accompany me around, but he could only sign in Japanese Sign Language, so we decided it would be an opportunity for me to learn some Japanese signs. I observed my interlocutors. My guide used to frequently choose the nose as his topic. Another person took the word in another situation, and again it was about the nose. Another signer, and she did the same. Everyone was talking about the nose! “This is not possible”, I could not believe that my interpretation of the situation was correct, there had to be a reason. I inquired

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my guide, “Sumimasen . . .”. He explained, “It is the same as saying ‘me’. Well, it makes sense, the nose is the center of a person’s face, you are looking at my face as I talk. In contrast, had I to point to the center of my bosom, your center of attention should move lower”. It made perfect sense indeed . . . I have been in Japan three times, the first time for one month, the second time to attend a Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf and for a tour together with Rosaria Giuranna and other friends, the third with my former drama company “Il Ciclope”, when I was invited to lecture on Deaf culture.

9a.5 Snowmen of the world A project making use of a tale about a snowman was originally thought out by Virginia Volterra, Serena Corazza and their group, to inquire about the comprehensibility of LIS throughout Italy: to what extent were Trieste signs comprehensible in Rome, and Roman signs in Trieste? Virginia Volterra published the results of this research in a work she edited, La Lingua dei segni italiana. Distinguishing and comparing signs – I found such a project very interesting. World languages enchanted me. With the collaboration of Rossano Borgioli as a cameraman, I repurposed a book containing a story told in pictures to a series of Deaf persons from far away countries, asking them to observe the images and then tell the story in their own sign language. I planned to collect samples of sign languages from the world. Each time I met a foreign Deaf in Italy, I presented him or her with the book with the fairytale, which was about a snowman, and asked them to sign it. American Deaf people, Russians, Thai people, all of them could tell the story without having to translate it from a version in another language. The Russian signer who told the snowman story was in his element, he talked of it being white, white and white, a limitless expanse. The moment came when I presented the fairytale to a Thai Deaf signer. He leafed through the pages, he doubted, “Maybe I am not able to tell this story”, he said. “How comes? Images are there . . .” “What is this big white doll here, how do you sign it?” After some interaction, I realized he had never experienced snow, and ignored what a snowman is. He told me the story, but without any satisfaction. Not his element, I suppose. My empirical finding was that some postures, some eye gaze movements are the same all over the world. In contrast lexicon can be strongly different. From the perspective of an Italian signer, Thai, Japanese signs are quite a characteristic experience. The snowman research opened a new field of interest for me: sociolinguistics.

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9a.6 Sociolinguistics The type of interest in sociolinguistics that I have, concerns lexical variety in sign languages, and the elements that distinguish sign languages from spoken languages. To be specific, spoken languages have, to say one, a single word for “cathedral”. But in Florence and Milan, cathedrals are quite distinctly shaped, and this results in different signs for Florence and Milan “cathedrals” (Figure 43). This means to me that sometimes the spoken-language abstract word is insufficient to characterize a concept in sign language. In order to correctly produce certain concepts in sign language, contexts need to be separated.

Figure 43: Milan’s cathedral on the left and Florence cathedral on the right.

I engaged in reflections on the similarities in the sign for “all day long” in LIS, American Sign Language, and Indian Sign Language. In the three languages, the movement pivots on the elbow with the palm directed towards the chest, and the arm moving up from horizontal to vertical. In LIS, the configuration is a stretched index, as though to sign “one”. Alternatively, in LIS, the two hands move symmetrically up with a B configuration [in the B configuration the hand is stretched, and the fingers are closed]. In American Sign Language, the index signs “one”, but the movement of the arm is from vertical down to horizontal. In Indian Sign Language, the arm moves up from horizontal to vertical, and then down again, while the closed fingers open while moving up, and close by moving down, as a flower that is blooming and closing again. Some signs are the same, but their meaning in various sign languages differ: as the sign that means “mother” in LIS, “Moscow” in Russian Sign Language, “sex” in Japanese, and “menstrual cycle” in ASL. Some characters are very distinctive in a specific sign language. To say one, American signers are very rapid in signing. American Sign Language is rich in

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finger-spelled words, and there are plenty of words that are represented in signs by the initial letters they have in English. To say just one, “water” is signed with a W in front of one’s chin, “wine” with the W on the side of one’s face, “worry” with two W turning before one’s front. Italian Sign Language does not work in the same way. But sign languages can also be very similar on other grounds. American Sign Language and French Sign Language have very similar signs – and the reason for this is historic, for American sign language has its origin in French Sign Language. I wished I could have learned plenty of languages. Actually, some I have learned, including Japanese Sign Language, a complex language indeed. I made a great effort, but then I had few opportunities to practice it, and with time I forgot it. Recently, I met a Japanese man at Milan ENS, I introduced myself, and I began to sign in Japanese Sign Language – he was amazed. “Very good”, he signed, repeatedly moving his fist towards his . . . nose!

9a.7 Foreign languages, and language learning The Sign languages I can produce are Italian Sign Language, my first language; American Sign Language; Spanish Sign Language, which I acquired interacting with Felix Pinedo, a Spanish friend of mine who has been the president of the Spanish national Deaf association – but my Spanish Sign Language lacks practicing! If the objective of a Deaf person is learning the signed or the spoken language of one country, a good solution is to start from the sign language and proceed in parallel. Most sign languages are related to the spoken language used in the country, as they mouth the spoken language word that is related to the sign that is being produced. When I sign “good”, I also mouth “good”, and my interlocutor can lipread it. When it is about the parallel between a signed and a spoken language, American signers are advantaged by a similar word order in both their signed and spoken languages, with the verb positioned after subject and before the object. Every sign language has its grammatical structure, and its rules that must be acquired and used. A hearing person can take a long time to learn a signed language, more or less, four years. A Deaf person succeeds in learning a second sign language in a much shorter time, but timing can also depend on factors such as the similarity between his first sign language and his target language.

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Had I to learn a spoken language from scratch, I would begin with the sign language signed in the country, and reconstruct the basics of the spoken language using the mouthing associated to signs.

9a.8 Plural Deaf cultures Travelling has also led me to concentrate my attention on cultural variety. Back in time, one used to say, “Deaf people”. There are characters that make Deaf people similar, no matter where they were born, but Deaf people are bilingual and bicultural as well, and therefore linked to their country of origin. We do have some behaviors that are typically Deaf. Deaf people, to say one, are direct and outspoken. But one cannot accept any behavior just for the reason that it is based on Deaf culture. One ought not to say, “You dress inelegantly”, only because frankness is typical of Deaf culture, everyone is free to dress as one prefers, it is not my business to criticize people’s tastes. Honestly, this is just being impolite. But there is an explanation for this. Deaf people that are grown up at present, have been students in residential institutions. They have not had their parents correcting them, requiring them to say “sorry”, “thank you”. In institutions there were a quantity of Deaf children for each educator, and they could not be followed individually. When the children misbehaved, the nuns just let it go. In hearing families, a deaf child was the most unfortunate, as compared to other family members, and it is thinkable that he was considered with an excess of forgiving. Deaf persons are not responsible for these behaviors, but such behaviors are not a part of Deaf culture. I have engaged in distinguishing what Deaf culture might be – but then, there must also be something that isn’t Deaf culture. There are ideas that are typical of a state. Deaf Russians, to say one, explained about their lives in factories and their earnings in Communist Russia, they told me that factories existed where only Deaf people used to work. And then, there is Culture with a capital “C”: I collected an archive of filmed interviews with Bernard Bragg, Masao Ito, Sergei Chachelev, Clayton Valli, Carol Padden. I am still thinking about how I could publish this quantity of materials. But I realize that I am moving towards the topic of chapter 11a, my research activity.

Sara Trovato

9b Theories about deafness: Disability, culture, identity – – – – – – – – –

– – – – – – – –

Have you heard? What? It seems an old video has been found, in an old archive. About deafness? It is a public meeting, featuring a debate among an old Bernard Mottez, Harlan Lane, and young Carol Padden and Paddy Ladd. I have heard about these names, they are scholars in Deaf studies, aren’t they? Yep. And who are they, exactly? Bernard Mottez is a French sociologist. He has introduced in Deaf studies an extraordinary quantity of topics, that have later been developed and have become mainstream. But his ideas are sometimes more nuanced and more complex than the ones by thinkers and activists who have published after him. Are there American scholars, in this video you are talking about? Harlan Lane and Carol Padden are American. And the fourth scholar? Another European? Yes, Paddy Ladd is British. Paddy Ladd and Carol Padden are Deaf. Uhm. Interesting. Is it possible to view this video? I am transcribing it – in fact, I might give you a copy of the transcript. Great! I will read it tomorrow morning, it appears we will have a very a cold Sunday, better stay at home. Yes . . .

This chapter is a fictive reproduction of an event that never took place. Even if the opinions of the participants in the meeting are based on quotations by their books and articles, the reconstruction of such opinions is due to the author of this chapter alone. Moderator (a sociologist): – Welcome everyone, please take a sit, and let us open this event. As everyone knows, a new discipline is appearing on the scene, that has not yet an established name, but many already label it “Deaf studies”, in parallel with Gender studies, etc. This evening, we hope to open a dialogue between sociologists, who, together with anthropologists, mostly compose our public, and scholars who have specialized in deafness. I invite the public to participate with questions and interventions. I would begin by questioning your choice for the title of this meeting, “disability, culture, and identity”. Culture and identity are indeed notions that are – sometimes strongly – questioned in recent sociological research. Disability is not. In contrast, Deaf Studies appear

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to be structured along a refusal of the notion of disability, while they make a strong use of the notions of culture and identity. Let us open with a question that appears as quite natural to the layman. Deaf people – and Deaf studies – do not position themselves in the realm of disability – and disability studies. How so? Bernard Mottez:1 – First of all, thank you for your invitation. Well, “it appears convenient to operate a distinction between – I will use French words – déficience and, in absence of a more adequate term, what we continue to conventionally name handicap. Déficience and handicap are the two faces of one and the same reality. The first refers to a physical aspect, the second to a social aspect. . . . By handicap I conventionally mean the set of social places and roles from which an individual or a category of individuals find themselves excluded as a result of a déficience. By social places, I mean more or less institutionalized fields of activity, simply definable as work, education, sport, hobbies and religion. Handicap is then the set of prohibitions and limits to social engagement”. (Mottez [1981] 2006: 59–60) Now “unfortunately, however spectacular the progresses to reduce a déficience, it does not follow that the handicap is accordingly reduced. Reconstructions often economize in relating about other transformations whose result is an increase in the handicap”. I will provide an example of an increase in progresses to reduce déficiences in one sector that results in an increase in the handicap in another sector. “If we have to believe H. Gaillard, all along the 19th century we assist to a growing opening of the labor market to Deaf people. . . . Then suddenly, a reflux takes place. World War I opened the labor market to Deaf people. . . . But there was no tomorrow. . . . Refusals were without appeal. When they were justified, they took place in the name of regulations and security. Security: this was in fact the reason why, as result of a sudden sensitivity, disabled workers were eliminated in perfect good faith: for the benefit of all, and for their own benefit. [Security in workplaces] is a topic almost without relevance when the talk is about deafness . . . [But] the best initiatives may be perverted. . . . Insurance premiums were more elevated for workers with a déficience. . . . Society assuming its responsibilities towards disabled people – those people who would become disabled in this valued social place that is work – . . . resulted in an increase in the handicap for those who were already the victims of a déficience”. (Mottez [1977–1984] 2006: 42–44) Harlan Lane: – There is another reason why Deaf persons are not to be considered disabled. “Deaf parents have expressed a wish for children like themselves – much as all parents do who do not see themselves as disabled. ‘I want my daughter to be like me, to be Deaf’, one expectant Deaf mother declared in an interview with the Boston Globe. . . . These views contrast sharply with the tendency of disability groups. A study of blind people, for example, reported that they tend to shun the company of other blind people, associate with each other only when there are specific reasons for doing so, seek sighted mates, and do not wish to transmit their blindness to their children (Deshen 1992). Leaders of the disability rights movement call for ambivalence: They want their physical difference

1 Translation from French of Bernard Mottez’s texts is by the author of this chapter.

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valued, as a part of who they are; at the same time, they do not wish to see more children and adults with disabilities in the world (Abberley, 1987; Lane, 1995). We should not be surprised that Deaf people want Deaf spouses, welcome Deaf children, and prefer to be together with other culturally Deaf people – in clubs, in school, at work if possible, in leisure activities, in political action, in sports, and so on – in short, they see being Deaf as an inherent good. Do not ethnic groups characteristically value their physical difference, from the pygmies of the Iturbi forest in Central Africa to the tall pale inhabitants of, say, Finland?” (Lane 2005: 298) Paddy Ladd: – Good evening. If I may, I would like to disagree with the social definition of handicap proposed by Bernard Mottez, which is very close to the one in disability studies. “The social model as applied to deaf people contains internal contradictions and it fails to take on board several key differences in the quality of deaf cultural lives compared with those of persons with disabilities”. (Ladd 2005: 13) “Disability theory achieved a breakthrough in the 1980s . . . The disability movement inverted the pattern [of the medical model of disability], pointing out that societies were constructed solely for the benefit of non-disabled people, so that any attempt to gain equal access and rights was seen as an ‘adding-on’ process, which left them at the mercy of benevolence, munificence and charity. They proposed instead a radical social model which asserted their fundamental equality as human beings with entitlement to full citizenship. Societies should, they contended, be built and managed with all its members in mind, taking collective responsibility to ensure equal access and full citizenship for all, and refusal to do so should be seen as social and political discrimination. This radical approach has made considerable progress, being adopted in numerous domains, and the 1990s have seen the beginnings of processes to ensure comprehensive legislation to enforce this model. It should be noted however, that the powerful medical and scientific sectors continue to pursue their own model, as can be seen in the current genetic engineering discourses. Deaf communities have been swept along with the social model movement largely because they lacked the power to make their own views known. In so doing, they have received a (limited) number of benefits from this association, which has also compromised their ability to express their reservations. Many are uncomfortable with their inclusion in the disability social model because, however it might try to construct itself to assimilate them, the criterion used for including Deaf communities in their ranks is that of physical deafness – in other words, the medical concept. Thus social model legislation is suitable for needs arising out of individual hearing impairment, such as flashing light doorbells, text telephones and TV subtitles, and applies to Deaf and deafened people alike – these are not specific to Deaf communities, nor does it address their own deeper needs”. (Ladd 2003: 15) “For those involved with disability issues, different strategy questions appear. Can the Disability Movement adopt genuine coalition principles, which can factor in the culturo-linguistic model of Deafhood with the social model of deafness and disability? Are there other disability groups for whom some of these subaltern-oriented data speaks; and what lies beneath the surface in need of similar resolution once such issues are raised?” (Ladd 2003: 435)

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Moderator: – I appreciate greatly your effort to explain in detail parts of a debate that most sociologists in this room are not informed about. We will return on the role of society and on participation to society later. But first of all, if I can be sincere and add a little bit of pepper to this discussion, there is something ungenerous in refusing a stigma – but leaving it to others. And in addition, don’t you think that by splitting your forces from other disabled categories you renounce to strength and influence, in your fight for your rights? Harlan Lane: – On the first point, I would say that the question is rather the opposite. “Some writers, convinced that the Deaf have a disability and baffled by their refusal to acknowledge it, conclude that Deaf people are simply denying the truth of their disability to avoid stigma. . . . The gender preferences of gay men and women were at one time viewed as an expression of mental illness. In rejecting that disability categorization, the gay rights movement was not simply trying to avoid a stigma; it was trying instead to promote a new representation of gay men and women that would be better for them, their families, and the wider society”. (Lane 2005: 298) About the problem of splitting forces, I would say the same problem arises among deaf people themselves. “Some Deaf leaders will say that by insisting on the distinction between members of the Deaf community and members of the hearing community who have a hearing disability, I am serving the interest of those who would ‘divide and conquer’. It is true that by allying with other groups, the Deaf community can make gains difficult to achieve on its own. But to embrace the representation of the members of the Deaf community as infirm is to endorse the very principle of oppression the community has long struggled to overthrow; it is to undermine the community’s efforts in behalf of some of its most cherished goals, such as bilingual and bicultural education . . . ” (Lane 1999: 22) Moderator: – I understand sign language is central to your view of Deafness. Let us move to language then – but not in itself. Let the issue of language become more palatable for sociologists: I understand sign language has recently been considered as a part of a culture. Would you expand on this idea? Bernard Mottez: – “One is naturally a hearing deficient. It is physical, [as I said before]. But one becomes Deaf socially. One learns it. One takes it. One takes it from one’s own people: from peers, from elder ones, from grown-up ones. Because, curiously enough, the hearing world doesn’t offer in this respect any alternative. And one learns it quickly. Deaf boys and girls in contact with Deaf people rapidly recognize what is good for them and adopt it. We speak here of culture in the same way as ethnologists or sociologists do. It is a specific manner to see the world, to organize life and its relationship to others, to organize the environment that is shared with the members of one’s group – as a result of the common social condition. It is in this sense that one can talk of German, Gipsy, Black, working-class, countryside, religious, and even homosexual cultures, and this without necessarily making reference to possible artistic expressions proper to these groups”. (Mottez [1985a] 2006: 151; also Mottez [1987a] 2006: 72)

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Carol Padden: – I would go further than this. “The traditional way of writing about Deaf people is to focus on the fact of the condition – that they do not hear – and to interpret all other aspects of their life as consequences of this fact. Our goal . . . is to write about Deaf people in a new and different way. In contrast to the long history of writing that treat them as medical cases or as people with disabilities, who “compensate” for their deafness by using sign language, we want to portray their lives, their art and performances, their everyday talk, their shared myths, and the lessons they teach one another. We have always felt that the attention given to the physical condition of not hearing has obscured far more interesting facets of Deaf people’s lives” (Padden & Humphries 1988: 1). “A large population, established patterns of cultural transmission, and a common language: these are all basic ingredients for a rich and inventive culture”. (Padden & Humphries 1988: 9) Moderator: – So, it appears that Deaf culture is one among many subcultures . . . Paddy Ladd: – No! We should “understand why cultural study itself is so subversive, and thus why it has itself only emerged as a subject for examination and deliberation in the last 30 years”. (Ladd 2003: 175) Harlan Lane: – “I call Deaf communities colonized, using the term in an extended sense – as when French philosopher Michel Foucault speaks of the ‘colonization of the body’ by the state – because Deaf communities have suffered oppression, in all its forms and consequences, in common with other cultures that were literally subjugated by imperial powers. The universal properties of paternalism do show up in the stereotypes at the colonial authorities and hearing authorities create for themselves to rationalize and justify their predicament”. (Lane 1999: 40) Paddy Ladd: – I agree! “Decolonization cannot proceed unless deaf societies clarify for themselves and others what ‘Deaf culture’ is, and how it might operate across the colonized domains, especially deaf education systems”. (Ladd 2005: 16–17) “When examining minority cultures in particular it is noticeable that, at a certain point in their resurgence, history becomes uniquely important and takes on a much more conscious and explicit role. Of course, reclaiming a suppressed history is an inevitable part of cultural rebuilding and self-liberation; however, what is still not yet clear is the precise role of this ‘historical self’ in forming such positive self-images. The data suggest that colonialism has destroyed most of the historical continuity of the Deaf community, so that it is harder to actually place oneself within that framework unless one has experienced not only Deaf parents, but Deaf grandparents. Attempts to (re)construct the historical self must therefore inevitably involve conscious strategising . . .; one might imagine that introducing Deaf ‘grandparents’ to young Deaf children might constitute one such strategy”. (Ladd 2003: 420–421) Harlan Lane: – “Deaf educators of the last century, such as French educator Ferdinand Berthier, wrote books rebutting hearing calumnies against Deaf people, citing behavioral evidence of the moral sensibilities of deaf children, recording the intellectual feats of Deaf adults (the books themselves gave the lie to the hearing claims), affirming the

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limitless possibilities of French Sign language – but all this was utterly ignored in the corridors of power, as today deaf outrage is still ignored by the audist establishment”. (Lane 1999: 73) “If children grow up in a world in which there is a conceptualization of Deaf people different from the one that dominates now, there will be different kinds of Deaf people, and different kinds of hearing people who interact with them regularly. The deaf children will see themselves in an another light from the beginning; so will their peers, parents, and teachers, who will relate to them accordingly, and the children will grow into another kind of person, potentially prouder, stronger, better educated, bringing an unique contribution to the knowledge of humankind and the ordering of society”. (Lane 1999: 199) Intervention from the public (1) (anthropologist): – It may seem you have the intention to deconstruct certain social representations, that you name “the medical model”, but you are not afraid to engage in constructing new ones, such as Deaf culture. It is the very notion of culture that is problematic. “Although the skepticism over the culture concept has its origins in deconstructionist and poststructuralist thought, anthropologists sympathizing with it come from an amazing range of theoretical positions that reaches far beyond that specific vantage point”. (Brumann 1999: S1) “Much of the problem with the noun form [of culture] has to do with its implication that culture is some kind of object, thing, or substance, whether physical or metaphysical”. (Appadurai 1996: 12, as in Brumann 1999: S2) This risk, that in synthesis may be labelled as essentialism about the notion of culture, appears not to trouble you at all . . . Paddy Ladd: – This account forgets to consider that this notion of culture is issued from an oppressed minority. “Majority cultures do not have to measure their culture in such ways – they are implicit within their own definitions of ‘cultural change’. But minority cultures that have undergone oppression, especially Black or postcolonial societies, are forced to create and re-create their cultures, often by reference to whatever aspects of their precolonized cultures they still retain, in order to identify a ‘larger’ self which once existed”. (Ladd 2005: 15) “Members of language majorities cannot effectively participate in opposing the actions of those holding power in their own societies unless they are willing to understand how that power is mediated and implemented throughout the cultural workings of their own societies. No matter from which position one approaches these subjects, it is the concept of culture which is the key to resistance and change”. (Ladd 2003: 9) “Although at a later stage it is absolutely necessary to examine and qualify minority group narratives, an academic space must, in the first instance, be established which recognises the existence of ‘counter-narratives’ in themselves, a pole around which resistance thinking can even be organised. Thus in the liberation struggles of some groups, a strong case can be made for what Spivak (1990) calls ‘strategic essentialism’. This then creates a countervailing social, cultural and intellectual force which can then create new spaces for more sophisticated liberatory discourses to flourish. I hope, then, that in succeeding years, others may be able to develop readings which refine and ‘de-essentialise’ this one, as far as that is necessary”. (Ladd 2003: 80–81)

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Harlan Lane: – I agree with Paddy. “Disability, like ethnicity, is a social construct, not a fact of life, although it is a property of such constructs that they appear misleadingly to be a fact of life”. (Lane 2005: 295) Paddy Ladd: – And “however, it is through culture that values, beliefs and actions are mediated. It is relatively easy to identify how oppression operates through power and finance. It is far harder to unravel the densely tangled web of cultural histories in order to understand how those with power and money have shaped what one thinks of as ‘our own’ beliefs and values. Moreover, any attempt to do so is deeply threatening to the sense of self and identity which has been constructed, for one is not simply confronted with our knowledge of past wrongs, but with the realisation of how one has been led to give assent to them in present lives. It is only partly a matter of, as the Black writer Bell Hooks has it, of identifying and relinquishing privileges. Once one has gazed that deeply into one’s own culture, one is then confronted with the fearful task of reconstructing new forms of self and identity”. (Ladd 2003: 22) “Data [I collected] reflect the range of situations involved – Deaf children wishing to better their education facing rejection by their peers, Deaf rebels protesting missioner actions facing ostracism by their community, or élite-subaltern desiring to object facing withdrawal of privileges or status by the hearing people holding power over them. These dynamics may be unique to minority cultures, since the underlying characteristic seems to be one of being trapped in positions where one can find it difficult to support some of the actions taken by one’s own people, yet feel unable to criticise them without appearing to reinforce majority-cultural dominance. Cultural forms thus developed may simultaneously enable people to cope with social conditions and limit their ability to change them”. (Ladd 2003: 420) Carol Padden: – Take sign language, as another example of the consequences of social representations. “The mistaken belief that ASL is a set of simple gestures with no internal structure has led to the tragic misconception that the relationship of Deaf people to their sign language is a casual one that can be easily severed and replaced. This misconception more than any other has driven educational policy. Generations of schoolchildren have been forbidden to use signs and compelled to speak. Other children have been urged to use artificially modified signs in place of vocabulary from their natural sign language”. (Padden & Humphries 1988: 9) Paddy Ladd: – “The consequences of oralism have been severe. Deaf school-leavers worldwide have a reading [ability] sufficient for the headlines of a tabloid newspaper, yet their speech is still almost incomprehensible. This not only affects their ability to gain appropriate employment or further education but deprives them of meaningful relationships with their parents. It instils in them a range of internalized oppressions, from a simple lack of self-confidence or self-belief, through identity crises and self-hatred, to a rate of acquired mental illness double that of non-deaf populations”. (Ladd 2005: 13) Moderator: – Your explanation has growingly moved into the realm of identity. Another domain where reification has been decried.

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Bernard Mottez: – Identity is equally socially constructed as culture is, and Deaf identity as well: it is social, and it does not exist in isolation. “I will depart from this evidence: one is not Deaf on one’s own. It needs at least to be two in order to be able to start to talk about deafness. Deafness is a relationship; it is a necessarily shared experience”. (Mottez [1987b] 2006: 160) Deafness is socially construed: “I would like to underline that becoming aware about one’s deafness initially is not in any way an experience of a physical nature. . . . It is rather the answer that one finally finds to a series of questions that up to that moment were diffused. It bears on the reasons why your social environment treats you always differently from others – they overprotect you, they don’t tell you everything, they mock you. I’ve always been struck by the formula ‘It is not for our deafness that we suffer, but for the manner in which others treat us, as a consequence of our deafness’.” (Mottez [1987a] 2006: 75–76) Carol Padden: – I have a story to tell on this respect. “A Deaf friend of ours, Howard, a prominent member of his community, made a revealing comment to a mixed audience of hearing and Deaf people. All members of his family – his parents and brother as well as aunts and uncles – are Deaf. He told the audience that he had spent his early childhood among Deaf people, but when he was six his world changed: his parents took him into a school for Deaf children. “Would you believe”, he said, pausing expertly for effect, “I never knew I was Deaf until I first entered the school”. (Padden 1988: 16–17) Intervention from the public (2) (sociologist): – These are innocent notions of identity. I will make myself clear by returning on the notion of reification, in all of its political consequences. “Everyday ‘identity talk’ and ‘identity politics’ are real and important phenomena. But the contemporary salience of ‘identity’ as a category of practice does not require its use as a category of analysis. Consider an analogy. ‘Nation’ is a widely used category of social and political practice. Appeals and claims made in the name of putative ‘nations’ – for example, claims to self-determination – have been central to politics for a hundred-and-fifty years. But one does not have to use ‘nation’ as an analytical category to understand and analyze such appeals and claims. One does not have to take a category inherent in the practice of nationalism – the realist, reifying conception of nations as real communities – and make this category central to the theory of nationalism. Nor does one have to use ‘race’ as a category of analysis – which risks taking for granted that ‘race’ exists – to understand and analyze social and political practices oriented to the presumed existence of putative ‘races’. . . . Reification is a social process, not only an intellectual practice. As such, it is central to the politics of ‘ethnicity’, ‘race’, ‘nation’, and other putative ‘identities’. Analysts of this kind of politics should seek to account for this process of reification. We should seek to explain the processes and mechanisms through which what has been called the ‘political fiction’ of the ‘nation’ – or of the ‘ethnic group’, ‘race’, or other putative ‘identity’ – can crystallize, at certain moments, as a powerful, compelling reality. But we should avoid unintentionally reproducing or reinforcing such reification by uncritically adopting categories of practice as categories of analysis”. (Brubaker & Cooper 2000: 5) Paddy Ladd: – “The state of being ‘English’ itself is rarely brought into question, except in times of war when one’s behaviour or beliefs can be attacked as ‘un-English’. In intensely ideological states such as the USA, the concept of behaving in an ‘un-American’

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way can be used by the military-industrial complex to enforce conformity. But, generally, majority Western society’s membership of its own cultures has not been seriously questioned until the rapid rise of concepts of ethnicity following the end of the Cold War. Minority cultures and postcolonial cultures, on the other hand, are constantly challenged to validate their status, not just by external forces but by internal forces also. For example, being ‘Black’ or ‘Native American’, for example, is a state of existence that is continually called into question, hence the derogatory terms ‘Uncle Tom’, ‘oreo’, or ‘apple’ applied to members of those societies who are perceived to side with those external forces”. (Ladd 2005: 14) Moderator: – Would not this lead to some being more “Deaf” than others? Howard Becker, maybe the first sociologist “proper” to study deafness, has in fact centered his essay on inside and outside relationships for this group of outsiders, as he labels it, that is, Deaf people. This would be paradoxical: those who are excluded employing notions that empower them at the expense of others, the new excluded ones. Carol Padden: – “The deaf community comprises those deaf and hard of hearing individuals who share a common language, common experiences and values, and a common way of interacting with each other, and with hearing people”. (Baker & Padden 1978: 4) Paddy Ladd: – “This is one of the most difficult points to resolve this early in the deafhood decolonization process – there is the impulse towards larger deaf possibilities, which suggests that the process of becoming and maintaining ‘deaf’ could lead to deafhood being used by one group or another to validate ideas about being ‘more’ or less ‘deaf’ at any one point in time. This could for instance become limited by narrow concepts of ‘deaf nationalism’, a problem faced by other decolonizing societies”. (Ladd 2005: 15–16) Bernard Mottez: – But “times have changed. Today it goes without saying that only a deaf person can tell what it means to be deaf”. (Mottez [1987b] 2006: 73) And again, against essentialism: “If you allow me, I am going to decline my identity. My surname is Mottez. My name is Bernard. My father was engineer. I was born in 1930. I am French. I have blue eyes. The top of my head is clearly without hair. My nose is a little bit strong. I am married and my wife is a foreigner. I am the father of a girl and a boy that are presently of age. I am a sociologist. I am a directeur de recherche at CNRS. I am interested in deafness and in recent years I have made of deafness the essential object of my research activities. Here is a certain number of traits, characteristics, attributes – you can call them as you like – that are elements of my identity. Each of them is a common trait. I share them with a quantity of other persons. I am tempted to say: it is the whole that is unique. All these traits reunited, and many more still, do in such a way that I am what I am, which means someone different from any other, who has no equal. Thus, we are a lot being born in 1930, [etc.]”. (Mottez [1987b] 2006: 65) Moderator: – I understand where your argument leads: identities are plural by definition – an argument that also Amartya Sen has recently talked about publicly, promising

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he would write about it in the future. But I cannot understand your refusal of political correctness: why do you insist that Deaf people should be called Deaf? Bernard Mottez: – “In order to find one’s way with persons whose disturbing flaws cannot be corrected, fortunately other means exist than annihilating them. For instance, one may not look at them. Do as if they weren’t there. Do as if one had not remarked nothing, as if one had not remarked them. It is the usual manner with disabled people. A similar manner, much closer to the preceding one than one would first think, but still a manner resulting in not giving them a place – consists in not giving them a name. . . . Since the Fifties, with the spectacular progress in terms of prothesis, the medical way has become fashionable. In turn, the word deaf has become in many places the object of a real censorship. . . . What presents itself as a delicate intention is a measure of rejection”. (Mottez 2006: 32–33) Moderator: – What sort of social participation do you envisage for Deaf people? Many terms have been used, such as integration, inclusion: are they meaningful for you? Harlan Lane: – “Classifying the Deaf-World as an ethnic group should encourage those who are concerned with Deaf people to do appropriate things: learn their language, defend their heritage against more powerful groups, study their ethnic history; and so on. In this light, the Deaf-World should enjoy the rights and protections accorded to other ethnic groups under international law and treaties, such as the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities”. (Lane 2005: 295) Carol Padden: – I disagree. I think that participation in, and not separation from society should be the value guiding us. “The practice of segregating by race and gender in deaf schools was followed a few years later with another type of segregation. As the oral method began to gain currency in American deaf education toward the end of the nineteenth century, schools began to place deaf children in different classrooms based on the type of educational method to be used with them, that is, whether their teachers should sign (the ‘manual method’) or should only speak (the ‘oral method’). From the earliest days of deaf education, the bodies of deaf children have been organized in different kinds of schemes, from segregation by gender, to race, to separation by educational method. Today segregation by race is illegal in American schools, but some schools still separate deaf children – by keeping children with cochlear implants in classrooms apart from other deaf children”. (Padden & Humphries 2006: 38–39) Bernard Mottez: – On this point, I side with Carol. “Excluded people, ‘peripheral’ people, marginal people, they would be the ones who, as a result of what they are, do not contribute. Or, to be more precise, those from whom one does expect nothing and/or one most of all wants to receive nothing. This, for the reason that one estimates, rightly or wrongly, that they are incapable of a real contribution, or that their contribution cannot be good”. (Mottez [1985b] 2006: 328) Moderator: – I would like to have some words as a conclusion . . .

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Bernard Mottez: – “It is in the name of integration and fight against ghettoes that one has condemned and fought signs. At present, it is clear that we should have proceeded in the opposite direction. Recognition of sign language is the sine qua non of integration and the exit from ghettoes”. (Mottez [1985b] 2006: 330) Public: [Applauses.]

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10a Engaging for my community Everyone knows. Even Aristotle, in ancient times, wrote that It is hearing that contributes most to the growth of intelligence. For rational discourse is a cause of instruction in virtue of its being audible, which it is, not directly, but indirectly; since it is composed of words, and each word is a thought-symbol. Accordingly, of persons destitute from birth of either sense [seeing and hearing], the blind are more intelligent than the deaf and dumb. (Aristotle 1908. De Sensu et Sensibili: 437a, 4–17)

Deaf people are harder to reach when it is about transmitting information. Didactics must engage in inventing effective methods, and communication of contents, in general, is only possible in a face-to-face interaction. Can one infer that Deaf people are ignorant? Well, if one did so, one would be really misguided. Quite to the contrary, when Deaf people leave the schools that hearing people provide for them, they are “starving for culture”, as Bernard Bragg wrote (1989: 126). Hard to believe? The success of Anna’s dissemination activities, promoting exchanges between universal culture and Deaf culture, with hundreds of Deaf persons attending, is there to provide an evidence for this. Let us have Anna herself take the word and tell this story. It is the great moment, a long-prepared moment. I get on the scene, “Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome, and thank you for being present. You encourage me to continue, and I thank you all for this”. I start signing. I have got on the scene hundreds of times, and not only in the role of a lecturer. I have participated in plenty of events, both alone, and in coordination with Deaf or hearing persons. Sometimes I have organized them, sometimes I have been invited. Sometimes, my initiatives have been inside institutions, sometimes I have created opportunities and formats that did not exist before. Sometimes I have been working in Italy, sometimes abroad. It has been an intense life, that continues to the present day. I have been a lecturer, but also an interpreter, a drama actress and director, a “speaker” – or, better said, a “signer” – in television, a teacher of Italian Sign Language, an anchorwoman, an organizer of workshops and seminars, a coordinator, a moderator. All of this, in public events. Behind the scene, I have been a researcher as well, but this is a story that deserves an additional chapter to be told, chapter 11a.

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10a.1 Telling Deaf persons about universal culture My relationship with Emiliano Mereghetti is a long-lasting friendship [Emiliano also appears in chapter 3a, 7a, and co-authors chapter 7b]. We have been working together in various manners, with the purpose of motivating, inspiring, but also, most basically, transmitting knowledge. We met at Milano’s ENS, and then at an international congress on linguistics, where Emiliano also met Virginia Volterra and was convinced that the signs we produced daily had a status as a real language – a story that Emiliano told in chapter 7a. In 1994 in Hamburg, Emiliano realized that Deaf researchers from abroad were lecturing about Deaf history and observed that nothing similar existed in Italy. He decided he would become a researcher in the domain of Deaf history, I already was one in the cultural domain. Over time, we have exchanged a big quantity of materials: when I found something interesting for him, I recommended it for him, and the same he did, when he found something interesting for me. But had I to tell when our collaboration gave its first results, I would say it was with the project Fabula (Folchi & Mereghetti 1994–1995; Figure 44). My husband Mario had discovered that there was a way to subtitle selfproduced films. Emiliano, Mario and I discovered that in the same film, we could sign and address Deaf people, but also introduce the voice and reach hearing people, and finally, we could subtitle and address deaf oralists [at the time, the majority of deaf people in Italy did not sign, and cochlear implant did not exist. “Oralists” were deaf people educated to master Italian only, without the bilingualism in both a spoken and a signed language that characterizes the Deaf community]. We created a label, Il mondo dei segni. Fabula s.r.l. Basically, we began to self-produce VHS films, which were later distributed by a small publishing house producing audio-visual materials. It was 1994, and we were acutely aware that Deaf people hadn’t much information about Italian Sign Language, and at the same time, hearing people would have greatly benefitted from materials telling about the Deaf condition, Deaf culture, and the status of signed language. Subject matters we exposed in VHSes concerned the nature of Italian Sign Language, the history of world Sign Languages, Deaf Culture, the discoveries that scientific research was making at that time. At that time awareness was at a minimum, very few publications existed, information did not circulate enough. With respect to Deaf people, we especially intended to reach, on one side, Deaf teachers of Italian Sign Language; on the other side, the most remote centers of ENS which parents of Deaf children were expected to contact – we targeted categories of people who could really benefit

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of correct information, in order to enhance their professionality, or to take the correct decisions about Deaf kid’s lives. The story of our film-making enterprise spread through word-of-mouth . . . or rather, word-of-hand, personal recommendations, or it appeared in small journals of the Deaf community. Our VHSes started to circulate all over Italy. On one side, they were a success, as Deaf people lent them to their acquaintances and made copies of them. But on the commercial side, the publisher did not sell the quantity of VHS it had estimated it would, or that were necessary in order to get the expected gains. As a result, after the first few installments, the project closed. It was a strong project, and a format we had entirely invented, in full autonomy, and it was unfortunate that is was so short-lived. Emiliano says that with today’s means of diffusion, the project would have certainly had a better success.

Figure 44: Emiliano and Anna in the VHSes of the project Fabula.

On my own or together with Emiliano, I have been on stage as a lecturer in sign language. I have ideated some forty, fifty different lectures (Figure 45). Some titles of the lectures I presented with Emiliano were “Seven capital vices”, “Milan’s mysteries”, “Friendship”. We even organized guided cultural tours, such as “Dante’s Florence”. One interesting series I developed on my own was about Italian and foreign cities: Venice, Milan, Bologna, London, Paris, but also Capri. To prepare these lectures, I organized myself as follows. I identified interesting works to study, and then I selected aspects that generate interest and curiosity. Let’s consider the Paris lecture, for instance. The Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel tower – no, these were not interesting topics, everyone had already been there, or had heard about them. I was rather inclined to elements that escape the majority of tourists. Even when it comes to Paris’ inhabitants, only some of them had to be aware of the existence

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Figure 45: Some titles of my lectures, many of them with Emiliano Mereghetti.

and significance of the information I chose. Little details to discover. Oysters, to say one. In France one can find many, exquisite French oysters. I observe them exposed in shop-windows, each set of oysters with a distinctive label, a number. Can you tell me the reason for these numbers? I discovered numbers concern sizes. Each oyster is measured, but progression is not from 1 as the smaller to 4 as the bigger, but the reverse, the biggest is number 1. I used not to know anything about this, therefore I selected this detail, this is a model of what I wanted to tell. There is a building whose roof is shaped as a stairway. It was built in 1910, with the purpose to offer each inhabitant the opportunity to have a well-lit apartment. Only by virtue of this architecture also the residents of the first floor can profit from sun and light. Here was another interesting element to present. In the seminars we share, Emiliano and I usually distribute our roles on a thematic basis. In the “Seven capital vices”, I explained vices, Emiliano connected to my talk explaining and signing parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Emiliano reports that at first, many persons were skeptical that Dante could be conveyed to a Deaf audience, but he signed it. Had he been talking like a book, they would have left the room. But Emiliano was able to perform his interpretation.

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Emiliano loves to say I am more technical, he is more challenging, even confrontational. Also “Dante’s Florence” was a successful event, lasting various weekends. It was a sort of a guided tour, with me explaining the city, and Emiliano explaining Dante. Many inhabitants of Florence ignore the existence of plaques on walls, with Dante’s verses, on various buildings in Florence. On the wall of the house where Beatrice was born, there are words from the Divine Comedy; on the place where Dante and Beatrice first met there is a plaque telling about Beatrice’s green cloak, olive crown, and white dress. We expanded on general culture. Roberto Benigni, the Italian Oscar-winner actor and film director, has performed some widely acclaimed Dante’s readings in Florence’s churches. We reminded our audience of his movies. There is one historical comedy movie, Non ci resta che piangere, where Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi enter a time machine and decide they will prevent Cristoforo Colombo from sailing to discover America (they do so to prevent the sister of Benigni’s character to meet an American guy who would make her unhappy!). In other words, we concentrated on Dante, but often enlarged to more general knowledges. To participate in “Dante’s Florence”, Deaf people flew all their way from all over Italy, even from Sardinia. Well, it can be rather complex to reach Florence from Sardinia. I judge that the reason for our success was that our subjects were unprecedented for a Deaf audience, and our treatment was far from academic. From 2007 on, a successful seminar was also the one about Il colore del silenzio. Among other stories, in the seminar I related about Leonardo Da Vinci and his Deaf acquaintance Cristoforo de Predis. Building on the evidence provided by me and Roberto Rossetti, my co-author for Il colore del silenzio, we supported an idea by Joseph Castronovo (chapters 8a and 8b), according to which in the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks, painted characters are fingerspelling “LDV”, “Leonardo da Vinci”. Next lecture, together with Emiliano, will have as a title “The Deaf world in a nutshell”. It will present plenty of stories that Deaf people have never been told – let alone hearing people! To say just one, Deaf airplane pilots exist. It may seem impossible, and yet . . . Deaf people exist who are politicians, in parliaments, in European institutions. Few Europeans have heard about Saudi Arabia having two Deaf members of parliament. Naturally, there is a political significance in the diffusion of both general knowledge and role models that such a seminar can provide. When Deaf people discover about such important role models, they will also discover that Deaf people are really able to do anything they want – except hearing.

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Emiliano says that in a certain way, we work in linguistics, but we do not talk about linguistics. We do not talk about the linguistics of sign languages. But we do use sign languages. This is also a political choice. We are very happy about the cultural events we organized, but of course one can never be entirely happy. Future developments ought to be promoted. What is still to be built, in Italy, is a center for dissemination. In France, every three years, an international conference is organized, concerning Deaf history. I have been in Paris in 2003. It was a great experience, it allowed me to collect many materials. Here in Italy it is difficult, we do not have a center for dissemination, similar to the French one. Emiliano observes that, as a result, in France Deaf people are aware of their own history. Deaf children can tell who Laurent Clerc was. In Italy, no Deaf child can tell who Antonio Magarotto was. Emiliano can hardly find books in Italy. But abroad there is much material. When I suggest a book, with Emiliano we order it and have it shipped to Italy. Then he translates it from English, from French. Many works exist abroad – but not so many in Italian.

10a.2 Telling hearing persons about Deafness In parallel with my gainful employment, I engaged in many activities, for which I often offered myself as a volunteer, in the capacity of a good signer. My first work experience has taken place in Florence, in 1974 and 1976 – I had offered myself as a volunteer. An intelligent Deaf man, Paolo Petrucci, who had spent his school time as a mainstreamed student and whose signing was good enough, managed to enter a project of a local television, Telelibera Firenze (Figure 46). At the time, no broadcast existed for Deaf people in Italy, there was just something in RAI – the stateowned public television –, but it was nothing important. We ran evening news, at 7 p.m., from Monday to Friday. I was supposed to use at the same time my voice and sign. My voice was flat, my sign was not LIS, Italian Sign language, but Italiano Segnato [a combination of LIS lexicon and Italian word order and grammatical structure], something that presently I would not approve of any longer – more, today I judge it horrible! But it was a first time. When I was in public places, persons used to recognize me and say hallo. I used to speak and sign, and the Deaf audience was very satisfied to have signed news. Subsequently, my presence in television has lasted for a long time, and has taken place in various countries. I have been interviewed by the Italian public television, RAI, and by private Italian national networks. I appeared in NHK in Japan.

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Figure 46: My experience as a speaker . . . ehm, signer in television.

I have hosted at home a troupe of three persons working for a Swedish network, who have been enthusiastic about their Italian experience in the home of two Deaf persons. In 1991, when my first book, I primi quattrocento segni, was published, I have been interviewed by RTSI, a network of the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. My purpose was to diffuse information about my world and convey a positive message about deafness. I have been one of the first teachers of LIS, Italian Sign language – I can still relive those Tuesday and Thursday evenings in my mind! Another important work, although brief, has been the one with interpreters. Interpreters are one of the most natural bridges between the hearing and the Deaf world. In 2000, in Rome, on the occasion of the Catholic Jubilee, I have been a teacher of International Signs, having as students some of the best Italian interpreters. I introduced them to the basics. In turn, an American professor, Ted Supalla, had directed me towards the identification of what could be considered essential, when moving from a natural Sign Language towards International Signs, which, as he explained to me, is not a natural language. I was very satisfied of the work I did with them. Hearing people create cultural representations of Deaf people that are socially shared. I participated in the construction of one such representation, working behind the scenes. In 1988 and 1989, I worked in the production of an Italian version of Children of a Lesser God. Remarkably, an Italian theater play having as a protagonist a Deaf woman features a hearing actress in this role – an Italian attitude towards casting that the American cinematographic industry would have not had. I was charged with teaching Italian Sign Language to the main actress, who had to pretend to be Deaf. My work in the production lasted three months, in summer, and concerned only the signs in the script. I took charge of the signed

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part of the hearing male protagonist as well. With respect to his signs, I took a decision: he would be signing not in Italian Sign Language, but in Italiano Segnato Esatto [Italiano Segnato Esatto results from a combination of LIS lexicon, Italian grammar, and all Italian functional words that Signed Language lacks]. The actors went to practice at a recreational meeting of ENS, and Deaf people remarked that the woman signed better than the man. “It was intended”, I told them, “I chose so since I thought it was important to distinguish between a Deaf and a hearing character”.

Sara Trovato & Cinzia Meraviglia

10b Hypothesis on policy evaluation and school legislation: The effects of access to education, mainstreaming and instructional bilingualism Chair: – Good morning everyone! In our seminar entitled to Critical studies on gender, race and minorities, we welcome two scholars who work on Deaf studies, Cinzia Meraviglia and Sara Trovato. So, Sara and Cinzia, what is the topic of your talk today? Cinzia: – Actually, we have two topics: one will soon be apparent in the title of our talk. The second one will be introduced as we present our research – we will reveal it only later, in the hope that waiting for a, so to say, “surprise”, will make the participants in this seminar more motivated to follow our argument. Chair: – Very well! We are already very curious about your second focus, so let us immediately proceed to listen to what you have to tell us. Sara: – Thank you. The title of our talk is “Hypothesis on policy evaluation and school legislation: the effects of access to education, mainstreaming and instructional bilingualism”. A crucial issue in appreciating the achievements of deaf people in the education system is whether the legislation meant to favor them – or, better, to reduce their disadvantage – had any effect. Did mainstreaming and school bilingualism improve the educational achievement of deaf people? Is any improvement in deaf education dependent or independent from changes in a country’s school legislation?

10b.1 Introduction Sara and Cinzia (in alternance): – Central to this talk will be the effects of school legislation on deaf education. In other words, this talk will engage in what is usually referred to as policy evaluation. We wish to know which school policies have been effective – a crucial information to implement them further and more extensively, or to modify our courses of action. Data will permit to appreciate how, over time, education has improved for various generations of students, including the hearing population of Italy, Spain and Sweden, as compared to their respective deaf fellow citizens, but also to other people with sensory disabilities.

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May such improvements have been a result of school legislation, and in particular, can it be said that the legislation that introduced mainstreaming was effective in deaf education? And what about the legislation introducing school bilingualism? May it be said that deaf students benefit from the same educational policies that impact positively on other disabled students, or should one rather think that educational policies should vary to adapt to deaf students – or, for that matter, to any group of students with its specificities? Is access to education always a good solution, benefitting all students, irrespective of distinctions among specific groups of students? As it is customary in social research, we will ask some research questions, which will be answered by resorting to the data at hand.

First research question. Do deaf students profit from educational policies having as their general objective, and impacting positively on, disabled populations other than deaf? Historically, the Deaf movement has taken its distance from the disability movement (chapters 6b and 9b). Opposing the unity of disabled people in politics is one thing, opposing a unified treatment of deaf people and other categories of disabled people in education is quite another thing. Can one really say that policies and measures impact on deaf people as they impact on other populations of disabled students? What if we compared deaf students to blind students?1 In education as well as in various other domains, deaf students are often associated with blind students, as if there were a symmetry between difficulties in seeing and in hearing. A category exists, that of “sensory disabilities”, that is often used to categorize the two groups. Has the same school legislation accommodated equally well deaf students and blind students? This question may be well-grounded, when one thinks that blind students do not meet with the same difficulty in acquiring language as deaf students, and that most education builds on linguistic abilities. So, it is well thinkable that educational interventions on such distinct needs should diversify, in order to be effective. In the same manner, interventions that are thought out to meet the needs of the general population of disabled students may center the needs

1 When choosing to use the word “blind” to designate the group of people who do not see, since this text is in English, we have trusted and followed the request advanced by the (American) National Federation of the Blind n.d. The Courtesy Rules of Blindness. www.blind.net.

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of some groups but result less than optimal and less than centered when other groups are concerned. Has this really been the case?

Second research question. Does mainstreaming affect positively deaf education? The anti-segregation and civil rights movements, the student protests of ’68, sociologists such as Erving Goffman in the United States, psychiatrists such as Franco Basaglia in Italy, and the Disability Movement were all contributing to an extensive social transformation, so that during the Nineteen Hundred Seventies, some Western states enacted legislation in support of the mainstreaming of disabled children: among the pioneers, the United States in 1975, and Italy in 1977. From these Western outposts, the idea of mainstreaming was transmitted to international institutions, such as the European Union, which, after a general Resolution about social – but also educational – integration of disabled people in 1981 (Council Resolution 1981: 1), started in 1987 a “Programme of European collaboration on the integration of handicapped children into ordinary schools”, and adopted a specific resolution on mainstreaming in 1990 (Resolution of the Council and the Ministers for Education 1990), Full integration into the system of mainstream education should be considered as a first option in all appropriate cases, and all education establishments should be in a position to respond to the needs of pupils and students with disabilities. . . . Educational provision of the best possible quality for pupils with disabilities in mainstream education must be considered as an important and integral part of the promotion of the integration and of the autonomy of people with disabilities. (Council of the European Union and Ministers of Education 1990: 2)

In 1994, the UNESCO Salamanca Statement followed: “The practice of ‘mainstreaming’ children with disabilities should be an integral part of national plans for achieving education for all. Even in those exceptional cases where children are placed in special schools, their education need not be entirely segregated. Part-time attendance at regular schools should be encouraged” (UNESCO 1994, II: 19). In a subsequent time, exactly as it had originated, that is, stemming from the social and political engagement of a series of distinct minority groups, mainstreaming was to become, in European Union institutions, an encompassing model equally valuable for race, children, disability, gender, and migrants’ rights (European Commission. 24 November 2020). Deaf persons who have had an experience in special schools have often had mixed feelings about them, as special schools were both places of separation

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from parents, and places were language started to be comprehensible, thus enabling the first real social relations with peers in their lives (among others, Padden 2005). Whoever has met mature deaf persons, has met with discussions in favor or against special schools: aren’t they to be missed, as compared to the solitude of a mainstreaming that does not take forthright care of one’s deafness? Many deaf persons wonder who is right – those who are for, or those who are against –, and would be happy to be provided with an indicator – sorry, this is all that sociology can offer, indicators – about what benefited deaf students most. Well, dear deaf friends, indicators can be important, especially when the debate is inconclusive, as it often happens when data do not intervene. But now, we may use first data to address this question – data availability is really important – and we will return on this.

Third research question. Is bimodal bilingualism advantageous in deaf students’ education? Starting from the Sixties, research in linguistics and cognitive sciences has spoken in favour of the cognitive advantages of bilingualism (Peal and Lambert 1962; Bialystock 2001; Bialystock and Senman 2004; Bialystok 2018) and the educational advantages of bilingual education for students whose first language is not the main language of the educational system (Grosjean 1982; Fillmore 2007). UNESCO’s 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity recognizes the importance of “Encouraging linguistic diversity – while respecting the mother tongue – at all levels of education, wherever possible, and fostering the learning of several languages from the earliest age” (Annex II, 6). Bilingualism is labelled as bimodal when it is between two languages in two distinct articulatory modalities, that is, in the auditory-oral and the visualgestural modalities, that are typical, respectively, of spoken and sign languages. Extensive literature exists on bimodal bilingual education for deaf students, but mostly non-quantitative (Plaza-Pust 2016; Plaza-Pust and Morales-López 2008; Marschark, Tang, & Knoors 2014). There is scientific evidence that proficiency in sign language supports reading abilities (Mayberry, Del Giudice, & Lieberman 2011; Allen et al. 2009) – this is especially interesting considering that reading is always in the written version of the spoken language of the country, since sign languages do not have a written version. In addition, there is scientific evidence that children who are speakers of the dominant language create stronger social connections to, and discriminate

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less, minoritarian-language children in their class, when they participate in dual-immersion programs, that is, programs where there are two languages of instruction: the dominant and the minoritarian one (Wright & Tropp 2005). Special education has been an instrument of bilingualism: it provided deaf students with the advantage of acquiring sign language (chapter 2b). However, throughout time, very seldom special schools have employed sign languages as languages of instruction, and sign languages were rather transmitted from child to child in dormitories and extracurricular activities (a remarkable exception in McCaskill et al. 2011). Deaf study scholars often advance the idea that sign language would better be employed as an instructional language. Is instructional bilingualism advantageous for deaf students? Much discussion has taken place, but sociological quantitative data have not been a part of it, until now.

10b.2 A framework for the data provided in this talk The methodology used in our study will be to compare generations, that in sociology are labelled “cohorts”. Which legislation has resulted in one generation of children to be better schooled, and therefore more fortunate, than the generation of their parents, for grandchildren to be more fortunate than their grandparents, for younger brothers and sisters to be more fortunate than their elder brothers and sisters? To measure whether a new generation has taken advantage of – hopefully improved – educational institutions, and therefore has been more fortunate than the previous one, we need an indicator, where “indicator” is the word that is used in sociology for a concept, a measurable concept. Our concept will be the highest educational level achieved by respondents, as respondents are ranged according to their age. As Italy will be the first country to be met with in this talk, let Italians be our subjects. A first consideration to make, before we go to the data, is that the Italian school system has changed over time. We then expect that, going from older to younger cohorts, the share of respondents having achieved higher educational levels increases. Data will soon tell us that, over time, this improvement has indeed taken place.

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The question which one naturally would ask is: when has it taken place? Has it taken place after a specific school law was passed? We will examine available data seeking to establish whether they are compatible with the hypothesis of school reforms having their intended effect. In this chapter we will use unweighted data, since we will be examining a country at a time. Indeed, in the social sciences there are not only one, but many explanations for each phenomenon. In our case, the improvement in schooling can be explained in many ways. In the first place, not all transformations are generated by intentional laws and policies. It is reasonable to assume that they may be, but they could also originate from general socio-economic effects, or from effects of maturation of a system. It is reasonable to think that a law can yield its effects in short times – and therefore it is possible to detect its effect, as this chapter will attempt to do. But it could also do so in a long time – and then we won’t be able to perceive its effects. But a law may also have no effect. It can even come after social changes and not before. For this complex of reasons, in this talk we will not speak of cause and effect between school laws and educational achievement, but of compatible results between the intended effect of legislation and what the data show. In order to break the ice with the data in this chapter, let us concentrate on data on the Italian population in general, presented in Figure 47. In the graph,

Figure 47: Highest level of education or training of the Italian sample by birth cohorts (Unweighed N = 51 681).

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a long-time span is considered, including generations born in 1916 and before, on the left end, through generations born in 1986, on the right one. On the horizontal axis there are Italians’ birth cohorts, which are split in fiveyears groups, for example with persons born from 1957 to 1961, from 1962 to 1966, and so on. In other words, each column indicates people of the same age, with an age span extending over five years. On the left, on the vertical axis, there is the share of people who, cohort by cohort, achieved any given educational level. In other words, shades of grey mark the percentage of people, within one cohort, having achieved no title or primary – in very light grey –, lower secondary – in dark gray –, upper secondary – in light grey –, or tertiary and PhDs – in black. For example, the graph says that almost everyone in the oldest birth cohort was very low educated, having no degree whatsoever, or holding just a primary school degree. The more we shift to the right of the graph, the smaller becomes the share of people holding only a primary school degree or no degree at all, while the share of those holding higher educational titles widens. When we get to the last bar, concerning those who were born from 1982 to 1986, we see that the share of those who achieved higher secondary education and tertiary education is far larger than those with a lower secondary or primary school degree. In other words, the educational level of people in Italy has improved over time, meaning that younger generations have achieved more and more qualified credentials than older generations. Since the objective of this study is monitoring school legislation that might have had an impact over a short or a medium term, it can definitely be said that something appreciable took place in the time span considered. Let history be considered now, while reading the graph in Figure 47. Italians born in 1916 started to go to school in 1922: 1916 plus 6 is 1922, where 6 is the age when Italian children attend their first class in primary schools (Law Coppino 1877, art 17; Law Orlando 1904, referring to 1877 legislation). For twenty years, that is until the generation of Italians born in 1942–46, who entered the education system after the Second World War, the share of people attaining primary education at most remained above 50%. The education of Italians born between 1916 and 1942–46 was affected by Riforma Gentile, enacted in 1923, and named after the surname of one fascist Minister of Education. It was an elitist reform, that purposefully withheld popular classes within the limits of lower secondary schools. Riforma Gentile did indeed introduce compulsory schooling until 14 years of age (however without enforcing this age requirement), but it also split lower

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secondary school in four branches: ginnasio, tecnica, magistrale, and scuola complementare. Scuola complementare, which was meant for children of the industrial and agricultural working classes, did not allow students to continue in any subsequent school cycle, since it was a dead-end. The literature on this topic informs us that, as an effect of Gentile legislation, from 1922 and 1925 students in secondary education lowered from around 383.000 to around 291.000, that is, they reduced by one quarter (ISTAT 1976, cit. in Schizzerotto & Barone 2006: 39–40). In Figure 47, this stability is apparent until the 1945 Liberation: most Italian students left the educational system achieving at most a primary school degree – if they got any degree at all. The situation dramatically improved over the following years. People born in the post-war period, and especially from the Fifties on, experienced a much better educational system, in which compulsory education age was effectively enforced and, most importantly, in which a significant share of people attained an upper secondary school degree, thus going beyond the compulsory title of lower secondary school. This is the case, for example, of those who entered the school system after the legislation instituting scuola media dell’obbligo, compulsory middle school, that was enacted in 1962. These generations had higher chances than previous ones to achieve either a lower secondary school degree, or an upper secondary degree. But even before that, Italians were more educated – sociological literature agrees on saying that social mobility improves as well. Sociologist Marcello Dei defined second post-war years in Italy as a period of “transformation without reforms” (1993). It is the Liberation, economic well-being that influence schooling, rather than legislation. However, recent evidence analyzing data on a longtime span (1900–2014) shows that the school reforms enacted in Italy during the Twentieth century were successful in raising the educational level of Italian students (Schizzerotto, Abbiati, & Vergolini 2018).

10b.3 Special populations in Italy Let the levels of education of Italians in general be now compared with the levels of education of blind Italians and deaf Italians.

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Blind Italians As far as blind Italians are concerned, let the historical progresses be appreciated, from generation to generation, as they might have been produced by legislation. The Italian law on integrazione, that is, mainstreaming for disabled students, was approved in 1977, when students with disabilities were given the opportunity to attend ordinary schools, and support teachers were going to be recruited to consistently reinforce didactics.

Italians with visual difficullties

1977-1986

Italians with visual difficullties

1967-1976

Italians with visual difficullties

1957-1966

Italians

Italians with visual difficullties

1947-1956

1987-1996

Forms of integration and support are provided for disabled students . . . Disabled students will be mainstreamed, with no more than one such student for each class . . . The classes that welcome students with disabilities are composed of a maximum of 20 students. In these classes specialized staff, socio-psycho-pedagogical must be ensured . . ., within the limits of budget availability. (Legge 4 agosto 1977, n. 517)

Italians with visual difficullties

Italians

Italians

Italians

Italians 0% No title and primary

20%

Lower secondary

40%

Upper secondary

60%

80%

100%

Tertiary and doctoral

Figure 48: Educational achievement of blind Italians (N=651, unweighted) and Italians in general (N=91 182, unweighted), by birth cohorts.

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When considering the trend of educational achievement over time – namely, generation after generation – for Italians and blind Italians (Figure 48), we may detect some sign of a possible effect of the abovementioned legislation. Italians born between 1947 and 1976 experienced a radical change of the education system, which is apparent in the rapidly decreasing share over time of students who left the school system with just a basic degree (primary school), or no degree at all. At the same time, the share of those achieving higher educational titles increases steadily over generations. This observation concerns both Italians in general, and blind Italians. Indeed, the school achievement of these two groups remained very similar until recent times. However, for those born from 1977 on, the situation of blind Italians improves, as compared to that of the general population: those with a primary school certificate or no degree at all disappear, while the general population still has a share, albeit small, of people with such a low educational achievement. The first generation to appreciate the effects of the 1977 law was born in 1971; from that birth year on, all blind students accessed ordinary schools. In our data, these students are included in the 1967–1976 birth cohort. As we see in Figure 48, this is precisely the cohort that counts no students with either a primary school degree, or no title. Blind students of this generation also raised their probability to achieve an upper secondary school degree to 46%, perfectly in line with students of the same birth cohort with no disability, and as compared to a probability of 42% of the previous birth cohort with the same difficulties.2 Furthermore, it is remarkable that students of this generation had a probability as high as 22% to get to tertiary education (university or doctoral degree),

2 These probabilities were computed by estimating a multinomial logit regression model, in which education was the dependent variable, while the independent variables were sight–related status, birth cohort and gender (unweighted N=91 833; Likelihood Ratio chi square with 12 degrees of freedom=11184.15, p(chi square)=0.000). The difference between the probability of achieving an upper secondary school degree for blind students born between 1967 and 1976, as compared to those of the previous cohort (1957–1966), is statistically significant (p=0.000), which means that the two probabilities are actually different not only in our sample, but also in the population. Alternative models have been tested (including the interaction between blindness and birth cohort, or additional control variables, such as whether the respondent is a native or a foreigner, or the year in which the educational title was achieved, or the degree of urbanization of the respondent’s place of residence), all yielding a better goodness of fit, however leaving substantially unchanged the estimated probabilities.

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while the population of students with no disabilities of this generation had a probability of 17%.3 These trends continue in the following generations, albeit the youngest one (born between 1987 and 1966) was, at least in part, still in training in 2011, therefore enjoying a lower share of students who got a university degree, as Figure 48 shows. All these results are compatible with the expectation that law 517 of 1977 had a positive and appreciable effect over the school achievement of blind Italians, as compared to the general Italian population. Although the schooling achievement of blind Italian students was never dramatically different from that of students with no disability – the younger generations not only are in line with those with no disability, but show an even higher average educational achievement, as compared to the students without disabilities.

Deaf Italians Let the condition of deaf Italians be considered, now, in Figure 49. The situation appears less clear-cut than that of blind Italian students, possibly because of the small sample size in the case of deaf persons. In fact, we had to conflate the two younger birth cohorts (1977–1986 and 1987–1996) because of their small size; nonetheless, this extended birth cohort (1977–1996) counts only 21 cases. For this reason, the results we are going to comment should be considered only an approximation of the actual situation of deaf Italian people. Pay attention to these difficulties with the extension of the sample, as we are going to return to them. But let us stay on Figure 49. We first note that Italian deaf students are at disadvantage, as compared to hearing Italian students, in all birth cohorts. As is to be expected, the most disadvantaged cohort is that of persons born between 1947 and 1956: nearly 40% of the deaf persons of this generation only got to a primary school degree, or had no title whatsoever, while hearing Italians of the same generation and with the same achievement were 30%. For all students alike, the probability to leave the education system as early as at completion of primary school (or without any title) significantly dropped for the generation born between 1957 and 1966, although it stayed higher for deaf students. In parallel, secondary education expanded for both deaf and

3 The probability associated with the difference between the parameters of two groups of students is p=0.015, which is statistically significant at 5%.

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Figure 49: Educational achievement of deaf Italians (N=221, unweighted) and hearing Italians (N=91 182, unweighted), by birth cohorts.

hearing students, although more deaf students left school with a lower secondary school certificate, as compared to hearing students.4 A remarkable difference between deaf and hearing students can be noted in the case of tertiary education. Somehow counterintuitively, the share of deaf students attaining a university degree in the oldest cohorts is similar to that of

4 The differences between deaf students and students in general as concerns primary and secondary school, although visible, are not statistically significant, since the sample of deaf persons in each cohort is too small. These statistical tests derive from a multinomial logistic regression model in which the educational level was the dependent variable, and gender, birth cohort and hearing status where the independent variables (unweighted N=91 403; Likelihood Ratio chi square with 9 degrees of freedom=8530.72, p=0.000).

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their hearing counterparts, while in the cohorts born between 1967 and 1996 deaf students achieving tertiary education are very few, or none at all. New data, with a bigger sample of deaf persons over a more extended time period, are necessary to understand this latter, unexpected result concerning tertiary education. In synthesis, Italian school laws meant for disabled students had not the same impact on deaf students and blind students. Indeed, the situation for these two types of students proves to be very different – so that it can be instructive to compare the chances of blind students to those of deaf students to achieve any given educational level, leaving Italian students with neither visual nor hearing difficulties aside. Let us now compare deaf students and blind students.5 Figure 50 shows that, on average, blind students and deaf students in Italy seem to have had quite similar chances to achieve either a primary school degree or an upper secondary school degree, while some difference are possibly found in the achievement of lower secondary education (which was a more probable educational level for deaf students to achieve) and of tertiary education (which was a more probable outcome for blind students). This holds for all cohorts, notwithstanding the specific trend shown by the achievement of the four educational titles. In particular, primary school (or no title) became residual over time, for deaf and blind people alike, while the probability of holding a lower secondary school or a university degree grew for all cohorts until those born in the mid Seventies. The inverted U-shape we see in the graph concerning lower secondary education can be explained considering that in 1967 the reform of scuola media unica, lower secondary school, was enacted, which conflated all lower secondary school tracks and effectively enforced compulsory schooling until 14 years of age. Lower secondary school became compulsory in Italy, for the cohort enrolled in school after 1967, and therefore we see a rising probability to achieve this level for those born between 1967 and 1976. In the following decades, however, the average educational achievement shifted to upper secondary degree, therefore the probability to leave the educational system after lower secondary school decreases for younger cohorts. On the other side, the rather stable trend showed by the probability of achieving a university degree for the last birth cohorts can be explained considering that 5 We estimated a multinomial logistic regression model in which education was the dependent variable, while gender, birth cohort and type of disability (blindness/deafness) were the independent variables (unweighted N=872; Likelihood Ratio chi square with 9 degrees of freedom=146.64, p=0.000).

.4

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Figure 50: Probability to achieve one of four educational levels for deaf Italians (N=221, unweighted) and blind Italians (N=651, unweighted), by birth cohorts.

blind

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the cohort spanning from 1977 to 1996 includes people who were still in training at the moment the survey was fielded, in 2011, therefore they might not have had the time yet to get their university degree. For this reason, the probability to graduate for this wide-spanning cohort decreases, as compared to previous cohorts, not because people are less likely to graduate, but because part of the cohort is still in education. As the wide confidence intervals in Figure 50 show, our results do not support firm conclusions,6 since the two samples are too small. Nonetheless, some suggestions can be drawn from the graphs, which will have to be tested on better data. As we saw, the schooling of Italian students with difficulties in vision developed in the same way, and even better, than that of Italian students in general, for two probable reasons: either because of the effect of the law on integration, or because of an overall progress of the system of Italian education. In contrast, the educational system was not equally effective for Italian deaf students, who, in comparison, lagged behind. Crucially, and as far as our results are concerned, it can be said that distinctive groups, such as deaf people and blind people are not equally impacted by school policies. If the population of blind Italians is aligned with the population of Italians in general, and achieved even better, the same does not take place with the Italian deaf population. Even a legislation providing advantages to the category that is usually considered closer to deaf people, that is, blind people, does not equally benefit deaf students. To understand correctly which measures are good for deaf students, we should better broaden the comparison. Internationally, the effects of school legislation are also noted in other states. Let us limit ourselves to people with hearing difficulties and consider what happens in Spain.

6 Confidence intervals refer to the range in which a given statistic (in our case, a probability) is most likely to be found in the population from which a sample has been drawn. The bigger the interval, the less certain is the exact value of this statistic. When confidence intervals of two lines overlap, it means that we cannot rule out the possibility that the two lines are actually the same line, ie., that there is no difference between the two groups we are considering, that is, between deaf and blind Italians. Therefore, any conclusion concerning the difference between these two groups should be suspended. Nonetheless, we prefer to show these graphs, since they are based on the best (and only) available data at the moment, and therefore offer some valuable, albeit provisional, knowledge.

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10b.4 Spanish deaf students Judging from Figure 51, deaf Spaniards also present a different graph than Spaniards in general, with respect to their school achievements over time.

Figure 51: Age when completing one’s highest level of education or training, for hearing Spaniards and deaf Spaniards, by birth cohorts. Sample of deaf Spaniards N = 354; total sample N = 53 853.

As we observe Figure 51, the disparity between hearing and deaf students is evident in all cohorts. Two positive effects can be detected concerning deaf students: one in the generation born in 1967–1976, and a smaller one in the generation born in 1977–1986. There is a drastic decrease in primary education for deaf students born in 1967–1976, who arrived in school in 1973–1982. These generations might have greatly benefited from the first Spanish law on students with disabilities, dated 1978 and establishing the right to education, that is, access to school altogether. In 2007, a survey indicated that only 2.8% of young people with disabilities were not in school (according to data from the National Institute of Statistics – Base, 2008, mentioned in Verdugo et al., 2010: 6), and our data do attest that such a

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success in terms of access to the Spanish educational system concerned the deaf population as well. The second effect could be better appreciated if data existed for the cohort born in 1987–1996 – however, not only for this cohort the deaf sample is very small (only 20 cases), but this cohort was still in school in 2011. This generation attended primary school in 1982–1986 and was possibly advantaged by Spanish legislation approved in 1990: the Spanish mainstreaming law. Schooling in special education units or centers will be possible only when the pupil’s needs cannot be met by an ordinary center. This situation will be reviewed periodically, so that pupils can gain access to a regime of greater mainstreaming, as long as it is possible. (Ley Orgánica 1/1990, de 3 de octubre, art. 37, 3)

In addition, the 1990 law established a decentralized teaching system, entrusted the management of educational centers to autonomous communities and organized and subsidized the education of pupils with special educational needs. The 1990 Spanish law successfully mainstreamed disabled students into ordinary school, with the result that, in 2016–2017, 87% to 100% of students with Special Educational Needs and in 2015–2016 94% of deaf students were mainstreamed into ordinary schools, according to school cycles. It is not as much as in Italian mainstreaming, that reaches 99% in all school cycles, but it is more than other countries (to say one, French mainstreaming concerns 51% to 74% of students, according to the school cycle they are enrolled in, and, in addition to these percentages, the French educational system makes large recourse to special education classes within mainstreaming environments. Data from EASIE, 2016/2017, retrieved at the end of February 2020, and Ministerio de Educación, 2017: 7). We can appreciate the effects of the 1990 law in the 1977–1986 cohort. For this generation of deaf students, upper secondary expands as compared to the previous cohort (22,5% in the 1986–1977 cohort as compared to 17% in the 1967–1976 cohort), and the difference with the previous cohort is statistically significant. Tertiary and doctoral achievements remain at the levels of the previous cohort, far from the share of hearing graduates.

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10b.5 A response to our first research question: Do deaf students profit from educational policies having as their general objective, and impacting positively on, other disabled populations? The special case of access to education A comparison between data of Spanish and Italian deaf students, and of Italian deaf and blind students permits to provide a response to our first research question. When right to access is at stake, various groups of people with disability may be all be positively impacted. We can conclude so, at least as deaf students are concerned, as data from Spain reveal, especially concerning the generation of students born in 1967–1976 that profited from the 1978 legislation, that precisely established a right to access education for disabled students. Access to education is a basic right, so fundamental that it concerns each and every student, irrespective of their specific status in terms not only of disability, but also socioeconomic status, gender, and any other personal and social condition. A distinct situation is the one concerning specific legislation addressing organizational needs in education, such as the one about mainstreaming enacted in Italy in 1977, and in Spain in 1990.

10b.6 A response to our second research question. Mainstreaming affects positively deaf education Summing up, the Italian mainstreaming laws may not have affected the schooling results of Italian deaf students, but Spanish legislation data may be compatible with school mainstreaming being effective for deaf students. Clear-cut evidence about mainstreaming would be provided if all countries enacting it presented some strong betterment for deaf students. Two limitations prevent us from saying so. In the first place, the LFS data are not sufficient to allow us to provide evidence for such a statement. Not only: evidence would be considerably stronger,

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if several states contributed their data. Do not undervalue this remark – we will soon come back to this point. In the second place, even with these data, the effect observed is not so strong. In fact, the Italian 1977 mainstreaming law has had a diversified impact on each group of disabled students considered – in particular, blind Italian students have benefitted from the 1977 law more than Italian deaf people have. In addition, the effects of the 1990 Spanish mainstreaming law were much lighter than the effects of the 1978 Spanish law on access. This distinction might be interpreted to the effect that, as far as access is concerned, disabled students are all on the same side. But the stronger the organizational impact of an educational policy, the more important for it to be specifically meant for a clearly identified group of students – and here deaf students and blind students are no more on the same side. At this point, an objection stands and should better be voiced. The nature of mainstreaming is such that, even though it takes place in school, it has a distinctively social character that is not measured in terms of achieved credentials, but, arguably, rather in terms of what we might consider to be civic values, such as inclusion. What is appreciated in mainstreaming in general is that it abates ghettoes. Disability is a social construct, one that society must be held responsible for. Schools ought to reflect society, of which disabled persons are a part. As society ought to be inclusive, so ought to be schools. But what is really at stake, as to mainstreaming, is for deaf people to live in society and its institutions as people who do belong. Living in the deaf community is natural for a signer, and there is something beautiful in feeling that one belongs, but deaf persons should also feel that they are fully citizens of society at large – having deaf persons feel welcome in society at large is a responsibility of hearing persons as much, and possibly more, than it is of deaf persons. What deaf people sometimes appreciate in special schools is the relationships among deaf persons, that, disregarding whether teaching takes place in sign language or not, turns special schools into centers for the diffusion of sign language during the time spent together in residential areas, for building bonds among deaf schoolmates, and for establishing the social bases of the deaf community. All of this, irrespective of the mixed feelings that accompany memories of special schools. A solution to this dilemma would be education combining mainstreaming and school bilingualism. This leads us to our third research question – which needs inviting in our framework a third country, that has enacted instructional bilingualism – Sweden.

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10b.7 Swedish deaf students – heading towards an inconclusive conclusion It is fortunate to have Sweden’s statistics, since some Scandinavian countries do not to collect data on disabled populations, probably as they judge it discriminatory to label someone according to disability. And actually, Norway did not collect data for the Ad Hoc Module on Labour for Persons with Disabilities of the 2011 Labour Force Survey. The case with Sweden is especially interesting. In order to understand whether instructional bimodal bilingualism has been successful, let us consider legislation in education. A first relevant legislation is the one on mainstreaming, that was first introduced in Sweden in 1969 (Berhanu 2014: 213), being able to yield its first effect on students born in 1963. But judging empirically, irrespective of data, that did not exist, mainstreaming was not the solution. The author of a research on the school condition of deaf people in Sweden, Kristina Svartholm, comments on school legislation in Sweden with these words: “By the 1980s, the need for changes in the education of deaf people was apparent. Just as in any country in which deaf pupils are educated without sign language and the primary medium of classroom teaching is speech, results from earlier efforts in Sweden to educate deaf children were discouraging” (Svartholm 2010: 159–160). What happened in the early 1980s, at the legislative level, in Sweden? It is again Kristina Svartholm who provides a response, publishing information on the variations taking place in the Swedish school system and concerning deaf students: In 1981, Swedish Sign Language gained recognition by the Swedish Parliament as the language of deaf people, a decision that made Sweden the first country in the world to give a sign language the status of a language. Swedish was designated as a second language for deaf people, and the need for bilingualism among them was officially asserted. This was reflected in the first bilingual curriculum, introduced in special schools for the deaf and hard of hearing in 1983, which stated that the language of instruction in these schools should be Swedish sign language as well as Swedish, the latter of which, for deaf children, was primarily intended to be in its written form. These provisions were designed to ensure that pupils would be able to develop their bilingualism. (Svartholm 2010: 159)

Ethnologue.com, an internet site listing languages of the world, reports about a Swedish Language Act in recognition of the Swedish sign language, being enacted in 2009. What took place in 1981 and Svartholm reports about and is proud of, along with many Swedish deaf people, is the first mention ever in the world, of a sign language within a state law. The 1981 Swedish law was actually

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a budget law, posing an issue about sign languages not being written, and allocating funds to create a library of signed movies. Let’s read the words that, crucially, report about sign language: In Sweden, there are about ten thousand people who are born deaf or with a severe hearing impairment. They have not had a spontaneous language development, and therefore have difficulties speaking and writing Swedish. However, deaf and hard of hearing people have developed their own language, sign language. Society nowadays generally recognizes sign language as the deaf’s own language. (Swedish Ministry of Education 1981, Förslag 1980/81: 100, Bilaga 12)

Most interesting within an education context is the effect of this law on school. Here is a citation from the 1983 curriculum that Kristina Svartholm mentioned: The two languages, sign language and Swedish, fulfill distinct functions for the student. Sign language is the primary tool for deaf students to acquire knowledge, it is the language used by the student in direct communication. Students develop socially and emotionally by virtue of sign language, through contact with parents and other persons. As far as Swedish is concerned, it functions primarily as a written language, but oral reading and speech are of course important elements in the study of Swedish as a subject matter. (Läroplan för specialskolan 1983, Section on bilingualism) Sara: – As you all can predict, it would be enough to perform on Sweden the same statistical analyses we performed on Italy and Spain, in order to have crucial data about success in bilingualism – a long awaited response to our third research question. Cinzia: – But well – and here is our surprise – not a nice one, indeed – we do not have these data. And we do not have a response to our third research question. Which data have not been available, which data should have been there? Firstly, a larger sample of a minoritarian population, what is usually referred to as oversampling. For studies of these type, large samples of the group under study would be necessary to establish causal explanations,7 that are among the recognized paradigms in evaluation studies. Indeed, the deaf population of a country is tiny, as compared to the hearing population, and the Labour Force Survey does not aim at comparing specifically the deaf and the hearing persons, nor at considering whether and how the educational reforms impacted the deaf population, which is what we are interested into in this chapter. The crucial point is that, in the Swedish sample, deaf people in the younger generations (those born from 1977 to 1991) are only 47, while we would have needed a larger sample for being able to assess whether it makes sense to posit an effect of the school

7 In particular, we refer to the counterfactual approach to causation, as illustrated by Morgan and Winship (2014). See also Goldthorpe (2006, ch. 9) for an introduction to causation in the social sciences.

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reform that in 1981 introduced bilingualism. When we split these 47 cases over the four educational levels, only a handful of cases is left in each group, preventing any sound conclusion. Secondly, and consequently, more recent data would have been useful, that could let us appreciate effects for generations that were too young in 2011, when the Ad Hoc Module on Labour for Persons with Disabilities of the 2011 Labour Force Survey was fielded, but are today in an age when their education has most probably been completed. Sara: – Presenting data about Sweden would have been crucial to decide whether school bilingualism has been successful. The success of bilingualism is in turn a crucial question when parents of a deaf child have to choose about their child’s first language, and they wish to know whether sign language is a linguistic option with an educational future. Well, these questions would be rather easily answered, would we have at our disposal a suitable data basis. So, the story we have presented to you will remain without an ending – at least, for the time being. As I turn my eyes around in the room, I can tell you are already quite “surprised”: it appears we kept our promise . . . Cinzia: – And to completely fulfill our promise, here arrives the second fundamental topic of our presentation: the data gap on lesser populations. We invite all of you who are present here, today, to participate in this discussion, whose main lines are: in the first place, whether data about small populations should be collected at all, and what are the reasons why data collection should or should not take place. In the second place, we would like to discuss what characters should ad hoc quantitative studies on minorities take, for them to be well conducted – should they take place at all, or as a condition for studies to take place. But now it is for the public to take the word. Student 1: – I introduce myself, I am active in gender studies. Let’s consider what happens in the case of gender inequality, and specifically of violence against women. As some scholars contend (Walby et al. 2017), gender-invisible universalism is one of the issues affecting official statistics (including those produced by Eurostat) on such phenomenon. It refers to the choice of not using gender to produce disaggregated statistics, thus making gender itself invisible, on the ground that official data should regard the population as a whole, without providing focus on its specific sections. This choice is intended to develop a gender-neutral approach; however, it produces gender-biased data, in which the phenomenon of violence against women disappears, because neither the offender nor the victim are gendered. Hence, “‘gender neutral’ is actually gendered to the advantage of one sex” (Walby et al. 2017, 45). If we draw a parallel between gender and deafness, the claim of gender – or deafness – invisibility in official statistics is potentially very discriminatory. Student 2: – Hallo, everyone. I am writing my thesis on Pierre Bourdieu. Pierre Bourdieu studied class and gender inequality at many levels and in many of his works, and his perspective is inspiring for studying inequality on other dimensions too. His work on gender inequality (1998) is particularly revealing of how inequality can be woven in the texture of

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society and made invisible to those who are subject to it though the mechanism of symbolic violence. Student 3: – I also agree. Besides Pierre Bourdieu, I will mention another author who has been working on discriminated groups: Samuel R. Lucas (2088, 2001). As Lucas (2008) contends, discrimination stems from a limiting view that a group holds of another group, a view implying that some social outcomes are appropriate for members of a group but not for those of the other, a view upheld by a matrix of social norms, values and mechanisms that operate in everyday life, often going unnoticed since they are built in the fabric of society. Student 4: – Well, no. I have to say I disagree. The real point here is that whenever one claims a minority status for oneself, upon the invitation and along the theoretical lines of a social researcher, one is labelling oneself, and the social research is encouraging and certifying that label. The limiting view that Samuel Lucas writes about may manifest itself either in the labelling of a group, or in its invisibility: the choice to make visible or not the deaf people in the data is compatible with both discrimination and its absence, while not ensuring per se an effective and full participation of deaf persons to the social life. It is compatible with no discrimination, since it would mean that all respondents are equal; it would be compatible with discrimination, since deleting the label makes invisible the targeted group, and therefore all possible disadvantages the latter might suffer. Student 1: – But well, let us enlarge the framework of our discussion. Another point, related to this, is the very same idea of equality: once again, as one considers the case of gender and race, speaking of equality means that women should be equal to men, and African Americans should be equal to Whites. However, by doing so, we assume that men and Whites are the norm, the social standard to which other social groups wish to conform – or should conform, leaving no ground for these other groups to express a different way of living, thinking and being than the norm. In our case, by saying that deaf and hearing people should be equal, we take hearing society as the norm, and imply that the deaf should be part of that society, without possibly being able to be their own way. Student 5: – I also introduce myself, I am Norwegian. My country is one where it has happened not to collect data about “disabled” people – I insist on quotation marks, since the point I am making concerns labelling. In Scandinavian countries, some believe the very collection of date implies a discriminatory categorization.8 Perhaps this same choice has been made by other European countries since 2011, and it is therefore useful to consider its pros and cons. The reasons put forward by some of us are sensible: labelling part of the population so to distinguish it from the rest might be one of the ways in which discrimination shows. After all, mainstreaming in schools and in other domains of the associated life has the

8 More extensively on this, see section 3b.5 in chapter 3b.

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purpose of effectively making all citizens equal, while labelling goes in the opposite direction. Student 3: – But well, let us put it bluntly, even the absence of data is a political choice, and official statistics are produced on the basis of schemes that imply political choices. Distinguishing between deaf and hearing is also a political choice, and my argument here (inspired by Lucas (2008), which deals with race and gender) is that not providing this disaggregation does not necessarily serve the interests of the minority in question, but without distinctions the majority makes the minority itself invisible in the data and with this, politically, solves the problem. Maybe in Norway it’s not like that, maybe you are very advanced . . . Student 6: – I work in sociology of education – hi everyone! – and well, as far as I know, Scandinavian countries may actually be ahead, when it comes to education. I learned this morning from Meraviglia’s and Trovato’s talk these countries have been the first in the world to establish school bimodal bilingualism, so that they are admired all over the world. This does not surprise me at all, I have to say, knowing they have been ranked as the best in the world in education, in early OECD-PISA tests. Student 3: – But exactly for this reason, I believe countries like Norway, in which deaf people experience less disadvantages than in other countries, should be made available. If data on deaf people would be made available, Sweden and/or Norway could be used as a benchmark to which all other European countries could be compared to establish whether their deaf population fares better than the Swedish or Norwegian ones. This way, deaf people in each country would not be compared to their hearing counterparts, but to deaf people in countries with less discrimination. This way, the norm for deaf people would not be hearing society anymore, but deaf people in less discriminatory contexts. This is even better than what was presented in today’s talk – this is an observation I address to Sara Trovato and Cinzia Meraviglia – that is, comparing the hearing and deaf populations in each country, as Samuel Lucas suggested. Sara: – I briefly answer your observation, and then let the discussion continue about Scandinavian countries. The talk we presented this morning is part of a larger project, that uses LFS data, together with historical and qualitative sociological data, to present what hearing society does for deaf people. In fact, when we compare deaf and hearing persons, we are not comparing deaf and hearing successes or failures, but rather the equity of each country’s institutions in offering educational credentials, occupations, etc. to deaf men and women. We consider such an offer equitable when the possibilities that a state offers to deaf people matches the possibilities offered to hearing people. It is not our intention to talk about deaf people, but rather about hearing societies, and their equity, that sometimes is not realized, sometimes is just an intention, sometimes is efficaciously realized (introduction, chapter 1b). You may ask, what about the deaf point of view in all of this? Well, it is not for hearing authors, as me and Cinzia are, to represent the deaf point perspective. This research runs in parallel with an autobiographical project in which Anna Folchi, a deaf woman, describes the world through her perspective, and through her life experiences.

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Student 5: – Back to the discussion on Scandinavian countries – but then you have to follow our line of thought – the line of thought of some Scandinavian people – to the end. Some of us feel that defining a person as disabled is discriminatory (Thornton 1997: 98). In our general legislation, minorities are traditionally covered by general citizens’ rights. To simplify a little, it is as if in our perception the principle of equality and nondiscrimination, shared by all Western constitutions, included, together with gender, religion, race, also disability. Calling someone disabled is like insulting them – it is politically incorrect – as much in legislation, as at school. And by the way, deafness defines a very heterogeneous group of people: this is why it is by far more appropriate to treat them as individuals. One can theoretically object as much as one wishes but if the result is that, without creating categories such as deafness and any other disability, we address any human being in her/his individual needs; with the excellent academic results just reported, those objections lose their strength. I am talking about Norway together with Sweden, Finland and Denmark, because in Scandinavia we have similar sensitivities on this issue – Norway only seems to be more extreme and consistent, so much so that it has not collected statistical data for the 2011 LFS Ad Hoc Module. Student 7: – I would like to ask the speakers what exactly are the numbers of deaf respondents in countries you have excluded from your study because statistical bases were insufficient – what about a large country, such as Germany, for instance, and what about Denmark, since you said the Scandinavian model is what could have been crucial for your study. Cinzia: – The sample of deaf people in some countries is so thin, that it is impossible to run any quantitative analysis. Surely, some countries have a very small population, therefore a sample which accurately represents it (that is, a probabilistic and representative sample) must forcedly include a small number of deaf persons. Indeed, it is not surprising that in the LFS 2011 data Denmark only has 46 cases of deaf people, or that Cyprus only has 23 deaf respondents. In Sweden’s case, the issue does not even concern the sample size per se, but the fact that the younger cohorts among deaf respondents have too few cases, hence preventing us from imagining any possible impact of the bilingualism school reform. In Finland the sample of deaf respondents counts 245 cases, which would allow some analyses; however, the youngest birth cohort (20–22 years old) counts only 5 deaf persons, while the cohorts aged 25–30, 31–34 and 35–40 count 14 deaf respondents each – too few for allowing a meaningful analysis. In general, Scandinavian countries have a small population (Denmark, Finland and Norway count about 5 million inhabitants, Sweden counts about 10 million, and Iceland only 350 thousand), therefore it is understandable that the number of deaf people per birth cohort is low. Germany did not even qualify among countries suitable to be analysed, highly populated as it is, since its 2011 Ad Hoc Module sample for the deaf population is only made of 73 respondents. Nonetheless, our remark aims at highlighting the fact that, without suitable data, some analyses on selected populations cannot be done, although the sample size in itself is totally fine. Student 8: – (signing). I would also like to introduce myself – once again, here I am, a student testifying to the situation in his own country. Right or wrong, Germany has been prototypically considered an “oralist” country; that is, even though it was in Italy, at the Milan Congress, that the ban to sign languages in education was issued in 1880, that would

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later spread to all over Europe, and it is a common place with some historical grounding that the country with an educational system most inclined towards spoken language only as a linguistic approach to deaf education is Germany. I am deaf and I can testify to the fact that it has not been until recently that we, signers, meet with more recognition in research institutions. As the sample used to provide data to this study is one of people who responded that their first functional difficulty is in hearing (chapter 3a), probably the reason why Germany does not have an adequate sample is that it is a country with a strong “oralist” tradition. Those who are raised as oralists do not want to be called deaf and do not have a deaf identity – for this reason they do not recognize themselves in the definition of the survey and do not fit into the sample. And the same could be said of countries that presented a large sample: they might have oversampled, but they might also have a larger population that is proud to be Deaf – with a capital. Cinzia: – Well, the troubles in identifying people with hearing difficulties suggests the need to adopt clear operational definitions that allow comparisons between countries. In a possible more in-depth investigation into hearing difficulties, a few more questions would certainly have to be asked about the condition experienced by the interviewee, and therefore one could be more precise about what the functional difficulty means. This would lead to have a better operational definition of the various concepts of deafness. I would like to add another observation, concerning the size of the sample. When the population of interest is small in numbers, as compared to the general population, the only sensible choice is to over-sample it, for example adopting a stratified sampling design ensuring enough cases from the small population under focus. Oversampling is actually what we needed for properly evaluating the impact of school legislation on the educational achievement of deaf people over time, and many more research questions that are still open, concerning the deaf minority, as well as many other minorities. It is indeed true that the goal of the Labour Force Survey is not that of providing data on small populations, but to survey the labour force in general in each country. In addition, what has not yet been observed, the LFS ad-hoc module data that were used in this study were collected already 10 years ago. Our analyses are the first ones to focus on the deaf sample, but a new data collection effort is strongly needed, if only for checking what happened to the deaf population after such a neat time span. If only the series was completed until the present, all the research questions in our study would find a response. Student 3: – Well, as I told you before, I am strongly in favor of data collection. But then I have an objection. I do definitely agree on advocacy for data collections by Eurostat. Europe has passed very good pro-signs legislation – they might as well listen to you if you do. But what will all the other categories say? Eurostat in its ad-hoc module has inquired about the condition of various and composite categories of functional difficulties, which means it has addressed people with various disabilities and serious illnesses. Deaf people are not the only ones entitled to oversampling. This is a measure that should be intended for any minority.

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Chair: – Well, I really think time has run out. It is difficult to end this session, having been presented with a story without its proper conclusion. I personally do agree on the need for more data. I trust that, in the future, public statistical agencies will provide the opportunity for educational policies that concern minority groups to be more extensively evaluated. Policy evaluation is dutiful and necessary, without evaluation there is no chance that states can improve their policies on sound bases. I thank the speakers, and I thank everyone who participated. I will be waiting for you next Thursday, as usual, to attend to our seminar on Critical studies on gender, race and minorities.

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11a Research work Books are my best friends. They have never betrayed me, they never disturb me. When I am inclined to read, I read. When I am not, I leave them, and they remain orderly ranged, silent. In my personal library at home I have a great quantity of materials, including some ancient books, many international works, many films. It has been a great, long work of collection. My only difficulty, at present, is that I have collected so many, that I worry where they will end when I am no more living, as I am not going to live forever. I am thinking to which organization I could offer them, I would prefer an organization disposing of the means to distribute them through a stable library service. I wish I could legate them to ENS, but up to the present ENS has had other concerns than libraries, of a more political nature. Where will all this material end? If someone has a good idea, I will be happy to follow suggestions. The subject matters covered in my personal library are history, sociolinguistics, philosophy, psychology, novels, sign languages of the world – American, Spanish, German –, methods to teach sign language and organize sign language courses, Deaf studies. I have plenty of interviews, also filmed of course, and collections of newspapers articles concerning Deaf persons – eight binders of them. A Deaf friend, Raffaele Donati, has been very supportive in helping me building my library. He is a frequent traveler, he is a major source that enriched my library, providing me with books from all over the world, from America to Palestine.

11a.1 Discoveries in a public library It was Serena Corazza (chapter 7a) that had alerted me. In reading, she had found a name, Giacomo Carbonieri, followed by the word “sodomuto”, “deafand-dumb”, as it was once said. A Deaf man, Giacomo Carbonieri had been living in the nineteenth century, and had been active as an author, before the 1880 Milan Congress. Before him, few works by Deaf authors had appeared in Italy – I can only mention Giuseppe Minoja and Paolo Basso, but they were active in the domain of Deaf education. In contrast, Carbonieri was interested in cognition. Serena asked Virginia Volterra, but no one appeared to have news about his work, so that he had disappeared from the sight of those who work in Deaf studies. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-021

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Probably, it was for my love for ancient books: I decided I would act to reinstate Giacomo Carbonieri to his role as a major figure in Deaf history. I explored the catalogues of various Italian libraries. Bologna, Trieste, Modena, Rome. In Rome they told me, “We have a reference in our catalogue, by Giacomo Carbonieri, Osservazioni sugli esami interessantissimi dei testimoni di Verona promossi dalli signori Giovanni, Tizio ed Egidio Tirelli nel giudizio per l’interdizione della sordo-muta signora Maria Tirelli di Lemizzone. But we do not have the actual book”, and they concluded, “consider Florence National Library, it is worth a visit”. In Florence National Library, a Deaf man worked, Giovanni Messina. He was happy to cooperate. And, locked in an old bookcase, he found an equally old copy of Giacomo Carbonieri’s volume. But the work was not meant for the public. We were allowed to photocopy it, and we diffused it for the use of the Deaf community, mainly through word-of-mouth, ehm . . . word-of-hand. The work has subsequently been published, edited by an Italian professor, with the title Il genio negato: Giacomo Carbonieri psicolinguista sordomuto del 19. secolo.

Figure 52: My published works, and the works I have contributed to.

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11a.2 First four hundred signs My first contribution to research (Figure 52) has been I primi quattrocento segni. It was published in 1991, and we were four authors: Natalia Angelini, Rossano Borgioli, Matteo Mastromatteo and I. The work for this small dictionary has been intense. My selection of signs depended on my intention to create a dictionary valuable across Italy – but the lexical variability of LIS throughout Italy is big. My work consisted in providing signs, a possible etymology for them, sometimes a comparison with foreign sign languages or International Signs (I described my interests in this domain in chapter 9a). I had discovered that the sign for PADUA had been, in earlier times, the same as MONK [possibly as a reference to St. Antony of Padua] and it evolved into what it presently is. These were my researches at the time I wrote I primi quattrocento segni, and I was happy about my work. After I proposed a sign, we took a picture, so that the illustrator, Matteo Mastromatteo, a Deaf man, overlapped on the picture a sort of transparent tissue paper, and reproduced its outer lines. Virginia Volterra supported our work by restyling the written part: the introduction and the description of signs. I primi quattrocento segni has recently been reprinted, it is a work that continues selling.

11a.3 Two chapters and one article A publication I have authored on my own was a chapter belonging in the 1994 volume The Deaf Way. Perspectives form the International Conference on Deaf Culture, edited by Carol Erting, Robert Johnson, Dorothy Smith and Bruce Snider. My chapter centered on a sociolinguistic reading of the distribution of LIS variation and its relation to Deaf culture. Specifically, I proposed empirical observations about geographical lexical variations in LIS, city by city, and I distinguished groups of Italian Deaf signers in three categories, varying with age. One group of elderly people only used signs they learned in their early years. A second group made use of signs from the Deaf club they attended, was interested in novelties, and sometimes disregarded the signs learned in their schooling time. In comprehension, this second group could access a larger series of signs than the first group. A third group, composed of younger signers, whose number was in expansion, was flexible, versatile, and – what’s most important –

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creative, since they had signs of their own. At the same time, the third group was less aware about the evolution of signs than the second. As Virginia Volterra reminds, Passato e presente. Uno sguardo sull’educazione dei Sordi in Italia is a volume originated in a conference, where also Harlan Lane was present. Virginia Volterra co-edited the volume with Giulia Porcari Li Destri, and intended it as an opportunity for Deaf researchers to produce and publish. Virginia knew that I had retrieved the book by Giacomo Carbonieri from Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze and asked me and Emiliano Mereghetti to write a chapter about him. “When they gave me texts in Italian, I had to guess what they really meant”, Virginia says, “so I asked them rather to sign, and I wrote”. Emiliano and I chose to discuss the history of Deaf education in Italy, which was to be the subject matter of the volume, by dealing with three important Deaf educators, Paolo Basso, Giuseppe Minoja and Giacomo Carbonieri. For as much as it is known at present, Emiliano reminds, a fourth character would have to be included, Antonio Rinoldi, a Deaf man from Brescia, but at the time he had not been discovered yet. The book was published in 1995. A third article I wrote with Fulvia Carli and Rosanna Zanchetti, this time in Italian, “Processi di interpretazione dei proverbi”, concerned the transformation to which proverbs are subjected, when they are translated from Italian into LIS. Proverbs are brief as a thunderbolt, metaphoric, rhythmic, sometimes rhyming. Ambiguities that can be the catalysts of wit in one language, must be analyzed and not neutralized; interpretations of meanings must be clarified, underlining a reference to contexts. So, to say one, “God helps those who help themselves”, in a pragmatically competent translation into LIS, would be transformed as follows: ASK HEAVEN USELESS (pause) EFFORT ONLY RESULT BETTER. ‘It is no use to ask God. Better for everyone to help oneself’. This brief article was published in 2000 (Carli, Folchi, & Zanchetti 2000).

11a.4 The color of silence Roberto Rossetti and I had thought of creating a sort of catalogue of all Deaf artists, not meant for publication. By chance, I told Virginia Volterra we had finished working at the catalogue. After a short time, she told us that there was a person available to support us in publishing. It was Antonella Rana, the daughter-in-law of the well-known Italian entrepreneur in tortellini business Giovanni Rana. She happily accepted Virginia’s recommendation.

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A dinner was organized by and with Mrs. Rana, for me and Roberto, Virginia Volterra, and three Mondadori editors [Mondadori Electa is a leading Italian publisher of art books] in one of the best restaurants in Milan. An interpreter was present. It was a beautiful and very pleasant evening. Antonella Rana was enthusiastic about our work and insisted that it should be published. The chief of Mondadori Electa was a serious, important person. He took our materials, a great stack of papers, and as luck would have it, he opened it on the page about Joshua Reynolds. “My favorite painter”, he said, “and I was not informed that he was deaf! I discover it right now”. We showed to the chief of Mondadori Electa a self-portrait in which Reynolds depicts himself with a hand behind his ear, in the typical position of one who says, “I cannot hear”, a picture presently placed in London, at Tate Gallery. “I publish your work”, the editor concluded. Credit for this success goes to Antonella Rana, who also funded the publication with a small contribution, and in 2007 Il colore del silenzio was published. But how the book was written, is a rather long story. Roberto Rossetti, my co-author for Il colore del silenzio, has been my friend since a long time. We had been active in theatre at the same time, he was supporting his mime-show company from Milan, “Senza parole”, I was supporting mine, Palermo’s Il Ciclope (chapter 8a). When I moved to Milan, we had the opportunity to meet more frequently. After an event we had met at, he told me, “There are various important painters who were Deaf, I calculated no less than thirty. If we explore the domain of art, we might find a greater quantity of them”. At first, we worked without the project of a publication. It was a playful activity, control one painter, control another, gather evidence for one, for the other. We read classical sources, Vasari, to say one. The material we had kept increasing, but we were never certain about the deafness of the painters we were researching. Internet was far from existing, we went to libraries. Our central, essential task was providing evidence that a well-known painter was deaf. It was not a simple task, as deafness is not immediately visible in pictures. The Deaf community talks a lot about some figures – say ancient Roman Quintus Pedius, who was also a good drawer, is central in the talks of the Italian Deaf community. But when it comes to Pinturicchio, to say another one, the great painter, almost no one is aware that he was Deaf. Sometimes we happened to read that monks complained about a painter who was far too noisy for a monastery – an interesting indicator of deafness, we deduced, and that’s how we devised our first hypothesis.

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Eventually, we discovered an encyclopedia, a large dictionary of painting, in German. We realized that it was complete to the point of including the words “Taubstumm” for each painter for whom there was evidence of deafness. We took this to be conclusive, the confirmation that we needed. On this basis, we dropped several painters whenever we had a hypothesis about their deafness but could not find a confirmation. Without the shared work with Roberto Rossetti, this project would have never succeeded. Our work continued for six years. The material became huge, it was never over. We photocopied and took pictures. One of our biggest problems was copyright for images, as publishers usually declined the right to use, or asked for considerable compensation. At certain times, I was discouraged, and proposed to renounce, but Roberto was determined to continue. At other times he was discouraged, and I was determined to continue. Luckily enough, my discouragement never took place at the same time as his, so we continued working until the end. Presently, we mutually congratulate for this enterprise.

11a.5 Silence was my first playmate This is not the first autobiography I set to work on. Unbelievable but true, I have been working at someone else’s autobiography. A work of mine, which bears not my name as an author. Certainly, it has been an important work, which has to some extent anticipated my own autobiography. I was on holiday with Mario, my husband, and Roberto Wirth. Roberto is a Deaf man and a close friend (Figure 53), and is the owner and manager of one of the most beautiful hotels in Rome, the Hassler hotel, located on top of the Spanish Steps, side by side with the church Trinità dei Monti. Roberto confided me that he intended to write his autobiography. Mario encouraged the project, “I think it is important for people to know Roberto’s story”. He observed me, and enquired, “Would you help me?”. I started to travel back and forth from Milan to Rome, and this lasted for some three to four years. The first material I gathered were newspaper articles – I photocopied, I took pictures. In a second time, I interviewed his family members, wife, children, uncle, aunt. I took pleasure in researching first-hand materials, I felt I really was a researcher. Building the structure of the book gave me some difficulties. I resorted to Ariella (chapter 4a) to discuss the manner to organize this material and to build the story. Eventually, I presented Roberto with an accomplished first draft, and we made a first attempt, sending the work to

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various publishers. But no one accepted it for publication. My shortcoming was that I could not offer Roberto the name of a well-known author. The work sat in a drawer for two years. At one point, Roberto decided he would resort to a hearing co-author, and he singled out a longtime friend of his, a journalist of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s best-spread newspaper. Roberto asked me to supply the new author with all the materials, which I did, convinced by the promise that royalties would be used in support of DeafBlind children. The material that presently forms the book has been reworked and better presented, but it is the same material that I collected. I have been required to re-read the draft in the new form, which I did with pleasure, attentive to each word. I was very happy when the book appeared in bookshops, in 2015, bearing as a title Il silenzio è stato il mio primo compagno di giochi. La mia storia vera. My contribution has been recognized in the internal pages of the book, and in a newspaper article on Corriere della Sera: my initial work was crucial to bring the book into existence. From then on, I have decided my earnings from seminars, once the expenses have been repaid for, will support a foundation working for DeafBlind children.

Figure 53: Roberto Wirth and I, at the time his autobiography had just been published.

11a.6 Teaching and learning LIS Another important project is the one realized by a group of authors including me and Sara – the two authors of this volume. Insegnare e imparare la LIS is a textbook meant to teach LIS to hearing students, but also to spread awareness

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among Deaf LIS teachers about LIS grammar – the book is based on LIS grammar descriptions published in a large number of international linguistic publications. In fact, the textbook is entirely available both in Italian and in LIS. Honestly, at the beginning I didn’t pay much attention to this project, and as it is a textbook for levels A1–A2, I thought it was elementary. I always believed that teaching LIS is a difficult and hard enterprise. Sara was confident in the project, and invited me and three more Deaf authors to participate. So I did, and even though there were difficult moments with translations, videotaping, etc. we carried it through. When Sara told me that it would be published by Erickson publisher, a publisher that reaches a very large public of teachers in Italy, at the beginning I just could not believe it. I wasn’t sure until I received emails from a department manager with the name of the publishing house. The four Deaf authors, me included, have been involved in proofreading the video part of the book, which took us weeks during the 2020 summer. It was the first time that an important Italian publisher was working with video proofreading in LIS – it has been groundbreaking. It has been quite an achievement for us. I was even happier when I learned that the book was already out of print and awaiting reprint after three months and a half of its publication. A real triumph! Really, an unforgettable experience.

11a.7 Participating in research workgroups. The Rome group Throughout my life as a researcher, I have been working on my own, but I have also been a member of research groups. Let me introduce the ones that have been most important in the linguistic research in LIS: I have been a member of them both. I have presented the beginnings of my research-work with Virginia Volterra and her group in chapter 7a. Introduced by Serena Corazza, in 1985 I had access to an international workshop of Deaf researchers that took place every two years. In 1985, the workshop took place in Bristol, and I attended it there for the first time, and several times in the following years: among others, in Leksand, Sweden, in 1987, in Hamburg, in 1989. My first role was that of an observer. I paid great attention to the new environment of research. Many exchanges came into existence during these events, and long-lasting relationships.

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In 1987, Serena, Virginia, two more Deaf Italians and I participated in the World Federation of the Deaf congress in Finland. At the last moment, Virginia and Serena had to leave, and I was required to present our report, that was about Deaf schooling in Italy. I told, I explained, I signed: it was my first time. It was my first intervention on an international stage, but what I was presenting was not my own work. These workshops culminated in the 1989 Deaf Way, a great international party, in which eight or nine thousand Deaf people from all over the world participated. It was organized in a series of subsections. I contributed with a lecture about variability in LIS that met great interest, as in most countries, homogeneity and not variability in signs, was thought to be the rule. So, I talked about the existence of residential special schools, the istituti. My lecture would result in a chapter in the volume Deaf Way [see above, in this chapter, in section “Two chapters and one article”]. Parallel to the international activities, where I was learning and being introduced to Deaf research, in Italy workshops were being organized in Ariccia, near Rome, every two years, with a public of Deaf participants only. A group of Deaf foreign researchers had been organizing meetings to exchange, as a follow up of the “First workshop of the Deaf researchers” that had taken place in Bristol. I participated in these meetings with Serena Corazza for three years. On the last day of the third meeting, we were required to organize the following meeting in Rome, and we accepted. But upon our return to Italy, ENS could not participate and support us, so the role of organizer was taken by Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR, Virginia Volterra’s institution. The group SILIS, including many Deaf researchers and teachers of LIS, was created, that would continue its life also after the workshop would come to its conclusion. For some time, I have been a member of the SILIS group. In all these seminars, I would not miss a single word. In 1989, Serena, Virginia and I were involved in a meeting of AIES in Orvieto, an association of Italian deaf educators inclining towards oralism [the doctrine by which deaf children ought to be educated in Italian only]. I explained our activities, diversity in sign languages, variability in Italian Sign Language, my work on etymology, sociolinguistics. When I moved to Milan, in 1991, the opportunities to meet with the Rome group gradually declined, but our relationships remained strong.

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Figure 54: My work as an anchorwoman.

11a.8 Participating in research workgroups. Generative linguistics and LIS When I think of my work as an informant with Carlo Cecchetto and Sandro Zucchi, I am still inclined to smile. I worked with them from 2001 to 2008, in a light-hearted atmosphere, and I had a good time with them. Respecting their joking style, that consisted in bluntly declare the most embarrassing side of situations, I would say they gave me to translate the most complex and tortuous sentences. I still wonder how they could succeed in inventing and building sentences as complex as those ones. In fact, as I was later explained, the first subject matter that Italian generativists chose when their interest was directed to LIS, were relative clauses, the hardest structure of them all! I produced a great quantity of linguistic materials for them, doing my best to render the position of words and structures in a correct LIS. Sometimes, Graziella Anselmo (who was introduced in chapter 8a and coauthored chapter 8b) joined our work-team. I cannot say I comprehend the rules of their research, but I can say what my task of informant consisted in. I had to tell if a sentence was well-formed or ill-formed. I was required to sign, to translate, to give my thoughts about the correct expression for certain situations. I received no indication with respect to

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where their interests were directed. I trusted them, as they told me it was important for me not to know where they directed their attention. This was because it could have influenced my judgments, I could have wished to support their efforts, and they did not want me to do that. I realized their studies had a strong international impact. I strongly valued for LIS to be at the center of their scientific attention.

11a.9 An interview to Virginia Volterra Virginia Volterra: – I had heard a lot about Anna before I met her. When Elena Pizzuto began to attend our Institute between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, she told us a lot about the Palermo group and the Deaf people with whom she had come into contact, and of course Anna was one of these persons. Unfortunately, in 1983, when we organized the famous Third International Symposium on Sign Language Research, between 22 and 26 June, no Deaf person from Palermo participated. One of the reasons why we had specifically chosen those dates was that they were contiguous to the IX International Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf, that was to be held in Palermo immediately after. We thought that the influx of foreigners would be facilitated, as they could participate in Italy in both conferences. Many foreign Deaf and hearing researchers did so, while unfortunately Deaf Italians had been advised not to participate in the Roman event by ENS, but this is another story. I began to appreciate Anna, especially in the years after the Symposium, when the CNR Institute of Psychology was still located in Via dei Monti Tiburtini. What I certainly admired in Anna was her extraordinary search for autonomy, her being a bilingual Deaf person, her knowledge of the Deaf world even at an international level. She was already a leader of the Italian Deaf community, and she was intentioned to grow culturally and make other Deaf and hearing persons grow with her. In 1986, she was the winner of the first edition of the Mason Perkins Fund scholarship to travel to the United States. Had she been able to take advantage of this opportunity, she would certainly have obtained a university degree, and maybe she would have pursued an academic career, abroad or in Italy. Unfortunately, this did not take place. In my imagination, Anna could have become an Italian Carol Padden, but Italian society was probably not yet ready for Deaf people such as Anna and many others similar to her. At the time, in Italy Deaf people did not graduate, Deaf graduates could be counted on the fingers of one hand, they were not given equal educational opportunities as compared to hearing people.

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Anna and I, with other Italians, participated in the Deaf Way in Washington in 1989, an experience that certainly marked us and taught us a lot. It was no coincidence that immediately afterwards Anna began to attend our Institute more regularly. At the time, the CNR group had moved its headquarters to Via Nomentana, in the building of Istituto Statale dei Sordomuti, where a very famous residential school for Deaf children had existed since 1889 (Pinna et al. 1990). Since 1990, we started to organize workshops where Anna and other Deaf and hearing people had the opportunity to share their interests and their experiences about language, history, deaf education and other topics – all of this, in LIS. Hearing researchers – I was one among others – were trying to offer their scientific knowledge and expertise to Deaf participants, while Deaf participants were trying to provide us with information and discoveries about their language and culture.1 One of the most important meetings was the fourth workshop, that was organized in 1996 at Sasso Marconi, near Bologna, where various Deaf persons presented the content of the book Linguaggio e Sordità (Caselli, Corazza, & Volterra 1998). Anna and Emiliano were among the organizers of the meeting and Anna was in charge of presenting the content of the first introductory chapter. That event, as many others, attest to her bi-directional engagement. She has given a representation of Deaf culture to us, hearing people. But her greatest achievement has been to spread among Deaf people what might be labeled as knowledge about the world at large. This bidirectionality emerges in particular as one considers her work both in the Fabula project, and in the bank where she was employed, where she spread awareness about the Deaf condition among her hearing colleagues. She mastered Deaf culture one hundred percent, and she bridged it over to hearing people. She has been active in both worlds, and this really characterizes Anna’s contribution. I realized about this objective of hers, bridging between the two worlds, as I collaborated with Anna in many of her publications, and Anna has much more memory than I have to tell these experiences of ours, as she has done in many pages in this volume. There were historical works, there was one of the first dictionaries of Italian Sign Language, there was her encyclopedia on Deaf painters: she published these works not with me, but with other Deaf people. I don’t want to forget her theatrical experiences in Prato, her travels, the convivial encounters we shared in Rome with Oliver Sacks and in Milan with Antonella Rana. In

1 In the LACAM Archive of ISTC, CNR, videos can be accessed that have been shot during the first and third CNR workshop in LIS (Roma, 15–16 December 1990 and Roma, 12–13–14 February 1993).

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all these situations, what I certainly remember is her great elegance: in the strangest and sometimes unpredictable situations, she was always dressed and made up to perfection, how she did it – how she does – this remains a mystery to me.

11a.10 An interview to Carlo Cecchetto Carlo Cecchetto: – The specific work we made with Anna has been the first work that we, and more in general, Italian generativists, ever did on LIS. Anna and Graziella Anselmo (Graziella appears in chapters 8a and 8b) were the first Deaf persons we involved in our research. On our side, Sandro Zucchi and I already had a big experience on linguistic research about spoken language, Sandro had done something about sign language, but as for me, it was my very first time. We had been told that Anna was a very authoritative and reliable person. I remember very well the first afternoon we met, in front of “Statale”, Milan State university. The first conversation we had concerned our scientific objectives. We wanted to avoid any transfer of Italian into signs. What we were interested in was the spontaneous, natural language that Anna and Graziella produced in their ordinary exchanges. There was no need to persist in this request and explain further, as Anna and Graziella already had a definite idea of their natural manner of communication. When we arrived in the domain of research of sign languages, the Italian Deaf community already shared the notion that LIS was a real language. What comes to my mind most, is that we worked towards the comprehension of what was the model for relative clauses, and we really hadn’t the slightest idea about it. At first, and for a long time, no indication whatsoever occurred to us. We proposed a sentence in Italian, “How would you say this in LIS, in the most natural way?” Appropriately, Anna and Graziella thought it over some time, discussed the subject, and then presented us with a solution that was to them a good counterpart of what we were seeking. But each time, it appeared that the model they proposed was not the same as the one they had produced just five minutes before. This uncertainty persisted for many meetings. It is useful to tell that relative clauses are one of the most difficult subjects in linguistics, they are a complex structure that is acquired late by speakers – and by signers as well. It was difficult, but, at the same time, its difficulty was precisely the reason why it was so interesting to us.

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We used to meet every Thursday, and in the week between one Thursday and another, we reflected and compared and thought it over – but no solution occurred to our mind for a long time. Then, one Thursday, it was a late evening, I had these pages with notes in front of me, with a variety of models, as usual it seemed a great confusion. I could not exactly tell how, I had one of the very few moments of Eureka in my professional history. What up to a moment before had appeared as a great mess, now, perceived with new spectacles, corresponded to a model, an entirely unprecedented model, very, very different from the model of Italian relative clauses. This is the reason why it had been so difficult to perceive it. I realized that the model of relative clauses in LIS was completely separate from the model of relative clauses in European spoken languages. Actually, from an abstract point of view, LIS relatives are rather similar to relative clauses in languages such as Hindi, the majority language of India. I did not know Hindi syntax but Sandro did, and when I called him almost in the middle of the night, he told me, “We got it! It must be the Hindi pattern!”. In collecting those first data with Anna and Graziella, Sandro and I really violated every rule that we presently teach to our students about the methodology of data collection. We usually recommend not to use Italian during elicitation, but rather sign language, in order not to influence production in the target language. But this means that the researcher ought to know sign language – and at the time we did not know a single sign. But somewhere we had to start. We wrote an article that, in our limited domain, was fairly influential, I believe. When we began, there were many valuable studies on LIS, mostly by the CNR group, but almost no publication with respect to LIS syntactic structure. While working, we realized that, on one side, Anna and Graziella were nicely kidding us: we were newcomers, and we had enough enthusiasm (and naiveté?) to embark on quite a difficult enterprise. On the other side, they realized we had a knowledge in our field, which, in the service of LIS, could be very positive. There was a strong benevolence, and some suspect – but a great, great quantity of collaboration. Without it, we would have really arrived nowhere.

Sara Trovato

11b How society at large can become inclusive, sector after sector: Ethical choices in research as confronted to deafness and Deaf persons in Italy In previous chapters, the attitude of society at large towards Deaf persons has proved crucial in how happily Deaf persons live their lives and how successfully they pursue their objectives (chapters 1b, 8b). Anna’s story when writing Roberto Wirth’s biography, and not being able to publish it (chapter 11a), was the story of a brilliant woman, an author, who, being Italian, writes in Italian as in a L2, a second language. But Anna is one of the best published Deaf authors in Italy. Hearing society was unable to consider that even university professors do not express themselves perfectly in writing in a foreign language (Coppieters 1987). This Deaf citizen was not being entitled to profit of the institutions of her country – in her case, cultural institutions, as publishing houses are. Joseph Castronovo’s Sicilian project with a Deaf theatre group (chapter 8a) was the story of a hearing society not perceiving how important it would have been for Deaf persons to be led by Deaf persons towards their personal growth. Victor Abbou’s story (chapter 8b) was the story of a person and a community that limited their dreams, as they felt they would not make it. A theatre project succeeded in restoring a feeling of personal value and success, a project that crucially involved not only the Deaf community, but French society in its entirety. Hearing society is what really makes a difference when Deaf people pursue their goals in what should be their world, their Institutions. Hearing society is what decides for Deaf persons to be citizens at a par with hearing persons. In this chapter, the focus will be on the enlargement of the spheres where Deaf persons can be included: from the Deaf community, to the signing community, to, crucially, hearing society at large. This issue will be addressed by focusing on one sector of society, the world of research, in a specific country, Italy, as it has begun to meet Deaf signers in the last forty years. As research on Sign language has spread throughout European universities, Deaf signers are more and more involved in scientific research, not only as participants, but as students and as a first generation of researchers or potential researchers. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-022

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Many research groups work on deafness in Italy: originally in Bologna, and today in Venice, Padua, Ragusa, Pisa, Rome, Milan, Trento and more, in addition to several researchers who work in isolation. After a first moment, when Deaf Italians have only been meeting in universities researchers who were specialists of sign language and Deaf studies, they have begun to meet a second generation of researchers, who work on sign language and deafness, but are also active in other research domains. This second generation may be considered part of society at large, more than part of the signing community. In this chapter, interviews will be presented with important protagonists of Italian research on deafness, who are active in three research groups: in Rome, in Milan, and in Trento. The Rome group was the first research group on the Italian territory, the two others appeared some twenty-five to thirty years later. The Rome group can be characterized as active in scientific research in psychology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics and linguistics, but also in Deaf studies, whereas the Milan group had an expertise in linguistics and cognitive science, and the Trento group in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience, but neither of the latter two groups has a competence in Deaf studies. The appearance of the latter groups will be interpreted as a result of interest towards deafness being spread beyond the first core of the founders of Italian Deaf studies. The ability of this second-generation research groups to stick to an inclusive ethics will be considered as evidence that society at large, and not only specialists of deafness, are beginning to be inclusive towards Deaf people. What ethical choices did they have to make in order to be inclusive, in their double role of researchers and professors? How have they represented, constructed, and fulfilled their moral duties towards Deaf people in that section of society that is their research work?

11b.1 The first laboratory on Deaf studies in Italy: Research and empowerment Interest in sign language exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, with many colleges and universities today offering classes in American Sign Language. [At the present time], ASL is often the second most popularly enrolled language after Spanish on university campuses. Whereas oral curricula used to dominate state-supported and publicly funded schools, parents now can find sign language education for their children in a public-school district or a special school. (Padden & Humphries 2006: 75)

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The interest towards sign language that was taking place in the US in the Seventies has spread over to the Western world but would not have arrived in Europe without promoters willing to activate for this cause. In Italy, in the Seventies, awareness about sign language’s dignity as a language in support of education, speech therapy, and the cognitive growth of Deaf people was completely inexistent (Volterra 2016: 35–41). Scholarly interest towards deafness and sign language first appeared within a group working in Bologna, including audiologist Massimo Facchini. But the scholarly interest for sign language was to be extensively established in Italy by Virginia Volterra. It was her and her research group’s merit if Italian Sign Language has been shown to be a real language and a field for scholarly investigation. Virginia Volterra herself has told this story in four publications she has authored or co-authored (Volterra 2006; 2011; 2016; Fontana et al. 2017). Starting in the late Seventies, Virginia Volterra began to recruit researchers to form a research group within CNR in Rome (Volterra 2006: 55), initially with a focus on persons who had had an experience in the United States – among them Elena Pizzuto (chapter 8a) –, and constantly, with a focus to reach Deaf people – the first Deaf person who worked with Virginia was Serena Corazza (chapter 7a). Exchanges also existed with French scholars such as Bernard Mottez, Christian Cuxac, Danielle Bouvet. As the most advanced research centers in the world were American (Volterra 2011: 28), Virginia’s group invited personalities from the United States, such as William Stokoe, and, later, Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, but she also made international connections by participating in established European congresses. Her group organized in Rome in 1983 The Third International Symposium on Sign Language Research, a large international event that implied, among other things, the extraordinary effort to form a group of interpreters in a country, Italy, that did not know what sign language interpreting was (Volterra 2006: 40–41; Fontana et al. 2017: 373). A series of publications followed, both in research journals and for the general public in domains as varied as psycholinguistics (Volterra 2011: 36), education (Volterra 2006: 42), linguistics (Volterra 1989), Deaf history (Volterra 2011: 35), sociolinguistics (Volterra 2011: 35–36). A large group of professionals started to gravitate around CNR: linguists, speech therapists (Volterra 2011: 32), teachers and researchers in education (Volterra 2011: 32), interpreters – who were in fact first formed, in Italy, within Virginia Volterra’s group (Volterra 2006: 40–41; 2011: 41). As the headquarters of the research group moved to via Nomentana, in Rome, in a building with a tradition of schools for the Deaf (Volterra 2016: 43), the group was increasingly able to rely on a stable relation to Deaf people:

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research was “always led in close collaboration between hearing and Deaf researchers” (Volterra 2006: 57). But this does not mean that the most important Deaf Association, that is ENS (Ente Nazionale Sordi), was trustful towards Volterra’s research group (Volterra 2016: 35), as ENS was initially reluctant in recognizing that their signs were a language, rather than mimicry or gesture. It was not until 1995 that ENS started to employ the label “LIS” for Italian signs (2011: 37), a label which had first been introduced by the Rome group. In fact, it is Virginia Volterra’s and her research group’s merit if Italian signs changed their status from gestures to a real language. As we proceeded, research revealed a form of communication much more complex than it appeared from the outside. The discovery of rules that in some manner corresponded to the morphosyntactic structures of spoken languages made us more and more aware that we were in front of a real language. Our objective was to discover whether this sign language had or had not those characteristics that, in linguistics and psycholinguistics, permit to tell whether a spoken language is a real language or simply a form of communication. In this sense, the first characteristics to be discovered, beyond the hands that we saw moving rapidly through the air, concerned the possibility of a systematic articulation, functionally correspondent to the phonologic articulation that we can find in spoken languages, exactly as William Stokoe had discovered in ASL. A second question concerned the possibility to identify a grammar and a syntax, similar to the ones characterizing a language. It is exactly the presence of a grammar and a syntax that allows us to distinguish a language from a form of communication that is not a language. If there are no grammar and no syntax, then we cannot talk about a language. (Volterra 2006: 56–57)1

Quite consequently, Virginia tells the story of how the name “LIS” was chosen: We chose the definition “Lingua dei Segni Italiana” (that sometimes appears to be mentioned also as “Lingua Italiana dei Segni”) at least for three reasons. The first reason is to have an equivalence with the type of terminology that is used in other countries, as in Langue des Signes Française, American Sign Language and British Sign Language. The second reason is that the term “mimicry” or “gestural” can create and perpetuate confusion and is loaded with misunderstandings, as it can lead to think that the gestural communication used by Deaf people is the same thing as gestures used by hearing people as a support to spoken productions – quite in contrast, it was important for us to stress differences. The third reason, in support of the previous ones, was that the term “lingua” and “segni” were used in a very interesting text from 1858 written by an Italian Deaf man, Giacomo Carbonieri, against the claims of a physician who had stated that

1 Most of Virginia Volterra’s articles and the totality of the interviews here presented were originally in Italian. Translation in English is by the author of this chapter.

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Deaf people should not use signs. In conclusion, we had created nothing new, we had just revived a terminology that was already in use by some Italian Deaf people in the nineteenth century. (Volterra 2006: 58)

Empowerment Interestingly enough, when Virginia Volterra tells this story, she chooses to give it the form of a historical and social narration. A narration that ends with the description of the great advancements in Italian society concerning sign language and Deaf signers that take place after 1990, in “exponential growth” (Volterra 2006: 60–61): scholarship exchanges between Italy and the US, Deaf groups socially and sometimes politically organizing themselves, the first experiments in bilingual education, dictionaries, the creation of printed materials, universities offering courses about sign language and Deaf studies, formation for interpreters, Deaf theatre and cinema festivals, a growing awareness about sign language and its status (Volterra 2006: 43–46; 2011: 36; Fontana et al. 2017: 372–385). In fact, Virginia Volterra was not acting solely in the research domain: she was acting for the empowerment of single Deaf researchers and of the Deaf community. What Virginia’s recollections do not tell, for obvious reasons since she is the author of her own story, can be told by Deaf people working with her. In chapters 7a and 11a, Anna recollects a series of interventions by Virginia, which reveal her role as a reference point for the community, whenever support was needed. She invited the first Deaf persons to become researchers in LIS by having them introduced in her research group, or collaborate with her group or with her (“[Serena and I . . .] met at a seminar, and we began to collaborate and became friends in 1984. Serena was already working with Virginia Volterra and the CNR group. I was introduced to Virginia and our collaboration began. For some time, this team of the three of us, Serena, Virginia and me, has been the group who interacted in signs with the purpose of investigating Italian Sign Language”, chapter 7a.2; Volterra 2006: 56). Virginia backed the participation of Deaf Italians in International conferences (“in 1987, Serena, Virginia, two more Deaf Italians and I attended the World Federation of the Deaf congress in Finland. At the last moment, Virginia and Serena had to leave, and I was asked to present our report, that was about Deaf schooling in Italy. I told, I explained, I signed: it was my first time. It was my first intervention on an international stage, but what I was presenting was not my own work”; chapter 11a.7. “In 1989, Serena, Virginia and I were involved in

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a meeting of AIES, an association of Italian Deaf educators inclining towards oralism”; chapter 11a.7). She encouraged Deaf people to publish (“Virginia knew that I had retrieved the book by Giacomo Carbonieri from Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze and asked me and Emiliano Mereghetti to write a chapter about him”, chapter 11a.3). Often this encouragement took the form of a provision of materials (“A project making use of a tale about a snowman was originally thought out by Virginia Volterra, Serena Corazza and their group, to inquire about the comprehensibility of LIS throughout Italy: to what extent were Trieste signs comprehensible in Rome, and Roman signs in Trieste? Virginia Volterra published the results of this research in a work she edited, Linguaggio e Sordità”, 2006: 55–128; within this volume, chapter 11a.9; Fontana et al. 2017: 374) She was present as a consultant to support the need for growth of Deaf people (“Some time ago, I asked Fulvia Carli and Virginia Volterra about my Italian, and how to improve it. They responded, ‘Keep it simple’”, chapter 4a.3). Virginia was acting as a scientific consultant for Deaf scholars (“Serena [Corazza] asked Virginia Volterra, but no one appeared to have news about his work, so that it had disappeared from the sight of those who work in Deaf studies”, chapter 11a.1). She was an editor who provided Italian language to texts by Deaf authors for whom Italian was not native (“Virginia Volterra supported our work by restyling the written part: the introduction and the description of signs”, chapter 11a.2; ‘When they gave me texts in Italian, I had to guess what they really meant’, Virginia says, ‘so I asked them rather to sign, and I wrote’). Her presence often disappeared from those articles and book chapters as she did not sign them, and the indirect trace of her help is in the numerous books she has edited, and the prefaces she has written (“Virginia Volterra co-edited the volume with Giulia Porcari Li Destri, and intended it as an opportunity for Deaf researchers to produce and publish”, chapter 11a.3). She reached into the hearing world where Deaf people would not have been able to reach on their own, for instance to provide spaces in books for chapters written by Deaf authors, and publishers for books (“Virginia Volterra has been instrumental to my meeting with the chief of Mondadori Electa, the main Italian publisher of art books”). She replaced Deaf associations in supporting the activities of single Deaf groups (“workshops were being organized in Ariccia, near Rome, every two years, with a public of Deaf participants only. ENS had refused to participate, so the role of organizer was taken by Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR, Virginia Volterra’s institution”, chapter 11a.7).

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Anna Folchi’s testimony is just an isolated one, while many more by Deaf Italians could exist, that do not appear in these pages. But, isolated as it is, it provides a comprehensive overview of Virginia Volterra’s action. In other words, Virginia’s role was, most comprehensively, that of a facilitator in empowerment.

What should follow empowerment, for empowerment to be a success? As chapter 1b theorized, and chapter 8b showed, for empowerment to be successful, work should involve both the minority community, and the majority, that is, society at large – in other words, not only those who work with the minority community. Virginia Volterra’s own publications have often opened new paths in research, but her work in the “deafness scene” cannot be limited to an individual scholarly contribution. Virginia Volterra’s engagement would not be properly understood without remarking that it has been equally distributed between a scientific and a social role. She displayed attention to some of the social actors present on the “deafness scene”, with a strong empowering attitude towards their participation. As we saw in Anna’s biography, the empowering support coming from Virginia’s attentive presence on the Italian “deafness scene” stayed with Virginia’s own active participation in the field – she supported Anna’s publication of Il colore del silenzio, Anna and Emiliano’s chapter in Passato and Presente, etc. –, but did not always translate into channels by which Deaf scholars could autonomously act in the enlarged hearing society, as it happened when Anna wished to publish Roberto Wirth’s biography on her own. Far from being a shortcoming of Virginia’s own intervention, this is a genuine problem in empowerment: empowerment is fulfilled when dependence from authorities ends, and autonomy begins. There is a moment in which the role of the leader has to give way to institutional, impersonal, wide-spread support coming from society at large. Of course, such a passage is only possible when society has evolved to an increased awareness and sensitivity for the needs of the community that is being empowered, and/or of the individuals belonging to such community. Such a moment, when the responsibility for inclusion in the realm of research was passed over from community to society can be identified in time. Not by chance, a production of Virginia Volterra’s that has really been useful to all of us who entered the field, had been a complete bibliography of the

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publications on Italian Sign Language and in Deaf studies produced in Italy (Di Renzo, Porcari Li Destri, & Virginia Volterra 2011). With her co-authors, she kept it updated, from year to year, until 2011. Equally not by chance, in 2011 Virginia Volterra realized she could not update this list of publications any longer: the field had become too extensive, as new research groups had appeared, who were also very productive. It appears that a genuine transformation was taking place. Italian Sign Language was no more only the language of Italian Deaf people, the community of signers was gradually enlarging beyond the limits of the Deaf community. Was this transformation marking the passage to a growing awareness about deafness beyond the community of signers, and towards society at large? An indicator is needed, revealing the maturity of society’s awareness, or at least of society as progressing towards a growing awareness. This indicator can be the attitude of researchers in groups that have appeared on the “deafness scene” after twenty-five to thirty years from the moment when Virginia Volterra started her CNR research group. Crucially, at that moment in time, researchers appeared whose research fields did not include Deaf studies, but only long-existing and well-established scientific domains, where research has a much less emerging character. Researchers in these groups had an established role before they became involved in research on deafness. As their prevalent interest is not a specialization in a domain relating to deafness, such as Deaf studies, these new actors can be taken as representatives of society at large. For this reason, their active presence allows to estimate the expansion of the wave of awareness about inclusion generated after twenty-five years and more of activity after research about deafness and sign language was established in Italy. As such fields of research welcome sign languages and studies on deafness in their practice of “normal science”, rather than in the revolutionary practice of founding a new field, they produce a series of by-effects: recognizing the value of research topics associated with deafness; stabilizing and enlarging the acquisitions of Deaf studies; spreading interest and awareness for the condition of Deaf people to the hearing population such as students and new scholars, and, through dissemination, to the general public; providing opportunities of collaboration and new jobs for Deaf people; turning into “normal” what was once exceptional and new.

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11b.2 Second generation researchers: Generative linguistics Carlo Cecchetto (chapter 11a) was a full-fledged linguist well before he started his work on Italian Sign Language. He was a researcher in the Italian school of generative grammar. Generative grammar is a formal linguistics approach that was founded in the Fifties in the United States by the linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. The Italian branch of the generative grammar enterprise is considered very qualified and productive. Carlo Cecchetto has been interviewed: Before us, in Italy, there had already been a rich tradition of research on LIS, in linguistics, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Honestly, we came from a different tradition and what interested me was to understand how the tradition I came from, generative grammar, could handle sign language. The interactions with the CNR group in Rome, which at a certain point began to exist, at the beginning were almost absent – I must say, because we came from historically distinct, even opposing, traditions. Even if today we still work separately, we do have some meeting points, on issues such as the status of sign language, cognitive science and deafness, etc. In addition, in our second work, that centered on WH-questions in LIS, we proposed an alternative explanation to the mainstreamed explanation based on ASL, by Diane LilloMartin. Lillo-Martin’s account was casted in the generative tradition, but it did not convince me.

In the years to follow, new lines of research were opened: the study of tactile LIS used by DeafBlind people (Carlo Cecchetto likes to remind that this work was prompted by a specific requests of DeafBlind people through their association, the committee of DeafBlind people within Lega del Filo d’Oro), sociolinguistic as well as psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies of sign languages. Finally, the development of tests to diagnose pathologies of sign language and collection of testimonies by Deaf people to preserve Deaf memory and Deaf culture. Carlo Cecchetto’s research group also explored sociolinguistics by collecting a corpus on the model of a corpus collected by sociolinguist Ceil Lucas in the United States. Two European projects involving tens of researchers established long lasting international collaborations, to write a blueprint guiding in the elicitation and linguistic analysis of never-studied-before grammars of sign languages, and reference grammars of Italian Sign Language, German Sign Language, Catalan Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands and Turkish Sign Language. Consistently with this intense scientific production, the objectives set by Carlo Cecchetto’s research group are first of all within their scientific domain. Carlo remarks that linguistics has been transformed by the impact of studies on sign languages:

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Until recently, in any field of linguistics textbooks offered only examples from spoken languages. At present, in introductory courses, in textbooks and in linguistics conferences, while talking about a linguistic phenomenon, it has become common to present what form that phenomenon takes in sign language. Not all linguists do research on sign languages, but it is very common, when one does not mention sign languages, to receive a question concerning it. Until 15 years ago conferences on sign languages were few and not very specialized. Sign language conferences dealt with all or most aspects related to sign language. If you think it over, this is strange: in linguistics, for instance, a single conference about all aspects related to spoken languages would be impossible. At present, specialized conferences reflect distinct approaches to sign languages and distinct aspects of research, such as psycholinguistics, formal models, cognitive linguistics, clinical aspects, sociolinguistics, Deaf studies and their mutual interaction.

Remarkably, Sign language linguistics has considerably stabilized and institutionalized. Carlo Cecchetto says, resources are important, and by resources, I mean money to recruit researchers and to organize the transmission of research results. A first element is the number of researchers active in the domain: in the last 12 years, our European research network opened at least twelve Ph.D. scholarships and post-doc grants, and five permanent positions in Italy and abroad for researchers in Sign language linguistics have been created. To this, one has to add institutions such as summer schools for young scholars at a beginners or intermediate level, taking place yearly. A third element is the FEAST conference, “Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory”, that receives yearly about sixty papers. This reveals quite a vitality in a field that fifteen years ago did not exist.

Is there an expectation that Sign language linguistics is here to stay? “It depends on us, workers in the field – whether we will continue to teach Sign language linguistics, starting from the introductory, general courses in linguistics. We must constantly make efforts to spread awareness that language is not only spoken”. These generative researchers, who arrived to the “deafness scene” as a second generation of researchers, succeeded in having sign language enter mainstream research and influence domains unrelated to Deaf studies. Thus, research on sign language and awareness about the Deaf condition was exceeding the boundaries not only of the Deaf community, but also of the larger signing community, to become “an ambassador” to broad communities of researchers specialized in other fields.

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Forming Deaf researchers Crucially, these linguists who were not “born” sign language linguists but, from a certain moment on, have spent a large part of their career studying sign language, have dedicated a considerable part of their resources to ensure interpreting, so as to make their disciplinary sector accessible to Deaf people. Their objective has been to raise a generation of Deaf researchers. The European Commission in Brussels is very sensitive to sign language rights and has generously funded our research projects. We only had a hard time with European functionaries, when we had to explain that a significant part of our budget had to go in interpretation expenses. In contrast to other types of interpreting – that are justly not funded by EU research funds – interpretation to sign languages means access. If one organizes a two-days workshop, interpreting services can amount to some 10.000 €–12.000 € and this impacts on research budgets that in humanities are not huge.

But the real objective was, obviously, forming Deaf researchers. There should be more Deaf researchers. Linguistic research on sign language is of a better quality when researchers are working in their own language. The existence of Deaf researches is not an advantage for Deaf researchers only, but for research itself. In addition, Deaf people are often in contact with medical and audiometric researchers, who are hearing in the overwhelming majority of cases: Deaf researchers in linguistics would start break the wall between a hearing and a Deaf role in research. Still further: Deaf researchers can bridge research results towards the Deaf community. But being Deaf is not enough to become a researcher. Hard work and the right skills are needed, the same that are needed to become a hearing researcher. We would have liked to involve more Deaf researchers than we did. In our research group intended in a large sense, one Deaf student got first a Ph.D. and then a permanent position as a researcher – it is a good result, but still very partial. We have been deserted by another promising Deaf student: when Deaf people have alternatives in quota jobs, and are offered stable occupations at a lower level, it is fully understandable they may opt for them instead of trying the difficult (and not very well paid) work in research. In my opinion, quota positions should be activated also in research institutions, as it happens in France – but not in Italy. In France, a percentage of researchers is selected within disabled categories, through quotas, but with a competition within several disabled categories – this ensures quality in selection. It may be difficult to recruit researchers through competitions in which the work of interpreters is involved – it is difficult, but possible.

Mirko Santoro (chapter 12b), the Deaf researcher who has been mentioned as having been formed in generative linguistics and that French research institutions have recruited, shares these values, and especially the ones about the importance of a high qualification. He defends the idea that in conferences, selection

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should be based on quality, with hearing and Deaf participants to be selected according to the same, and not differentiated criteria. He shares this idea with his scientific environment. Correctness towards Deaf people, for this second generation of researchers, consists in treating Deaf and hearing people as equals. Respect towards Deaf people is in treating them as peers, by not “taking them as they are” on the scientific side, but by expecting scientific growth and an intellectual transformation through university programs, conferences, summer schools – as an intellectual growth is always expected during education. A strong ethics is perceivable in this new research group also in selecting topics of research – tactile LIS used by DeafBlind people, applied research to create tests to diagnose pathologies of language, and even collection of testimonies by Deaf people to preserve Deaf memory and Deaf culture. And, obviously, there is an ethics in the way research results are handled – once again, it is an ethics internal to science, not to society: I know that there are research findings that lead to the conclusion that Deaf people do not reach results at the same level as hearing people. For example, while researching short-term memory, my research group observed that the short-term memory for signs is remarkably lower than the short-term memory for words. In the paper we published (on Cognition), we spent time and care to clarify that this result should not be interpreted as an absolute deficit. The explanation we offered was that typically a sign conveys more information than a word does, so it is to be expected that it is more difficult to retain. Furthermore, sign languages have found a way to be equally rich and equally capable of transmitting content by minimizing constructions that are complicated for short-term memory. Thus, sign languages found a way to cope with reduced short-term memory for signs, while maintaining the same level of expressive richness and structural complexity. (See Geraci et al. 2008)

In conclusion, generative linguists involved in studying deafness have deflected a series of resources available for the scientific enterprise towards something the Deaf community is most proud about: sign languages. They involved in the study of deafness sections of scientific fields, such as linguistics or cognitive sciences, and the people working in these fields, who are professionally engaged in the production of science and the reproduction and diffusion of knowledge. This has resulted in spreading knowledge and awareness about deafness to scientists and academicians, an influential section of (hearing) society, that in turn has conveyed this knowledge to university students, who will possibly occupy in the near future those roles in society where expertise and competence is required.

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By supporting sign languages, and by treating them as peers, a social construction of Deaf people emerged, as people with their own language, much more than as people with a disability. It is this identification that has been spread throughout hearing society through scientific and academic channels. It is not by chance, then, that some Deaf university students are presently attracted towards Linguistics departments, which are both more prepared to welcome them and make them proudest, as chapter 12b will tell. At the same time, Deaf students appear to have a hard time in departments where this wave of awareness has not yet arrived – interviewees in chapter 12b testify about their difficulties in, to mention just two sectors, a Media Studies department, or with a Law professor. This second wave of researchers are themselves part of a larger society and have the chance to support Deaf fellow travelers along their way, but their work is not centered on the Deaf condition. To reinforce the conclusion that there are sections of society that effectively take up their responsibility, the founder of another research group, Francesco Pavani, will be interviewed: a group that has initially been in closer contact with the Rome group. Let us read what Francesco Pavani has to tell.

11b.3 Second generation researchers: Cognitive science and neuroscience Francesco Pavani is a researcher in psychology, Cognitive science and Cognitive neuroscience, working in Italy, at Trento University, and in France, at the Centre de Recherche en Neuroscience de Lyon. On the Italian “deafness scene”, he is presently active as the promoter of a dialogue between historically opposite views supporting the sign-language approach – which in practice translates into supporting bilingualism –, and the Italian-only approach – today principally represented by cochlear implants supporters. He is engaged as a lecturer in the dissemination of knowledge produced by research on deafness. His profile is that of a pure researcher, meaning by this that he is highly specialized, that his profession is mainly scientific, and that he is not active in the social aspects of deafness and in Deaf studies. I was formed in Elisabetta Làdavas research group, a neuropsychology group at Bologna University. I studied the perception of acoustic space in persons with a hemispatial neglect, persons who had a brain damage causing them to ignore a part of the visual space. We wondered how this could impact on the perception of the acoustic space.

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The other important mentor I have had has been Jon Driver, I was formed in his London laboratory. He was an experimental psychologist and a cognitive scientist. I learned a great deal from him, and most of all, I entered the world of multisensory integration, that is, the discipline studying how senses contribute to represent space, and how they move our attention in space. (see Pavani et al. 2004; Pavani, Ládavas, & Driver 2003)

Unsurprisingly, Francesco Pavani’s work heads for the universal implications of phenomena observed in deafness. This interest for what is particular, in as much as it is able to shed light on what is general, can be considered typical of a far-reaching, well-planned scientific research. Neurocognitive science researches on deafness and blindness are fundamentally contributing to our understanding of how human mind functions. Until recently, we used to think that brain regions are specialized in listening to voices, in recognizing faces, in reading written words. This manner to describe brain specialization is common and intuitive, but a little naïf. Briefly, it is not far from describing what we observe as it was made up of air, earth, water and fire. We are now discovering that in the human brain there is an unobservable table of elements, something behind what can be observed. We have discovered that the region in the brain that we used to label as “written words” region was activated by blind persons during Braille reading, that is, by persons who had never seen a written word in their entire life (Heimler, Striem-Amit, & Amedi 2015). I can produce a similar example for deafness: the areas for voices recognition in deaf persons activate during faces recognition tasks. For twenty years this has been labelled as “the area of voices”, and in 2017 Stefania Benetti, Olivier Collignon, myself and other colleagues discovered that it activates for faces. Brain regions appear to have computational capacities that go beyond the simplifications based on common language. We have to discover how these mechanisms work, how such neuronal population adapts to tasks. This is the huge contribution to neurocognitive science that has been possible thanks to researches on deafness. (see Benetti et al. 2017)

Francesco Pavani is aware that he does not make research in the same manner as Virginia Volterra and her research group do, and that his interests are sector-specific: I often say that I entered the world of deafness through the window. Not through the main road of the interaction with the Deaf community. I would even say, I did so in an opportunistic way. I arrived in Rovereto, I discovered there was a group who worked on cochlear implants. The idea that one might be born without a sensory system and recover it at a later time appeared to me very interesting. How do attention and perception adapt to transformations in the environment in various life phases, and to the presence-absence of a sensory system? So, I started moving my research interests in this direction. (see Nava et al. 2008; Bottari et al. 2008; Nava et al. 2009; Pavani & Bottari 2012)

Research in this domain had previously been produced by American universities specialized in deafness and offering programs in sign language, such as the

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Rochester Institute of Technology, where Daphne Bavelier had published some of the first influential studies on deaf visual abilities (Proksch & Bavelier 2002; Bavelier 2006). The United States were already leading as much in experimental research, as in linguistic and theatre, as has been observed in the interview with Carlo Cecchetto above in this chapter, and in chapters 8a and 8b.

Meetings Research about deafness has long existed within medicine and experimental psychology. The question should be raised whether Francesco Pavani is not just a researcher in these fields, as there have been in the past and there will be in the future. In fact, in 2011, something interesting happens to him. He met two experimental psychologists in the CNR Rome laboratory, Cristina Caselli and Pasquale Rinaldi. This meeting proved determinant in changing the nature of Francesco Pavani’s attitude towards the object of his research. It is important to let Francesco Pavani tell this story in his own words: Until the end of 2011 my research on deafness was led in a somewhat limited perspective, I have no difficulty in saying this. I observed deafness from the small slot that were my competences and interests at the time. My focus was on how cochlear implants changed visual attention, but soon I realized that it was too limited a question. Deafness was hugely varied: it could be early, late, signing, non-signing, with a sufficient or insufficient language support. I was very lucky, then, when I met Cristina Caselli, when I started being invited to conferences on deafness. In 2003, at the big ENS conference in Verona, talking to Cristina I realized the world was considerably bigger, and I was looking at the situation in quite a one-sided manner. With Cristina and others, we got a grant for a research on deaf persons’ attention and perception in the selection of environment information, and especially on the control exerted in this selection. But this time, I studied attention and perception depending on the linguistic experiences that deaf participants had had. There was a paradox, I believe, in the literature on visual perception for deaf persons, in, to say one, Daphne Bavelier’ 2006 article. One deaf person can see better than a hearing person, but this can result in a dysfunctional enhancement – in some cases it can be horribly distracting. In other words, my research questions began to become more comprehensive, I began to address cognitive questions, something more similar to the real interaction between the deaf person and the environment. (see Pavani et al. 2019; Heimler, van Zoest, Baruffaldi, Rinaldi et al. 2015; Heimler, van Zoest, Baruffaldi, Donk et al. 2015)

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I really perceive 2012 as a great change of pace. The work I shared between 2012 and 2014 with Cristina [Caselli] and Pasquale [Rinaldi] brought me straight ahead in the world of deafness, I began to understand much more, and I gradually concentrated on this domain more thoroughly. I am profoundly in debt to them and to Virginia Volterra for the teaching I received during those years.

In other words, the existence of a laboratory centered on Deaf studies, but already specialized, was crucial to recruit Francesco Pavani in the field, transform deafness into one of his main focus, and enhance the quality of his research, rendering it more comprehensive, more centered on the real experience of deaf persons. Interestingly enough, Francesco Pavani’s first steps in research about deafness were supported by the Rome CNR group. But his ethics is more similar to the one in the Rome or in the Milan research group? Let us read Francesco Pavani’s answer to a question concerning the clash between scientific results that report lack of abilities and the hard work of building a positive self-perception realized by the “empowerment worker”. Sometimes scientific research results about the abilities of deaf participants are neutral in their implications, sometimes they are positive. In such cases, it is much simpler to transmit such results to the public, especially to the deaf public. But sometimes results tell about abilities that are less strong in deaf participants than in hearing participants. One wants for participants to be involved in research work and for them to be informed about research results. With Claudia Bonfiglioli, also at the University of Trento and who is active in the field of research ethics, I recently reflected on the fact that not only deaf persons, but special populations in general, participate in research on the basis of an act of trust: how will the researcher use the data obtained thanks to their collaboration? Data can be used in various ways. Well, it is important for the deaf person to know about their strong sides and their less-than-strong ones. They ought to think that disability is only one among many characteristics of a person, and a person cannot be reduced to it. But the issue of what use is made of the trust of participants involved in research is central. In research on brain cross-modal plasticity, quite inappropriately, data obtained by participants who were Deaf persons and children of Deaf persons were immediately used by clinicians to say that the visual information conveyed by sign language recruits acoustic areas, that is, used to hit the signing community. Those who had participated in such researches had contributed data that were later used against them.

Loyalty to the participants in research appears to be central according to Francesco Pavani, and this is for him the ethics pertinent in the relation of the researcher to the Deaf community. His respect for deaf participants is to be placed within the domain of science and its use, not within the domain of personal and collective growth. Francesco Pavani is clearly a member of society at large, not a member of the founders of Deaf studies.

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Francesco Pavani has become a researcher working at the junction between two fields, and two sets of values: Deaf studies strongly engaged in supporting sign languages, and a field historically perceived as alternative to Deaf studies, the medical one, concentrated on the idea that deafness is only a disease of the ear, and supporting Cochlear Implant so as to exclude sign language. In Italy, as in most countries, the meeting between Deaf studies and medicine – that preexisted Deaf studies – has not yet taken place. Francesco Pavani works towards the possibility of a dialogue. Here are his words: Cochlear implant is an unprecedented opportunity for deaf persons to access the oral language, but it has not cancelled the everlasting and fundamental matter, whether acoustic deprivation can entail linguistic deprivation, that will subsequently impact many other domains. Talking about cochlear implants and sign language by the way of slogans does not help a correct understanding, as the situation is complex. I have talked about such topics with persons I would have never thought that would later tell me they had found it interesting. The problem of deafness is not a lack of hearing, but the impact on language, on relational abilities, and much more. By only curing hearing, false expectations are generated, one lets one’s guard down, and thinks that there are no more problems. In a country like Switzerland, it is special education that decides, and coordinates how to approach the deaf person, and not physicians. In using the medical perspective alone, one risks to center attention on the sensory aspect of the ear, loosing track of cognition and the psychologic dimension bearing on identity. How does this individual feel, is he/ she comfortable with himself/herself? Deafness, data tell us, may associate with problems of mental health, with difficulties in growth. One may have a cochlear implant, but if the person remains fragile, unable to plan his/her life path, results may not be so effective. A balanced path of growth should take into account sensory perception, the cognitive system, the dimension of identity. It would be so precious if professional resources issued from all these domains could talk to one another . . .

These ideas are uncommon outside groups of people directly involved in Deaf studies. They attest that the broader society is taking an interest in the arguments that the Deaf community is supporting. The “wave” generated by Deaf studies has reached the frontier of those who organize their field around a different perspective of deafness, physicians. Asked to list the young scholars belonging to his research group and participating in research connected to deafness, apart the university students temporarily involved in research, Francesco Pavani mentions nine doctoral and post-doctoral students, some of whom having a tenured or permanent university position. He mentions at least two groups of researchers, the one in Padua working with Francesca Peressotti “on the interactions between the language system and other

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cognitive functions, such as spatial attention, visual short memory, executive functions;” and the one where Davide Bottari is active, who has trained both with Francesco Pavani and Brigitte Roeder to the study of the neural correlates of deafness and blindness, and to the study of critical periods, and is now working at IMT Lucca. Francesco Pavani mentions four otorhinolaryngologists active in research with whom he collaborates, in Italy and in France. This larger participation of university students, doctoral and post-doctoral students is another evidence that the wave generated by Deaf studies is expanding towards society at large. Another step of capital importance is still waiting, though. When asked about the participation of Deaf persons in research as researchers, and not only as participants, Francesco Pavani recognizes: In Italy this has not been realized. It demands for the laboratory to be solid, very solid, in sign language. One individual researcher is not enough. I may learn sign language and encourage my collaborators to learn it, but this is not sufficient: sign language must really become the official language in the lab. I have exchanged ideas on this topic with Matthew Dye [National Technical Institute for the Deaf, at the Rochester Institute for Technology]. He told me that his lab includes Deaf and hearing researchers, and sign language is its official language. The prevalence of a spoken language would mean having a language that is difficult to manage, for some participants. In Italy we could not achieve this in any research group. Not to talk about having a Deaf leadership. It is very difficult to organize, but it is very, very important.

How far did this process of involvement of research environments into deafness topics reach? Who has become aware about needs connected to deafness? How much of the Italian society has been concerned? When it comes to my colleagues in Cognitive Science, they master notions such as early onset and late onset, as it takes place for blindness. But the same very experienced persons lack basic notions about deafness, such as the linguistic dimension linked to deafness, or the fact that sign language is not just one and the same throughout the world. Research on cognition in presence of deafness remains a niche. In 2018, after three years of attempts, we succeeded in obtaining Italian PRIN state funds for research to network labs working on deafness. I cannot say whether this newborn network will transform into a permanent network, able to resist throughout time. We would be happy if this could take place. We would like to organize events of dissemination, create webpages to answer questions of interest for deaf persons, as there are notions that are established in the international research community and have not reached public opinion in Italy.

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I have participated in seminars with support teachers [support teachers work in Italy with disabled students], and my feeling is that the realm of education is still far from informed about our findings. A few very virtuous structures exist throughout Italy, that assist caregivers of deaf children and where there is an attentive care toward caregivers’ expectations about cochlear implant. In such structures, research results are correctly communicated to caregivers: not all cochlear implants function well, some contexts are more difficult in term of success of the implant, and cochlear implant does not solve all problems, so that a parallel work must be made in both speech therapy and in other dimensions of cognitive and personal growth. One could do much more and much better, but my judgement is that a connection to research results has come into existence.

11b.4 Conclusion This chapter has focused on three research groups. The Rome group founded the field of sign language and Deaf studies and, in parallel, worked in the empowerment of Deaf persons, directly acting on Deaf researchers. This research group generated a “wave” of increased awareness about deafness that spread from its center towards, potentially, Italian society at large. After twenty-five to thirty years, many more scholars were active in research connected to deafness, among them two new research groups: a linguistics research group, studying sign language in a Generative perspective, and a Cognitive science and Neuroscience research group, working on various aspects of cognition in presence of deafness. They stemmed from already established research fields, distinct from Deaf studies. They can either be considered to have been interested by a transmission to Italian society of the “wave” generated by the Rome group, or to have been generated by the original American interest into deafness, that had effect on the formation of the Rome group itself. In fact, at the same time with the Roman “wave”, the American “wave” that had also been influential on the establishment of the Rome research group continued to exert its influence on Italian research. Interviewing the leading researchers in these three groups allowed me to inquire on how extended the impact of a greater awareness about deafness has been. Possibly because sign language has been at the core of Deaf studies, there has been a more extended and more permanent effect on Linguistics in general than on Cognitive science in general. Research on sign language has become a permanent and universally accepted presence in the linguistic field. It has also been institutionalized by

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Italian universities such as Venice and Catania, which offer full programs in Italian Sign Language and linked disciplines. Research on Cognitive science and Neuroscience has resulted in the first “wave” of Deaf studies having reached the frontier of other already-existing scientific fields, that conducted their research on deafness with different solutions and different values. This has generated the need of a dialogue “going beyond slogans”, between the medical world, supporting cochlear implant, and the culturalist views of the sign-language world. Important sectors of the academic world, intended as part of hearing society, as such distinct from the Deaf community or the signing community, seem to be ready to take their responsibility in this crucial passage towards realized inclusion. It is when the ability to include Deaf persons is no more the work of the professionals of deafness, that inclusion is realized. After an initial moment of support, there must be a time when Deaf persons are able to pursue their objectives autonomously, without dependence on hearing people: this is the society we mean to build. This was also Joseph Castronovo’s dream (chapter 8a): counting on his own forces to build his projects in society at large. In Italy, much work remains to be done, in schools, where the most brilliant didactic models have not been universalized (chapter 4b), and in universities themselves, where the participation of Deaf researchers to research on deafness has just begun (chapter 12b). In addition, Italy has been the last country in Europe to recognize its sign language, LIS, in its national legislation. Awareness about deafness is far from having reached extensively and permanently Italian society at large, but a second phase characterized by a competent and ethical attitude towards Deaf people is already successfully taking place in some of its sectors.

Anna Folchi & Fulvia Carli

12a Edgardo Carli, Deaf partisan. A conference of Anna’s In a conference, Anna tells the story of Edgardo Carli, talking in the first person. Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen. The story I will tell you this evening is the story of a Deaf partisan, Edgardo Carli (Figure 55). Not only it is a story worth telling, but I will be able to tell it in a special way, as I will closely follow a document, written by its protagonist. July 24, 1993 Dearest Anna, This is the fruit of my “literary” engagement. I have not been writing for a long time now, except for an article that is to appear on the July issue of the review “Settimana del Sordo”. Three times I have commenced this text, and three times I torn it to pieces. I cannot tell if this will satisfy you. Maybe I have idealized events a little too much. But you can believe me, the feelings I describe are the same as I felt at the time, sufferance included, and as I wrote I was moved, in my heart as well as in my memory. I have entirely relived my life. It was a hard try, what you requested from me, but here I am, expressing my gratitude. . . . I will organize for this to reach you as early as possible. But what will you do out of it? A seminar? I wish this text would remain with you alone, and only after I went to hell, you would make use of it. But I do not want to limit you, so you follow your own choices and keep me informed. I hope to have the chance to see you in the not-too-distant future. For the time being, I hug you with great love, and wish you the success and satisfactions that you deserve. Literary kisses, Your second dad

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12a.1 Deafness My story begins when I was four years old. I developed a strong bilateral otitis, followed by visits and cures, but no results: my hearing was in some measure impaired. At elementary school, my schoolmates used to tease me, labelling me “the deaf”. At the age of nine, I developed meningitis, and in order to save my life, an operation of mastoiditis was performed. My left ear was functioning, but my social life became difficult and insufficient. My most satisfying company were books, I devoured them. I still loved music and singing, and as my deafness advanced, I sought relief from it. When I was twenty years old, I dived into the Garda lake from a height of three to four meters, and as I surfaced, I felt strongly incapacitated. The morning after I saw my parents talking, and protested, “If you have secrets you do not want to share with me, you close your room door, you do not talk without a voice!” My mother responded, but I could not hear her. I had her repeat, and I continued not to hear . . . I was reduced to total deafness. I decided I would not talk to anyone anymore, I declined to leave home, I escaped the company of people. My father drove me to important physicians, in Italy and in Switzerland, but their reaction was one and the same: I had to accept my deafness. Time elapsed, I followed lipreading classes. One morning, as I was looking for my teacher, I opened a door leading to a large living room, and an apocalyptic view was disclosed to me: each of the persons present were moving their hands, gesturing, laughing, discussing. I could not tell they were Deaf, as I had never met a Deaf person before. An elderly man approached me, and that was how my new existence began. I learned their language, their manner to communicate. They gave me back my life, and I worked for them, fought social, economic and cultural battles for them. My debt towards them is so great, I have never considered it repaid.

12a.2 How I chose to become a partisan I had left Milan in a hurry on September 1942, when I was 28 years old, as the Germans [at the time Italy was fascist and the ally of Germany] had an organization, “TOD”, that would order pickups of persons to force them to work in Germany.

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I reached Parma, my city of birth, whose topography I used to master better than the majority of its inhabitants. When I was fifteen years old, my father had told me about Parma’s ancient times. In Parma, important personalities had been born: Giuseppe Verdi, the opera composer, Vittorio Bottego, the explorer of the Omo river in Africa, Giovanni Battista Bodoni, the great typographer who invented typewritten characters, Ildebrando Pizzetti, another composer, Arturo Toscanini, the world-famous orchestra conductor. Gradually, our discussion had led him to talk about Guido Picelli, great propagandist, organizer of the “Arditi del Popolo”, a group of resolute, brave men, who fought fascism. I am distinctly reminded of that evening: the fascinating story that my father was telling kept us from leaving home and go watch fireworks. He told me about the barricades that blocked Balbo’s fascists on the other bank of the river, away from the area of the city known as the “oltretorrente”. He told me the whole story of anti-fascist Parma, with its heroes, both illustrious and unknown. It was the first and only talk on anti-fascism he ever had with me. I was reminded of it in 1943, when I went to Parma, certain to be able to meet there other anti-fascists, as the time had come for the Italian people to politically react. [From July 1943, Mussolini had been ousted from power, and Italy was quickly occupied by Germans. Many Italians became partisans, and resistance actions began.] I had a partner, at the time, Tilde. I left her in Milan, intentioned to have her reach me in Parma at a later time. My intention was to contact the Italian Communist Party [which was very active in Italian partisan resistance], and this was simpler in Parma, where I used to know many comrades: among them, Cavestro, the fur trader, and Isola, who had been the last communist mayor of the city.

12a.3 Two partisans, and my first assignments in resistance My first meeting took place with Cavestro, in his beautiful house, with his beautiful wife. His son Giordano, who would subsequently be attributed Medaglia d’Oro della Resistenza, a golden medal as a partisan, and be executed by fascists, at that moment was not at home. Cavestro was impressed with my profound deafness. We briefly talked about it, and he was impressed by my lipreading abilities as well. Then we discussed

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Figure 55: Portrait of Edgardo Carli, by Francesco Rubino.

politics, the Italian Communist party, its watchwords, its strengths, its potentials to motivate the Italian population into anti-fascism. He told me about the CLN, the National Liberation Committee, the leading agency that confederated and coordinated all Italian anti-fascist parties. He talked for a long time, and I was thrilled, tensed, inspired. He explained about the GAPs, the groups for patriotic action, the SAPs, the teams for patriotic action, and the partisan Brigate Garibaldi, that were fighting on the mountains. Time elapsed, and curfew forced me to remain to sleep at his place. He promised I would have “worked”. The morning after, I toured my city to better understand what the situation was. Everything appeared to me to be normal, shops were functioning, people intently walked here and there, engaged by their commitments. It appeared to be normal, except for fascist squads, walking around armed to the teeth, and German soldiers, stomping in a determined attitude. In the meantime, I had rented an apartment in Borgo del Leon d’Oro, it had two entrance doors and three rooms. After some time, eventually an envoy sent by Cavestro visited me. His nom de guerre was Fulvio, that is how I used to know him. His real name was Bruno

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Longhi, he too was to be attributed a Medaglia d’Oro della Resistenza, he would lose his life, killed by fascists and nazis just few days before Liberation. He was short, had a great moral strength, was slightly older than me. He brought me some materials that I had to typewrite. It was a journal, La Nostra Lotta, that is “Our fight”, that published thoughts I would follow throughout my future time as an example of life. He also provided me with a typewriter. Actually, I longed for real action, but I was happy to accept that work, thinking that, as a consequence of my deafness, I could not expect anything more engaging. I was a hard worker, and my task consisted in typing three and three more copies of La Nostra Lotta. A young woman, Rosetta, used to come over to collect the journals: I never learned anything more about her real identity. Night and day I persistently typed, saving just some time to eat and sleep. After some months, this life tired me, I wished I could contribute to action, and I thought that the typing activity was not appropriate to the time we were living. I shared my thought with Fulvio, who effectively explained to me how important communist press was. He conveyed me new awareness and strength. One day, the British bombed the city. It was the first time. Alarms had been activated late, when airplanes were already over the city. A bomb exploded right besides my home. My hearing wife and I ran away, running to . . . only God knows where. Everyone was running. We reached an arch. Tilde was pregnant, I had her lay down on the ground, and laid on her to protect her. When the bombing was over, we went back home, where I returned to work. Another time, alarms activated in time, and Fulvio came over by bicycle, to take Tilde and lead her to the countryside. As for me, I would be accommodated in some shelter. Every single day, an alarm was activated. Often, they shipped their death fraught far away. We got used to it.

12a.4 Politics for young people who had never experienced it One day, Fulvio told me that, besides typewriting, I should be ideating flyers meant for the population to become politically aware. In addition, at a convened time, I would have to get some place, where I would have met three to four persons, and I should have explained to them the justness of our fight against nazi-fascists.

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I was concerned and puzzled. Should I go talk to young people? How could I ever be able to do so, considering my deafness? They would have asked questions, how would I have understood? This froze my happiness with respect to moving away from my typewriter. I mentioned this to Fulvio, but he reassured me, by that time, he said, I had acquired a fairly good political competence, and, aided by my abilities in lipreading, I would have managed. Anyway, I had to make an attempt. So, I went. I introduced myself with my nom de guerre “Sandro”, and I lectured. My responsibility was to make them politically aware, ideally capable to fight. They were young workers and students, not older than eighteen or twenty. I was not aware of how long I talked, then, quite unforeseen, I said it was about time to go home, and I referred the matter to the subsequent meeting. I cleared off. I described the evening to Fulvio, who told me it had been just fine like that. He encouraged me and recommended me not to run away, next time. And the subsequent meeting, I did not. In effect, I was able to properly comprehend exchanges, I was a good lipreader and my concentration was strenuous. I did my best to perform at my top. When I could not understand a word, I compensated with the following ones, with the context. One time, in my audience, even some professors were present. I was supposed to talk to professors about the CNL, the Committee for National Liberation, of the importance of a fight common to communists, socialists, Giustizia e Libertà [a political anti-fascist group organized by Italians in France]. They could not believe to their ears, there was a communist they could question about the Soviet Union. Thus, it was not about CNL that I lectured them. Their inquiries reflected a lack of expertise about Soviet Russia, they wondered what would happen, were war to result in a Russian victory: would Russia occupy Italy? Eventually, they left the place in a group, just ignoring the most elementary rules about security, that is, to exit one at a time. Months elapsed, and I requested to be assigned to the partisan brigades on the mountains for some time. I wished I could experience fighting, meet partisans, share their lives. After various, lengthy discussions, to which I did not participate, I was assigned to the twelfth Brigade Garibaldi. I wanted to realize whether, with my deafness, I could be an asset or I would remain a drawback for the brigade. With much wisdom and foresight, and respecting all measures of security, I reached my destination. Fulvio had extensively talked to me about the brigade commander, Serse. Serse welcomed me kindly. He introduced me to the political superintendent and to various partisans, both communists and non-communists. I talked to them about the importance to fight Nazi-fascism, to redress Italy’s

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honor. It was a brief speech, but by that time I had understood that I was constantly being used in a role of orator, never mind my being Deaf.

12a.5 A hard time with non-communist partisans and with the British air force Two days later I was participating in a meeting with another group of partisans, that was distant some kilometers. The partisan Volpe, “Fox”, accompanied me, he was an experienced young man, who had participated in various fights, and knew the road. I had to wear civilian clothes, he had on him the usual weaponry. It was a difficult task, as the other group’s commander did not appreciate communists – in that detachment, we were just eight communists of us –, so that he decided for our meeting to be far away from the main group. I had just begun my speech, that we were surrounded by the other elements of the detachment, led by their commander, pointing their arms at us. They wanted to confiscate Volpe’s weapons, but the two of us resisted, so they thought better not to. Incidentally, their leader, a “communist eater”, did not miss the chance of an extensive preach, ending with the recommendation for us to leave his territory and never come back, lest he shoot us. We left, very dissatisfied, and we debriefed to partisans higher in the hierarchy. They judged the events we had reported very serious, so that, briefly after that, the leader of the detachment that had mistreated us was discharged, and the detachment was dissolved and incorporated in the twelfth Brigade. Another episode I wish to tell about concerns “Pippo”. “Pippo” was a British night fight airplane that loved to machine-gun the area we were based in. We protested, but, the night after, the airplane was over us again. The commander Serse played a crucial but at the same time hazardous card. The allies command, that was essentially constituted by British soldiers, was stationed in Bosco di Corniglio. Their commander was major Holland. Years later, when I met him in Florence, I discovered he had become the manager for Italy of the Amplifon firm, producing hearing aids for deaf persons. Serse communicated to the allies’ command that should they kill or injure a partisan, he would order to arrest and shoot some English soldiers. Serse’s card proved effective. From the day after, no one heard about Pippo any longer. In the first days of August I moved back to the city, and once in Parma I contacted the SAP units.

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12a.6 I was a father! On August 27, the news reached me that Tilde had given birth to a baby girl. Two days had elapsed since the birth. I did not rejoice. It was a new, big responsibility on my shoulders. I reached the maternity ward at a time when no visits were expected, and nuns were absent. After inspecting me with a look, the concierge allowed me in. At the ground floor I could not recognize my wife among the new mothers. At the first floor, had she not been beckoning at me, I would have not identified her. I approached, I hugged her. As I was standing silent, she raised the sheet, and I perceived a tiny, tiny thing. I turned around the bed and took her in my arms. I did not yet feel I was a father, but as I kissed her, I was strongly moved in my very blood. What occurred to me I cannot tell. I only know that I hugged her tight, I kissed her over and over, then I returned her to her mom’s arms. I was transformed, that is what Tilde said. We named her Fulvia, after my great friend, the partisan. Now I had one more reason to fight: my daughter had to grow up in a free Italy, freed from fascists and Germans. With the image of my little girl’s tiny face in my mind, I took up work again, but with a greater prudence.

12a.7 Partisan fight I was charged to accompany three members of SAPs in an action in town to disarm isolated Nazi-fascists. Once again, I was concerned for my deafness, but by that time I had become aware that, once the order received, I would have managed by taking a good look around. I was the only one with weapons, and kept myself at a short distance, as a passer-by whatsoever. But actually, my finger was on the gun in my pocket, just in case the enemy might react. Fortunately, everything worked as expected: they were not been offered any escape, and, in addition, were given quite a scare. This type of job did not work for long. Immediately after our first actions, Nazi-fascists were ordered to walk in the city in groups of three to four. At night, we distributed three-pointed spikes in the places where German trucks were supposed to drive. Flyer distribution activities enlarged, we now took to place flyers on ground-floor houses window sills. Once, a GAP member accompanied us. We had almost finished our distribution tour, when a German patrol identified us. The GAP member immediately

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got into action and, shooting from a three-meter distance, killed a German soldier. The rest of the patrol was taken by surprise, so they gained a distance as quick as they could on one side, and we did the same on the other side. The only man who stood on the spot for some time was the GAP member. After a moment, he left as well. These were small episodes, but they required quite a cool head, as we were constantly exposed, day and night. In effect, it was at night that Nazi-fascists preferred to arrest partisans. Thus, we continuously moved from home to home. We were aware that, once captured, torture or shooting expected us.

12a.8 Providing blankets for partisans on the mountains, by stealing them to the Italian army In September 1944, in the prospect of spending another winter on the mountains, the partisan leaders in charge required us to provide blankets and warm clothes for the brigades. SAP partisans immediately offered themselves to take charge of such provision, and the commanders assembled, and planned to assault the city military warehouses. For a fortnight, we regularly met to better define a plan, and finally the plan was approved. In the city of Parma, there were two warehouses that could be appropriate for our needs, with respect to the quantity of goods they stored. So, a representative of mountain brigades was summoned, to jointly review the plan, which included making use of two trucks. The two warehouses were positioned at the opposite ends of the city. Some twenty SAP members would participate in the action, and in addition, a dozen of armed partisans. We had to contact the soldiers inside the warehouses and convince them to collaborate. The two trucks would be “requisitioned” on the day the action was supposed to take place. We were supposed not to shoot, unless really required to, to prevent fascists from rushing in. Additional time was employed to prepare SAP members and decide the positions they should take in order to effectively cover the partisans to be involved in the action. My detachment would participate, and my role was to be standing outside the warehouse and control the streets, as a support for the assaulting group. At the end of the month, the day selected for action arrived. At 12 a.m. o’clock, the two warehouses were to be attacked at the same time. The truck made its appearance in front of the warehouse, and the partisan commander

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knocked at the lateral door. As soon as the door was opened, he pointed the gun, and had three SAP members enter, open wide the gates for the truck, and immediately after the truck was inside, close the gates so that nothing uncommon would be visible from the outside. Our men got out of the truck, and declared to the soldiers, who were taken by surprise, “In the name of CLN, do not resist, collaborate”. The soldiers did collaborate, and in a short time blankets, clothes, foodstuff and weapons were loaded on the truck. From the outside, we had identified a major, who was proceeding towards the warehouse. We whistled our convened notes of warning, so that as soon as the major entered the warehouse, he was under the control of our guns. He put a good face on it and let himself be disarmed and locked in a room. The truck, overflowing with goods, took the road leading to the mountain, as the SAP dispersed in the city, happy and lightly euphoric. The plan had succeeded.

12a.9 Printing the free press The action at the warehouses was my last war action. Starting from the month before, I had been charged with a new responsibility: I had to secure that L’Unità, the newspaper of the Italian Communist Party, would regularly come out. Enough with flyers and multiplicator bulletins. The operation center provided me with the header and logo of the newspaper, and the address of two comrade typographers. Articles would be provided by the operational center, and when they lacked, I was supposed to personally provide them. As I was getting prepared for this new job, a grave loss hit me: my sixteenyears-old nephew, a member of SAP as well, was killed in battle as he assaulted and exploded a train loaded with ammunitions. Organizing a clandestine typography is a difficult enterprise, especially when one is supposed to manage it all on his own. Finding a place to install the typographic pedal machine, finding a person who was able to operate it, having the press I produced delivered. After various efforts, I found the place: a storeroom of a comrade plasterer in a dark side road. We had to have the typographic machine lowered in a trapdoor and settled in a space where two persons could hardly move. Worktime would be two hours, then we would come up in the free air to breath. A young worker, twenty-six years old, would be operating it. He would leave the SAP and go underground, exactly as I would be doing. Dangerous, but

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the partisan organization was watching over us. We became operative. In half a month, we used to produce five to six hundred copies. I had left SAP much to my regret, but this new work was making me really happy. The city was flooded with L’Unità, which was then distributed on the mountains as well, making the partisans as happy as I was. After our printing work, we circulated in the city as usual, we did not even have a gun any longer, we were totally “clean”. The coming out of L’Unità was a hard blow for Nazi-fascists, who were forced to acknowledge our organizational capacity. The network for the distribution of the newspaper was especially effective. A tailor was in charge of it, he received all the copies, supplied dispatch riders, who were usually brave young women. The women distributed newspaper throughout the city. Throughout time, Nazi-fascist were not able to capture even a single one of those women. They increasingly inspected bars, restaurants, but they could not discover any. They were furious.

12a.10 Hardships in the most difficult war winter. Edgardo’s wife is arrested Winter 1944–1945 was hard. Partisans were made the object of continuous, barbarous mop-ups. A declaration by British general Harold Alexander, the “Proclama Alexander”, was universally interpreted by partisans as a recommendation to lay down their arms and return to their houses. But hardly one of us left the mountain. The situation was especially hard in the city, the population had neither wood nor coal to warm up, with the result that the trees in gardens and avenues were cut down. In March 1945, a massive raid beheaded the partisan organization of its leadership. Comrades, Fulvio among them, were tortured and massacred. Tilde, my wife, was arrested as well, while the baby remained at home with my mother. I could remark how effective the solidarity among neighbors was: Fulvia did not lack milk one single day, everyone participated in supporting my mother, who ignored my role in the resistance and was left without resources. After the war ended, Tilde told me that, as she was arrested and interrogated, they continued asking about “Sandro”, but she pretended she was a prostitute and saw many men, ignoring what their names were.

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12a.11 Arrested by fascists When Tilde was arrested, I was forced to take refuge on the mountains. The operational center provided me with a dispatch rider and a bicycle. The rider was experienced about the roads to choose, in order to avoid roadblocks, checkpoints and danger. We were riding, she was in front of me, distancing me some twenty meters. At a certain point, the road made a sharp turn, and it was there that the fascists took us. They had just established a new checkpoint and had had a peasant house cleared out. They arrested us. Neither the dispatch rider not me were carrying compromising documents. I was confined in a room on the ground floor. I thought to myself, my adventures have come to an end. I thought of my daughter, who would soon be seven months old. I thought of the concentration camp expecting me. I thought of torture, or worse, shooting. But luck had not abandoned me. I perceived a movement of young peasants outside, they were getting back on their bicycles, making the fascist salute, and riding away. Without thinking twice, I climbed over the window, ran to my bicycle, made a beautiful fascist salute and rode towards the not-so-far-away mountain. I rode quick as the wind. Long after, I was told that as I run away, a fascist had spotted me, had shouted, and was about to shoot me. But I had not heard his shouts. Luckily, a peasant in the group of riders blocked him, saying that I was one rider in the group. It was the brave young man who had saved my life, who told me this story. I cycled hard, desperately, until I reached Torrechiara, some ten kilometers further. I was breathless. I refreshed myself at the fountain and looked around. A woman was on a house threshold and did not move. Then, she entered the house. I could not move, my legs were gone with stiffness. The woman left the house, without a word. Ten minutes after, a partisan arrived, in a chariot. We talked briefly, then he loaded me and my bicycle on his chariot, and off to the partisan command. At the command, I met Serse, we hugged, and I told him the whole story. I also told about what most concerned me, my wife’s arrest. Tilde used to be a dispatch rider for Communist party officials, travelling back and forth from Parma to Piacenza and from Parma to Reggio Emilia, with documents on her and the baby in her arms. My request for Serse was to propose Germans an exchange of prisoners, my wife against a prisoner of ours. Serse listened to me considerately, encouraged me, and promised that he would do his best for an exchange of prisoners with Germans. He gave me a meal, a bed, and congratulated me for the provision of L’Unità.

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12a.12 The liberation. Political engagement for Deaf people On April 25, 1945, the partisan brigade proceeded down from the mountains and to the city of Parma, for a last fight. I was happy to meet the SAP district commander, but I was happier still when I could hug my beautiful little girl and Tilde. I was discharged from my position of partisan with the grade of Commissario di Battaglione and Vice Commissario di Brigata. I even received Stella Garibaldina [the Italian Communist Party honored partisans with this title] and Croce di Guerra [the Italian state recognized military and partisan merit with this reward.] The war was over, I went back home to Milan with my family. I resumed my engagement towards the Deaf community. Together with Francesco Rubino, I founded the magazines Riscossa and Rinascita. They were meant to inform our Deaf fellows about Italian politics and the actions that were being taken to reach a formal, legal recognition of a Deaf association, an association that could politically represent Italian Deaf people. I was a component of the Committee of ten men who founded what was then named Ente Nazionale Sordomuti and has presently transformed into Ente Nazionale Sordi, ENS (see chapter 7b). I worked as a journalist for L’Unità, and as a volunteer for ENS. In 1954, the choice presented itself: should I continue with my work at L’Unità, with a good wage, or should I work full-time for ENS, with a much lower wage? I did not have a doubt, I chose to dedicate my time completely to the Deaf community. I was the regional secretary of ENS Toscana, and I organized its nine provincial sections, and after some time, I did the same with Perugia section. I had long been unhappy, realizing that Deaf persons were only employed in unqualified and underpaid jobs, such as tailors and shoe repairs. So, in 1955, I founded and directed the school for orthodontists of Florence ENS, with teachers recruited from a school for hearing students, “Leonardo Da Vinci”. In 1960, the school moved to Padova, within a secondary school for Deaf students, the Institute “Antonio Magarotto”. It has remained there until the present time. Two years after, ENS central office required me to move to Rome, and employed me as the director of the department for recruitment and support to labor.

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I worked hard for the Law 482/1968 to be approved. The law concerned the access to work for Deaf people. No false modesty, but article number 7 has been a real victory: “Deaf-mutes are to be compulsorily given a job”. I realize my life has almost come to an end. My life has had highs and lows, as any other life. But I can say that my “highs” have been exceptional: I fought to free Italy – me, a Deaf man –; I have been a journalist in a prestigious newspaper – me, a Deaf man –; I battled against bureaucratic narrowmindedness to improve life conditions of fellow Deaf people – me, a Deaf man –; I have been the secretary of the Italian Communist Party section “Cavalleggeri” in Rome – me, a Deaf man. Me, a Deaf man. Happy to be one.

12a.13 Conclusion Back to my role as Anna, now, to briefly tell you what belongs to Edgardo’s story, but Edgardo could not tell. On September 21, 2019, the name of Edgardo Carli has been attributed to a parc, in a green area of his city, Parma (Figure 56).

Figure 56: A parc has been entitled to Edgardo Carli in his city, Parma.

Mirko Santoro & Sara Trovato

12b Academic matters. The Deaf perspective: Difficulties and proposed solutions Our freedom is sign language

(first interviewee)

A language is a language, linguistic identity should not be confused with personal identity (second interviewee)

Chapter 11b described how Deaf linguistics, Deaf studies, and research on Deaf cognition have been established in Italy, after the mid-Seventies. It was a history mostly told from the hearing perspective, since few Deaf researchers participated in this enterprise – and no one in a leading position, within academy. The existence of Deaf studies, that have been established in various European Universities in parallel to Italy, implies that Deaf students might benefit from an increased chance of access to universities, and should also participate more extensively in the university as an Institution. Harlan Lane wrote: it would be unthinkable today for Black studies programs to be composed of white people who published articles about black people in professional journals; nor could there be an all-men Women's studies program . . . Our universities have yet to apply the same ethical (and practical) principles when it comes to the Deaf community (Lane 1999: 69–70)

And in effect, at present, in various European countries, the first wave of Deaf signers is accessing academic institutions. This chapter presents the Deaf perspective on the academic enterprise, not historically but rather concerning an ongoing process. Its goal is to identify the problems that universities present to their Deaf “users”, and their relative possible solutions, as Deaf actors themselves perceive them. The issue arises about how Deaf participation to courses should be supported, how to increase the number of Deaf students, how to improve the quality of their university experience, and how to create a generation of Deaf researchers. In order to improve the quality and the quantity of Deaf participation in academic institutions, this chapter means to offer a space where a dialogue can be opened between Deaf university “users” and university academy organizers and authorities.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-024

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The domain of institutional innovation within universities with respect to Deaf enrollment and participation to research has been explored in literature only very limitedly. Therefore, the most adequate methodology for this topic is qualitative. Interviews have been conducted in order to focus on accessibility and effectiveness as perceived by Deaf students, Deaf researchers, or Deaf persons who wanted to attend university but could not.

12b.1 Participants The rationale for selecting participants was to have persons who have been or have wished to be university students. Some of them have also desired to become university researchers, but not everyone has had the chance to realize their aspirations. A subjective evaluation of the authors led to select Deaf persons to be interviewed who enjoy a considerable reputation in the Deaf community, have prestigious occupations and are good at their job. Six participants have been interviewed: they are aged 26, 31, 37, 38, 50 and 51, and have been selected in three countries: Italy, France and Germany. Interviewees have been selected in order to be three men and three women, three having achieved their doctoral degree, three not having finished their bachelor degree – one having not attempted it, one having abandoned it, one is a current student –, three having specialized in disciplines making use of experimental and scientific methods – including formal linguistics –, three in humanities and social disciplines. One of the participants was from a hearing family, five from a Deaf family – but in one of the Deaf families it was a hearing grandmother who took decisions concerning her grandchild’s education. Four interviewees were educated in a mainstreamed, oralist environment, one switched from signed/bilingual education to mainstreaming, another attended the final years of secondary school in an institute for the Deaf. Participants have been granted anonymity at the moment of the interviews: this is the reason why their sociodemographic characteristics have been presented above in such a manner that their identities cannot be recognized. In the quotes that follow, reference to places and people have been omitted, and no identification is given for the interviewees that are quoted.

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12b.2 The interviews Interviews have been individually conducted in Italian Sign Language, French Sign Language or International Sign Language by Mirko Santoro, the Deaf author of this chapter. An empathic relationship has been established; the objectives of the interview have been declared. Three specific objectives have been communicated to interviewees: conveying the Deaf perspective to hearing actors who are interested in improving access in tertiary education; reversing the trend of exclusion from university and from participation in research; empowering Deaf people over decisions that affect them, the Deaf community, and the hearing and Deaf society in its entirety. Reasons of possible misunderstanding have been ruled out, the interviewer has taken care not to influence the interviewees’ answers and has not frequently interrupted them. After an initial phase when the interviewee told her/his educational history, questions were posed following a semi-structured design, as shown in Table 9, starting from more general towards more specific topics, encouraging narration as it became more interesting. Interviews have been videoed and then transcribed. Table 9: Questions asked during the interviews. – – – – – –

– –

Tell about your education at school and at the university. How did you become a researcher (if the interviewee is a researcher) / did you successfully finish your university studies? In general, what has supported you and what has created difficulties to you, during the time you spent at the university? What was the institutional support you had, and the one you wished you could have? What do you judge to be concrete effective interventions in support of Deaf university students? What changes for the better could you observe in your country – or in other countries you have a first-hand experience about – from the past generation to the present one. How did they come about? Could you observe a similar change in universities? How has it been produced? Consider the extant situation in universities. Consider the need to manage a gradual transition, starting from a situation where hearing professors are not only the majority, but the totality. Imagine a professor who is good-willed but does not know how to properly adapt to Deaf students’ needs. Were the professor willing to listen to you, what ideas would you suggest?

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Table 9 (continued) –

– – –

– –

Access to university is prepared by effective schooling. The effectiveness of school with Deaf students, throughout the world is still limited. What can be done in school, to fill the gap between the competences and knowledge learned by Deaf and hearing students? What are your personal ideas about a good working, really inclusive university and school environment? Tell me two episodes: one where a wall barred access, one when doors opened wide for you. What resources have been activated during your time at the university, and who has paid for them? Considering that resources are scarce by definition, how do you think they should be allocated? Tell what your relationship was to interpretation spoken/sign language. What legislation about deafness/disability has been activated during your time at school and university? Was it effective or not?

12b.3 Opening new paths, opening up the Deaf world. Does it work, or has one to adapt to already-existing paths? Before me, as I was told, there was an oralist deaf person, who had been enrolled in the bachelor's degree – but no Deaf signer had been a student in the Master’s, so I was the first Deaf signer to enter the Ph.D. program.

Another interviewee tells We are well aware that there are no Deaf people in universities, so I had to fight, as I have been fighting since my birth, having always to do the first step. There has never been the company that suited me, I have always had to adapt to the majority, I have always had to fight for equal opportunities.

Times have changed, from the past generation to the present generation of Deaf students. Mirko thinks that for the past generation, university was impossible, but that at present, if Deaf persons have the will and the capabilities, they can study. In the past there was a fundamental inequality, whereas at present, we are gradually approaching equality. It is reasonable to think that the situation will improve for the second generation of Deaf university students, although, at present, meeting “second generation” Deaf students in university is quite unusual:

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[A very famous hearing scholar in Deaf studies] has been previously working where I am working now, who worked hard to ensure that Deaf people were treated as equals and not as disabled. It appears to me that it is all connected and I have to say thanks to him for struggling, I seem to receive the cultural heritage he passed on in past years.

In order for this ease to become the rule, however, much work needs to be done, in the awareness that today’s Deaf researchers are pioneers. The first issue connected to this pioneering condition is whether opening new paths is so expensive for Deaf students’ energies, to block their studies. In fact, among our interviewees, the only ones who had succeeded through university up to their Ph.D. were working in either Sign language linguistics or Deaf studies. The other three had enrolled in media studies, sociology, or had not enrolled and wished to do so in Sign language linguistics. As a consequence, there is a clear problem as to whether vocations are respected, public institutions are free to access, and, eventually, the right to education exists in practice (on the importance of having not only specialists in deafness, but many more people who are able to properly welcome Deaf people in Institutions, see chapter 11b). Here is one of the interviewees who did not complete university: Question: Why journalism? As a child I wanted to be a psychologist, meet with patients, listen to them. Then, as often happens, you choose Psychology because you have psychological problems. This meant that as a child, having had so many frustrations, so many impediments, so many failings in understanding and being understood, I had the instinct I wanted to understand other people. But over time I realized that this profession would not change society, psychology could only save one person in sixty million. I wanted a job that could change the opinion of the public and therefore of each individual.

Also the interviewees who completed their Ph.D. had a complex educational story, having moved from discipline to discipline: I passed the test to enter university in order to become a teacher, I attended it for all five years and after that period I realized that I did not want to teach hearing children but Deaf children. . . . They told me that with the university credentials I had it was not possible, and that I had to repeat the entire university path, but this time in Special education. Since the school for the Deaf could not hire me, I decided to enroll in Computer science.

Here is the second interviewee with a Ph.D.: In the first year I went to university choosing the Special education course because I had the goal of becoming a teacher for Deaf children. Once I entered university, I regretted it bitterly: it was a purely oralist school. The head of the department encouraged the use of cochlear implants, he practically repeated it every day, he never accepted a debate on the use of sign language. . . . After a year I left that department for a department of Media,

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such as radio, internet, TV, books, etc. I chose the curriculum focusing on books. During the same period, two professors in Sign language linguistics were there, with whom I had the opportunity to establish a good relationship. . . . So I moved to Sign language linguistics.

It is crucial to intervene, but how? A first, crucial recognition of the situation may consist in taking stock of what difficulties and solutions our interviewees have experienced. A list thereof is in Table 10. Table 10: Most frequent answers concerning difficulties. Number of participants who mentioned a difficulty or a solution

     

Difficulties in tertiary level education Having to choose a course of studies other than the one preferred

x x x x x x

Lack of resources

x x x x x

Feeling of inferiority about one’s academic level, or pedagogic decisions that reveal inferiority

x x x x x

Lack of motivation, fatigue

x x x x

Interpretation: its quantity, quality and effectiveness

x x x

Lack of circulation of information

x x x

Having to face a complicated bureaucracy, rigidity in applying rules

x x x

Competition with hearing students, who are stronger

x x x o

Having to organize one’s interpreting hours

x x x

Spoken language in its written version

x x

Excess of pressure

x x

Scientific writing

x x

Previous education was in spoken language

x x

Not having benefitted from mainstreamed education – that is perceived as stronger than special education

x x

Solutions in tertiary level education Sign language as the language used in education

x x x x x x

Need for more interpretation hours

x x x x x x

Being educated with other Deaf students, not in isolation

x x x x x x

Improving university organization, even radically

x x x x x x

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Table 10 (continued) Number of participants who mentioned a difficulty or a solution

     

Solutions in tertiary level education Fighting for one’s rights

x x x x o

Tutors who are Deaf or signers

x x x x x

Transforming the hearing context

x x x x x

Teachers who are signers vs interpreters

x x x x

International exchanges

x x x x

Attention to communication. Instructors providing a clear feedback, making sure it arrives, encouraging exchanges

x x x

Mentors who are signers or are informed and interested in the Deaf condition

x x x o

Reproducing positive models from abroad

x x x

Resources not being a problem

x x

Opening up the Deaf world to other people, other academic disciplines

x x

Empowerment, support to personal growth and to autonomy

x x

In academic domains where there is no established presence of Deaf students, programs meant for Deaf students, or adapted for Deaf students

x

An academic course of written spoken language

x

Deaf academic staff

x

Signers in university administration

x

Previous education in mainstreamed classes

x

Respect for cultural diversity and Deaf specificity

x

x = it is present as a difficulty (in the upper part of the table), or as a solution (in the lower part of the table). o = the opposite is present.

Considering the small number of participants in the interviews, the quantitative side of Table 10, although obviously interesting, should be taken very cautiously. Solutions may either have been experienced and validated in practice, or just proposed as possible interventions that would improve the situation. This implies that some existing solutions may have been considered more often, as they are at hand, while others may be equally or even more interesting, but have been proposed by individual interviewees who have thought them out for the first time.

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12b.4 Resources or rights Stating that university are unprepared to welcome Deaf students means that no permanent device is planned to accommodate their needs. Every need must be faced each time anew, and the single Deaf student must get engaged in creating the practical possibility for his/her participation in university activities. This situation can be observed even more when the Deaf student is the first Deaf student to enroll in his or her Department – a frequent situation, considering Deaf students’ numbers in the territory and the fact that there are still few Deaf students who have enrolled in tertiary education institutions. [In the university where I was going to enroll] they offered me an unpaid position: I should have been working for free. Deaf students who attended theory lessons were called upon as teachers to teach their colleagues sign language. This is what happened before I enrolled, and when I enrolled they offered me this unpaid job. I perceived this as a 'stinking' situation. I declined the offer, first because they had to find a sign language lecturer, then because I was not even from the same department. I replied that they could start a project in order to find funding. After that, I have not heard of them any more.

While students with other types of disability can have the budget allotted for them to be spent on various projects, all the budget available for Deaf students always goes to interpretation – if there is a budget at all. In private universities, it may be difficult to have a dedicated budget: Nothing special, I had to ask for a loan from the bank to pay for the interpreting service, a loan that I am still paying today. There was no other solution.

The same student tells that I had to ask people with some competence in sign language to come and interpret the lessons by paying out of my own pocket. With the objective of raising money I sold wine, mulled wine. It was already Christmas time, by doing a lot of advertising I managed to attract so many customers that I could allow myself to continue my studies.

Other students who had the privilege to be provided with satisfying interpretation during their Ph.D. time, have had such a possibility thanks to budget spent out of single professors’ research funds. They were lucky, but they felt that institutions should have relieved them from the feeling of having contracted an almost personal debt. This leads to many considerations. The first concerns the existence of an impersonal right as a citizen, for whom the state provides a service, namely education; a second consideration is about the occasional nature of these expenditures, that may also not be activated at all when no one proactively obtains them; the third concerns the adequacy of this way to spend public money.

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With respect to the adequacy of such expenditures, it can be said that resources – such as those devoted to interpretation services – dedicated to one student alone would be better used for a pool of Deaf students. Universities across a country should network so that whenever a university in one city opens a course offering interpretation, this information should be notified to Deaf potential students all over the country, and there should be no double offers in the same city in the same academic year. Deaf students would move to cities where their preferred degree program is offered. Thus, resources would be better spent, reaching a group rather than a single Deaf student, and they could be spared in one of two similar degree programs so as to possibly reach more students by offering diversified degree programs, and catering for diversified academic interests. This solution would cater for another need that is strongly felt by Deaf students: being enrolled in a pool, so as to be supported by fellow Deaf students, rather than being the only ones in their program. In my opinion, we Deaf people are similar to the ugly duckling. We live in a society of individuals who are not like us, we are always suffering and isolated, until one day we see one swan that signs, and joins the group of swans. The same happens to Deaf people [when they are with fellow Deaf students]. Being with fellows we are happy.

Fellow Deaf students are not only a companionship: in a first generation of university students they may help creating ideas about what are attainable standards for those who have the – often flawed – previous educational backgrounds of a Deaf student. They may help in comparing a student to another, a comparison that is useful for both students and teachers, so that standards may be adopted that are neither devaluating nor offensively pitiful. In my schooltime, professors often told me I had made great progress and complimented me. I wasn't sure but I kept going. I was the only Deaf person, so I couldn't make a comparison.

12b.5 Interpreters: An asset or a problem? As already mentioned before, for disabled people’s access, resources are usually provided – but for Deaf people, resources are often entirely destined to interpretation. This leads to the issue whether interpretation is the correct solution at all. Problems with respect to interpretation are various: percent of coverage of didactic hours through interpretation; doubts about the reliability and the

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quality of interpretation on both the hearing and the Deaf side; limits of interpretation when a dialogue takes place among various interlocutors, or for a didactics that is not the traditional one-to-many teaching. Let us consider these difficulties one by one. One of the interviewees commented on limiting interpreting hours, when talking not strictly about university, but rather about educational institutions in general: the lessons in signs would be covered for 40% of the total hours. I was horrified, I asked what will happen to the remaining 60%. Their answer, “well, 40% is still a lot”. This amounts to say that full access to classes is only available on Mondays and Tuesdays, while for the remaining days of the week, students have no access to classes. Is this reasonable? Not for me. How is it possible that an educational institution may be proud of this situation? I can't understand the logic of the law behind these figures. It is ridiculous.

Interpretation is expensive, and only rarely tertiary institutions provide a 100% coverage of didactic hours in terms of interpretation. Whenever access is less than 100%, some didactic contents may not be understood, and, obviously, the result may be blocking. Interpretation implies a form of dependence, for one’s and other’s voices to be conveyed. This means that a mixture of trust about competence and honesty has to be guaranteed. Competence has to be provided, as the more complex university courses are, the more competent an interpreter must be, in order to understand and correctly translate – and Ph.D. courses are complex. Honesty has to be provided as well, as universities are also places where people are evaluated, and interpreters must be professional and not do the work that students must do. Was there an interpreting service or assistance for the Deaf in high school? No, the school refused this service because they were afraid that the operators would help us in the tests. This is because the teachers did not understand what we were signing. There is often a problem in the lack of trust about things one does not know. I tried to change the situation without success.

Another interviewee: In university, one has to learn how to do research, how to teach scientific subjects, how to debate – as during the defense of a doctoral thesis. When I am among signers or among Deaf people, I feel completely free to say my opinions, but when I am among hearing people I often close myself because there is always this doubt as to whether the interpreter can translate me well or not, if he / she understands me. I can tell a lot about interpretation on the basis of the feedback from my interlocutors. Among Deaf people, on the other hand, I am sure to be understood so there is a real debate in all respects.

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And obviously, as in any profession, there are interpreters who are more or less competent in each discipline. For example, you, Mirko, you always call O. [a very competent interpreter in International Sign]. If he is not available for an international conference, what would you do? You should either look for another interpreter or be forced to ask O. a favor.

The mediation in translation implies loss of human contact, and not being able to understand who has taken the word during a debate: Not only human contact between me as a “speaker” and the audience is lost, but interpretation transforms the context into one where there cannot be an alternation of dialogue. Let's imagine a situation where there is a professor and several students, and a humorous dialogue begins, and people begin to laugh. I follow the interpreter who translates without understanding who said what. Clearly the interpreter cannot translate everything: well, this makes me lose motivation. But why do students attend classes if they have all textbooks and all the materials to study? For the positive environment in the classroom, for the human relationship, for the motivation that professors are able to convey. What about Deaf students? Instead of wasting time organizing interpreters’ schedules, we would better stay at home studying: the motivations would be the same as being in class with interpreters.

In other words, for some interviewees interpreting is advantageous in shortterm contexts, in discussions between two persons, while for conferences or for public contexts interpreting is not useful. They gave me a mission to do, writing, and I completed it, by writing a lot. They replied to my work that there was nothing new, that I had written what everyone knew or saw, and this was not useful. Their advice was to go around and listen to people, trying to find something innovative and new. The problem was translation: the interpreters should have translated the discourse of various persons: how could I select the most interesting discourse in a definite moment of time? Should I leave with the interpreters to do the work I was supposed to do? This was not possible. Interpreters asked me who they should translate, and unfortunately, I had to choose the most interesting discourse without being able to listen to it.

Another interviewee: My problems began when the professors asked for each exam to present a team work made by three students. In the courses offered in my department, one could not be examined individually. With a lump in my throat I went to work. . . . For me the exam itself was fine, it was feasible according to my abilities, the biggest problem was that there was no interpreting service, as it was provided only for activities within the university and not for external activities, outside class hours. I had to make a great effort, it was a great challenge for me . . . . I want to make myself clear, I have no problems with hearing people, except for communication. My mates didn't give me the slightest access, any chance to participate, they talked all the time – and think that we were only three persons! I had

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imagined a better situation, I was disappointed. From that moment on I began to ask, in order to understand, and they told me to do small chores. I replied that I was not a secretary but a student like the two of them, so I also wanted to learn how to analyze a questionnaire, provide evaluations. . . . I complained, and the professor scolded them: in a sociology faculty each must be able to work with other people, at all levels. My colleagues started to cry. For me the professor's sermon was useful, but I felt responsible for creating this situation. And I had to face it at every exam. It was an unbearable situation, and I didn't want to suffer so much for my university degree, so I decided I would leave the university.

If for a native of sign language interpretation means access, can interpretation be done away with? Are there alternatives to interpretation? I applied for funding to cover the cost of the interpreting service. But this is not an ideal solution, I would prefer to use the same budget to make my instructor to learn sign language. This is better, because we would communicate directly in signs.

Teaching directly in sign language may prove more effective. Let us explore this idea further.

12b.6 Transforming the hearing context: Sign language as a means of communication with professors and tutors Mirko thinks that whenever communication works in relations with professors, in the accessibility of materials, on the workplace, Deaf persons can progress. When it doesn’t, he doubts that progress can take place. “This is my personal experience”, Mirko judges. The interviewee who had told the story of a frustrating groupwork with two hearing colleagues, added Had my colleagues been competent in sign language it would have certainly made it easier for me in communication. In my domain, sociology, contact with “the world” external to university is very important, one needs to have social information in order to comprehend theory, not to mention university internships. . . . But the main problem was precisely communication, language. In a world where everyone signed, I would have access to all the information I need. What is frustrating is always having to ask, ask, and never be autonomous. This is heavy and weighs heavily on life.

As Mirko thinks, the baggage Deaf persons are endowed with is their language. Then, a well-thought-out, far-reaching idea is to change the hearing context, in order to have it enter the Deaf community. How? By having some hearing people

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becoming competent in Sign language. Changing the outside, hearing world, by spreading Sign Language. For me it is as though we had wings, but society cut up our feathers. Society disables us, there are behaviors that make us become handicapped. If they gave us sign language, they would give us the freedom that we want. Our freedom is sign language.

Another interviewee: Question: Have you tried to imagine doing your internship in a place of non-signers? How do you imagine it? Answer: I imagine that I would have not gained any experience, and I would not have learned anything, I only would have been present, to be recognized the required amount of hours. It is the usual language and communication problem.

Still another interviewee: Many deaf members of the oral group often migrate to the signing deaf group because of the better living conditions, but the most interesting part is that the reverse never happens, that is, Deaf signers never fit into deaf oralist groups. This clearly means that signs make a Deaf person better integrated, more involved, this person takes care of himself/ herself personally, fulfills his/her primary needs. . . . This does not mean that we want to ghettoize ourselves, but we need that primary resource in life that is sign language – and then, within the Deaf community there is so much diversity. A language is a language, linguistic identity should not be confused with personal identity, in the sense of race, identity, color, territory. They are two separate notions.

Naturally, the ones who would be most important to be recruited as signers are professors. It does not matter whether Deaf or hearing – it would be so advantageous if professors were signers. For the Deaf student, communication would no longer be impoverished. In this fashion, it would be much simpler for Deaf students to quickly expand their baggage of knowledge and competences. Mirko says, this is the maximum that can be required. There is nothing better than this. With direct communication in signs, Deaf persons would become entirely autonomous. This is what happens at Gallaudet University, in Washington DC (see 12b.9). Colleagues, professors, but also tutors that are signers would be an invaluable asset. Tutors can perform many tasks: in some universities they are provided to just take written notes during the class. In other universities, they are “assistant[s], who guided me in this new world, and after their intervention I have been increasingly integrated”. Some interviewees have told not only about the possibility that was provided to them to have a signing tutor, but also about having been asked to become tutors for younger Deaf students:

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It was not the first time that [my fellow Deaf student] had been lost, it had already happened last year – I tried to guide him. . . . I had been in turn lucky to have a good relationship with A., who had tutored me, [who had had a similar previous working experience as mine]. I had a good human and scientific relationships with her, she was from [my same research institution], she gave me a lot of advice on the situation in my department.

To a fellow Deaf student I would have many tips [to give], first of all my advice would be to encourage him to attend various conferences, to appreciate different perspectives and understand what he is really interested in. Once he has found his interest, I would suggest reading lots of literature and discussing it with his supervisor. Because by reading only, one certainly loses a lot, instead by discussing both can grow and find a way to converge. No matter if right or wrong, the important thing is to discuss the pros and cons: thus, one can improve greatly. I prefer to discuss, understand opinions, not just write academically. Because in academic work one does not have to show that one knows, but to prove the ideas one proposes. I think that many Deaf people have not understood this.

An intention of broadening horizons is very clear in the words of the following interviewee. The community has to broaden, so as not to be the community of Deaf people, but of signers: Education must be as broad as possible and include different areas, it is important, education is crucial to build the future. This holds both for Deaf people and for hearing people, in my opinion. I prefer to talk about “signers”, whether they be Deaf or hearing.

12b.7 The role of mentors, in this first phase One of the reasons why I enrolled in the Ph.D. program is that over time I kept in touch with [a professor of Sign language linguistics] and he proposed me to work in his university where a position was opened, which also allowed me to use the interpreting service.

Quite naturally, in a phase when the first Deaf signing students enter university, it is the professors who work on Sign language linguistics, or on Deaf studies, who are more sensitive to their needs. In general, professors who mentor Ph. D. students usually perform a role of support within research institutions. Professors who are into Deaf studies have transformed themselves into a most valuable asset for this first Deaf student. Too often, however, they mostly act individually, and have to explain to their colleagues and their institutions something that such colleagues and institutions are not aware of. Naama Friedmann, a professor active in Israel also in the domain of Deaf cognition and Sign language linguistics, explained to Sara that she had to

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perform an extensive work of persuasion with colleagues to explain that certain results in academic performances, to be used in admission to Ph.D. programs, may be considered a little below thresholds for hearing candidates, but are exceptionally good for a Deaf candidate. Mirko as well thinks that working with a director informed about deafness is a real support. Another interviewee tells: I met a [foreigner] teacher named B. She moved to [my country] to teach in a university that had English as a language of instruction. B. first supposed that I was Deaf, when I had to present my works and I proposed to substitute my oral presentation with two term papers, because I did not feel like speaking in public: I find it hard to understand interventions and questions. Then, B. asked me if I signed. No one had asked me in 17 years of education if I signed, I was surprised, I said yes and asked why. She replied that she knew the sign language [of her country of origin], and was researching on it. A great interest sparked within me, and from that moment on I decided to change direction, from technological disciplines I moved to the Linguistic and psychological department. . . . B. was quick to comprehend if I had understood or not, a very important skill in a supervisor. With other teachers I often nodded even if I had many doubts and had not understood – I didn't want to ask so many questions. With B. I couldn't do that. She wanted to learn [my country’s sign language], and the written [language of my country], so it was decided we would have an exchange: I taught her [my sign language] and she reciprocated with Sign language linguistics. She chose articles related to sign language and we discussed them together, for example articles that talked about artificial intelligence, language acquisition, sign language teaching. If communication was complicated, then we used English, which was 60% of the total communication between us. She never told me that I was not very competent in English. . . . In just two years I have seen in myself an exponential growth on a cultural and scientific level, thanks to communication. Before that time, I attended lessons passively, I passed the tests and the others looked at me in wonder asking how I myself managed to do that; that's all. There had never been scientific debate and this for seventeen years. . . . I have to thank her for what she has brought to me.

Personal tutorship appears to be the solution for this successful educational growth, but arguably this might be performed by fellow hearing Ph.D. students who are signers, without having to occupy a professor’s time. A third interviewee tells not so different a story, except that this time the mentor’s discipline is not Deaf studies: For example C., who liked my work on the Deaf world so much: such persons are useful, persons who do not already know the world of the Deaf. . . . C. is a militant woman, her work focuses on Australian aborigines, on the destruction of their natural habitat due to white people occupation, and on the signs that hearing aborigines used and their culture, which is why she was interested in my work. . . . I have to thank C. a lot, she has been so exceptional a woman for me, without her I would certainly not to have continued with my Ph.D.

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What is interesting to read in these last words, is that it is positive to open up the boundaries of the research community, so as to include people who do not work already in the domain of Deaf studies. When the supervisor is a Deaf professor, the relationship can transform itself into complicity. I had a lot of blocks . . ., luckily, I had my Deaf supervisor and we were in agreement on the work done, unlike the whole academic environment around me. Oftentimes when I presented my ideas, I was denigrated, they said that it was too superficial and that I had not read academic literature, so there was this superiority on the part of the hearing world. I often showed that I had worked and found interesting topics to expose, but the academic world often denigrated my work.

The centrality of mentors is equally strong when they are disappointing. A fourth interviewee tells I decided to meet with a lecturer, a Law professor to explain my situation. At the end of the meeting the teacher told me something that hurt me a lot, he could not understand the reason why I had enrolled in this university as it was completely out of reach for me. I replied that he was not encouraging me, and he just answered that it was the truth, that I had to find another path and that I didn't need to keep coming here. At the end of the conversation, I was disheartened, but I decided to continue and made a lot of effort.

12b.8 Didactics: promising solutions Interviewees proposed solutions they had thought out to improve the situation. Let us consider didactics, first. To face the situation in a department of Journalism, where Deaf students have never been, one interviewee proposed to adapt the curriculum to the specificity of medias for Deaf people. It is an especially precious suggestion, that can be adapted to various departments that have no experience in welcoming Deaf students: A hearing television journalist should not exaggerate his/her facial expressions, nor move much, she/he should speak using a regular tone of voice. Well, none of such information is meant for me, Deaf, this is nothing that I can use to be a journalist. . . . To a deaf student, an expert should suggest monitoring the style of non-manual-markers, the expression in a three-dimensional space, and ensure that the message reaches the public without difficulty. This means a different teaching program; a new course should be created. . . . Were I a professor, I would propose to create new paths, with one or more people, Deaf or hearing, to accompany future Deaf journalist to acquire the various techniques of expression meant for a public competent in sign language.

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In teaching a shared curriculum, such as in spoken-language literature, focus should not concern aspects relating to sound: Usually, poems are attractive to everyone, they are elegant, moving, and provide beautiful emotions. They become difficult when commented centering on what one perceives by hearing, on sounds, on the rhymes of speech. The word 'voiture' rhymes with 'chaussure', 'la voiture dans le closure’. and my two [Deaf] children do not understand how these words connect. I try to explain that the connection is in the sound, in the final part of the two words, but I have no resources to explain better, to make the poem become attractive to them.

According to Mirko, what could be appreciated is the presence of topics, in curriculums, connected to deafness. He provides an example in linguistics, since he is a linguist. Among the many examples provided in a general linguistics course, some will be about English, some about French, some about African languages – but Deaf students would love to find a reference to their own languages – sign languages. The same can be said about other disciplines – in sociology, there might be a reference to the Deaf community, etc. Many students can feel unconcerned when nothing about their language or culture or community is included in the curriculum. By letting their world exist in lectures, a real equality would exist among students, Deaf and hearing students would be treated alike. But interventions to be envisaged are, obviously, not only in didactics, as in the organization of universities. One interviewee answered to the question “are you already planning a Ph.D.?” To tell the truth, I haven't thought about it. My present objective is to create teaching materials. When I enrolled in the Master's, my objective was to collect materials, educational materials which are very lacking in [my country] . . . . I mean video-books: being a sign language native, I would prefer explanations to be in sign language, homework to be in sign language. The student should find materials in two real languages, so to have complete and clear information. . . . I would like to create a platform where there are materials for various school subjects and levels.

Covid time has boosted on-line teaching, which appears to be a promising solution: All lectures have been canceled and moved online. My lessons have been translated by an interpreter and I could record them via my computer screen and keep them as notes for future re-viewing. I followed without difficulties, I intervened, and professors as well found this solution very useful.

Another specificity of Deaf students is that they often share difficult educational personal histories, starting with inappropriate or late linguistic choices (chapter 2b). In addition, Deaf students share the condition of all those who are not native speakers in an educational institution: they risk being considered

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inadequate in language performances. It is a shared experience of teachers working with foreigners in educational institutions that colleagues are not aware that proficiency in a foreign language is not perfect in non-natives. A solution that has been reported to have worked well for Deaf students is the creation of academic courses of written spoken language. Another crucial recommendation, as can be read in Table 10, is attention to communication: provision of feed-back, making sure that messages arrive.

12b.9 International exchanges, international models Mirko recalls that when returning to Italy after his stay at Gallaudet, adapting himself to a life that had previously been usual cost him a great effort. “There, I was Mirko. No mention about the Deaf or hearing condition. I was just Mirko. On coming back to Italy – I was deaf again”. Gallaudet University, a university entirely in signs, the world center of Deaf studies in Washington, is the place where every Deaf student would like to be. But as exchanges have intensified, there are remarkably more foreign models than one would think. After high school, I wanted to take a break, and having a Brazilian friend, I went to Brazil for a year as a teaching assistant for Deaf children. I realized that Brazil is really advanced as compared to Europe. Not having resources to pay for hearing aids and cochlear implants, they invested in sign language that, compared to medical aids, costs much less. All professors signed, and this awakened the Deaf pride that was inside me. . . . Yes, I really think Brazilian universities are better if compared to European ones and perhaps even to North-American ones. . . . A Brazilian law requires for all universities to provide a basic course of LIBRAS, Brazilian sign language, once a semester. This results in Deaf teachers having appropriate qualifications. . . . The problem is that Brazil is so large, and many Deaf people who would like to study have given up for travel costs. To solve this problem, an online educational program was created in nine different locations and then expanded to fifteen different locations. Over a period of ten years, around 1200 deaf people graduated. . . . Now that the situation has improved, Master's programs and then Ph. D. programs in LIBRAS have been proposed. Universities have to hire seven to eight interpreters who have to stably work for the university, which means that any student who enters the university already knows that the interpreter service will be available . . . . The interpreting service is not only between LIBRAS and spoken Portuguese but includes LIBRAS and written Portuguese. . . . This has also led to the evolution of LIBRAS for academic signs. . . . The result is that the Brazilian Deaf community is very proud and Deaf people prefer to fight in the first person for their rights instead of receiving help and assistance.

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A second interviewee told us: We might reproduce the same system here in France. I asked in Brazil how one can access videos if one has no competence in LIBRAS, they told me that all videos are subtitled. A great job, and that's all funded by the State.

Sometimes foreign States provide not only models to be inspired by, but the project of long-lasting collaborations For my Ph.D. discussion I invited someone from America, I wanted to create a connection between France and the United States. In the States it seemed that in France there was complete scientific silence. I wanted for them to realize that here there are scientific works, and the effect of my move was that a stable relationship has been established between France and America.

12b.10 “One should not dream”. Does a right to dream exist? In reading Joseph Castronovo’s story in chapter 8a, Joseph might have appeared to be a dreamer. But chapter 8b provided evidence that thinking big, being able of a far-reaching vision may lead to innovation, to promising evolutions. Chapter 8b attributed to the hearing context and its institutions the responsibility for creating the conditions in which far-sighted projects can succeed. For projects with an empowering focus, it is crucial that Deaf persons take charge of their lives and their community. Would they be able to do so, if they cannot dream? What do our interviewees think about dreaming? Here is a long excerpt from what an interviewee told Mirko: In my secondary school, that followed an oralist method, Deaf students had to adapt to the 'hearing student' model. But I could not follow the professors speaking while they were continuously turning their back on us. For them, the teaching staff, it was clear that whatever our dream of Deaf students was, it was and would remain a dream, and that it would be impossible for us to achieve it. The dream, whatever it was, would remain forever a dream, reality was something else, and so they urged us to think only of reality and to forget our desires, because our dreams were unattainable. Reality in daily life was hard, entering the hearing world was really hard, and you had to sacrifice yourself: a notion they repeated to us every day. This gradually depressed us. “And you, you who don't speak, it will be harder for you, you will remain isolated, it will be really hard”. . . . “The deaf cannot go to university, it is better to focus on manual professions. This is the reality, this is the world you live in”. After their answer I felt completely disheartened and tried to say the opposite. Fortunately, my parents were role models to me, my mother

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was a militant, she was active in various associations, she often met with politicians. She showed me that a Deaf person is a 'normal' person in the sense that s/he can do whatever she wants. [The interviewee is the same to whom the professor told that the course of journalism in not adequate for Deaf students.] Now I find myself hearing from professors that there are limits for us Deaf persons in society. . . . We must not dream. For some time, I have met parents who have told me that they have tried to change their city, to change life and many other things about the education of their children and have been disappointed. The result is so bad for my heart. . . . Dreaming means that one has frustrations inside. If one does not have frustrations, one does not have a dream to achieve. One feels that something is missing and dreams in the hope that there may be someone or something that can satisfy those dreams and solve those difficulties, but those difficulties always remain difficulties. But one must also accept the situation as it is in order to be able to improve the context.

A second interviewee tells his story of freedom: I left my job at [a large factory] for Sign language. When in [my country] we began to discuss about sign language as a real language, I felt that this new world fascinated me a lot, I felt that the most beautiful and suitable job for me was to work in the world of sign language. I felt like it was my world, and that the work at [the large factory], however beautiful it might be, I did not feel it was mine. . . . In the Deaf community, when they learned that I was resigning from [the large factory] they called me crazy, they told me that in the future I would regret it and that I would be living under the bridges. That episode made me realize that Deaf people lived in an invisible cage and I was sorry for them.

Someone who has been more successful at university is still able to dream: I have many ideas . . . there is one project that cannot have immediate results, but is long-term, as a seed that does not germinate immediately but will bear its fruit in the future. For example, we all know that Gallaudet is a good university because the Deaf need space where they feel free, safe and protected. If I got lost on my way, I would need a safe place. If I had a safe place, then I could breathe. Such a place does not exist. There are some, but they are small, like family, or friends. But this is not enough. A larger place is needed, for example an institution. You have to find a road, a suitable place where you can meet, because safe cities like Berlin or Hamburg are not enough. In Germany there was this idea of creating an area where there are many Deaf citizens who live, but this place would be in small towns and many Deaf people said they would not be able to live their life there. We need to find a place close to the life of the German Deaf community, for example Munich, Berlin, Hamburg or in the West, where there are many cities, and find a place where everyone can meet. This place should not only focus on sign languages, it should be as open as possible to science, technology, and psychology. It is necessary to ask the government, and with it to create steps for this to happen, to create and develop a place for the Deaf and the signers. . . . The University of Hamburg might be such a safe place, because there are so many signers. It provides empowerment.

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It is high time to dream, according to this interviewee: Deaf people have now reached a good level. They can be teachers, but it is not enough: they have to take another step forward and become managers and have greater responsibilities.

12b.11 Fighting for one’s rights UPIAS, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (chapter 6b) stated: Fundamental principles to which we are in agreement: disability is a situation, caused by social conditions, which requires for its elimination, (a) that no one aspect such as incomes, mobility or institutions is treated in isolation, (b) that disabled people should, with the advice and help of others, assume control over their own lives, and (c) that professionals, experts and others who seek to help must be committed to promoting such control by disabled people. (UPIAS 1975b: 4)

Deaf people should be in control. Deaf people should think they are the ones who realize their own dreams. Do they? Are Deaf people in universities ready for empowerment? Even knowing that there was no interpreting service, I enrolled anyway. Once enrolled, I claimed my rights to have the interpreting service at the disability office of the university, and after several meetings I decided I would write a letter of protest to the Rector of the university himself. The Rector replied that he would send the head of the disability office as a representative of the university to have a meeting with the representative of [the major Deaf association in the country]. The [Deaf association] secretary, much to my surprise, told me that such a thing had never happened before. During the meeting I expressed my dissatisfaction for the denial of my rights concerning the interpreting service and compared this situation to my experience in [a university in another city]. . . . I protested that a correct procedure and protocol had to be found so that in the future other students would be able to use the service in a transparent and correct way. . . . The meeting was fruitful, and a process began, to create the service. . . . My conclusion is that one must always fight for one's rights, and thanks to the experience I had at the [university in the other city], I was more aware and ready to fight for my rights, as compared to other Deaf people. I am happy with the situation because the interpreting service is now recognized within the university, so if one day a Deaf student enrolls at the same university, the university itself will be ready, having all the protocols to start the interpretation service.

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Another interviewee tells: We were class representatives, we proposed for teachers to learn some sign language, because being [at the conclusion of high school] it was so hard to follow lessons delivered in spoken language. We proposed to invite a professor who worked at [a university specialized in special education], I had personally contacted him, to teach teachers to sign. Much to my surprise professors accepted. Not all of them, but some, such as the ones of mathematics, biology and science, and they did gradually improve their signing competences. From that moment on, homework, tests, and grades took a leap forward. It was all the effect of using sign language, which permitted us to progress quickly. Too bad for the time lost before.

What is most interesting in these two testimonies from distinct countries is the surprise about the fact that school and university authorities are available and ready. The discovery this interviewee made is that oftentimes it is the bureaucratic machine that is not working, or just the fact that the educational system without intervention follows its past, sometimes dysfunctional, habits – whereas authorities are ready to listen. This democratic experience appears to be formative and should be capitalized – possibly at a collective level. [During my schooltime in high school], I made new experiences, I managed to be elected as a representative of three thousand students. I could contribute to decide about the green area of the school, about improving the quality of life of students, I gave an opinion on timetables, criticized the quality of the canteen and many other things. It made me proud because I felt I was a full-fledged citizen. It wasn't just sunshine and roses, [but it was worthwhile].

In other words, university experiences are a place for empowerment: successful or unsuccessful empowerments. Owing to their prestige and to the transformative power that is typical of culture, universities can be the place where Deaf leadership is created. Universities are perfect spaces for innovation. This chapter tried to offer instruments and ideas, provided by the very Deaf actors that inhabit universities. Such silent inhabitants provide a great chance to improve access, innovation, growth – a chance that should not go waisted.

Anna Folchi & Sara Trovato

13a Being a Deaf woman When I was in Palermo, a man, the personal assistant of a politician working at the Sicily Region administration, was continuously trying to put his hands on me. Do you know what he did once? He locked his office with me inside. There was an armchair, and I started to run around it in order not to be touched. I told him, “I am about to scream”, so he opened the door. I felt really miserable. After this episode, when I had to meet him, I brought a woman, my friend, with me, not to remain alone with him. What a hard time I had! In a quieter time of my life, I have concluded that being a woman is beautiful – but at the same time it is quite hard. In my life, I have often reflected whether it has been more a difficulty being Deaf or being a woman. Now that I am much older, and people treat me as a lady, everyone is good and well-mannered with me. As a result, I think that being Deaf is the most difficult condition I experienced. But as a young woman, how many problems! The two situations, deafness and gender, were on a balance, being both very difficult. Being a woman in an often-sexist society has considerably influenced the course of my life. I was a good student, and I would have loved studying, but after middle school, my uncle and Edgardo Carli, who were experienced about high schools in institutes for the Deaf, convinced me to interrupt my studies, as I should have attended the Padua residential institute, “It is only populated by boys”, they said, “if you only knew how they will jump on you!” Were they jealous? Was this an objective difficulty? In conclusion, I did not continue.

13a.1 Beauty and existential thoughts Audrey Hepburn said: “The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman only grows with passing years”. It is well-known that Deaf persons are very dependent on what is visible. Throughout my life I have transformed. I have undergone a metamorphosis (Figure 2), and I would like for you not only to compare how I was as a young https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-025

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woman and how I am now, to compare if I am, or was, more or less beautiful. Naturally, as a young woman I was more beautiful, how simpler it is to be beautiful, at that age! But I will remind you that every time has its beauty, and looks, appearance, is not the only stuff humans are made on. Many women are proud of their beauty, but then, attention!, with time, when beauty declines, men stop looking at them. The majority worries when no one looks at them, quite in contrast, one ought to accept oneself. Let us leave men on a side and consider me personally. A woman who is seventy-five and has her hair braided is laughable. At present, I do not choose any longer dresses that I like, but rather dresses that suit me. Each of my pictures (Figure 2) shared something of its own time, which was sometimes a problematic moment. There is one picture in which I perceive myself as ugly, the reason was that I had just been stolen a bag, and I needed a photo to obtain new documents. But I have never perceived myself as ugly owning to wrinkles – the older, the richest.

13a.2 A married woman A discourse on my life as a woman would not be complete, and this very autobiography would not be complete, if I did not save a place for my husband Mario (Figure 57). I realize he will be embarrassed by my description and by the inevitable feelings that will accompany it, but I would like to introduce Mario as a protagonist of my story and give an idea of his character, as I have done with the persons I have grown up with, I have been working with, and I have loved. Mario’s family is entirely hearing, and is from Naples. He was born in Trento during the Second World War, where they had transferred to escape the risk of living in a city that could be bombed. In Trento, his father worked as a manager in a factory of airplanes. When Mario was three years old, my father-in-law told me, during the war, in Trento there could be sudden blackouts, and everyone got worked up. Most of all, my father-in-law worried about Mario, who was deaf, a three-year-old child, and during a black-out would be suddenly shut away from the sight of people and objects. Once that a black-out took place, my father-in-law resorted to Mario’s eldest brother, “Enzo, fetch a candle”, but a candle was difficult to find when everyone was busy and worried. It was winter, and they used to cook on a wood stove, that functioned also as a cooker. And the solution was found: someone opened the stove, and there was light. Who was it that had had the idea and achieved it? Three-years-old Mario. My father-in-law often loved to tell this incredible episode.

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Mario was profoundly deaf, and no solution was found to recover his residual hearing. My father-in-law decided for the family to transfer to Milan, in order to give Mario the best possible education. Mario had two speech therapists, who worked with him daily, for his entire young life. When he was sixteen, plausibly in order to build his autonomy, my father-inlaw sent Mario to Naples, to visit Mario’s uncle. With his ticket and his suitcase, Mario went to the train station, and there he saw an advertisement by Alitalia about a brand-new Milan-Naples flight. He enquired at the travel agency in Milan central station, “At what time is it?” It was due to leave not long after. “Wait just a moment, keep my suitcase, I will be back”. What did he do with his train ticket? He did not waste time, went to the ticket counter and had the train ticket reimbursed. He added some money and purchased the airplane ticket. He found his way to an old bus heading for Linate, enquired here and there, found the gate, and got on the airplane. A beautiful, metal, gleaming airplane. No one in his family had ever travelled by airplane, it was very unusual at that time. He was given a newspaper “Do I have to pay?” “No, it’s complimentary”. He was given drinks, “It is complimentary as well”. Fog, clouds, what an experience! He arrived at Naples, took a taxi, and rang the bell of his uncle’s home. Surprise! Everyone was greeting and embracing, when the telephone rang. It was Mario’s father, talking to his brother to announce him that Mario was supposed to arrive at Naples that evening. “Mario is here in front of me!” replied the uncle. My fatherin-law worried quite a lot, “But how? But when? But how did he make?” “Well, I took a plane”, Mario explained. On Mario’s way back to Milan, his uncle accompanied him to the train station, and did not leave him until the train door was closed and the train left. Before I met Mario, had someone told me, “I want to marry you”, my reaction would have been unwillingness, boredom. Marriage is the tomb of love, marriage leads to ruin. I was very critical, maybe prejudiced. But, objectively, married women spent their time cleaning, cooking, and I was so very happy about my life, why should I have changed it? In my life there was much working, much travelling, much researching. Getting married would have plausibly meant becoming a housewife. I had had other boyfriends before Mario. With them, when it was good, it was good, when it was bad, bye bye. When I met Mario, I perceived there was something unique about him. He confessed, “I do not like women with curlers on their head and a vacuum cleaner in their hands”. He used to say “Do you love to travel? I will be happy to accompany you to the airport. You feel you have abilities and interests? Cultivate them! You feel satisfied in an activity? You follow your inclination. You don’t? You just stop”. He never told me, “This is not good,

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you are wrong”, never once, never a discussion. In our relationship, I do not ask for permissions, I announce my intentions. I feel free, I feel I am myself, I feel I continue to live the life I loved to live, I feel I achieve my goals. Mario offered me the possibility to remain – and to achieve – the person that I am. Of course, there is love, there is affection. But principally there is trust, each of us is free to act and think as one wants. The moment I fell in love, was when Mario told me, “Marriage is meant to exchange love, a wife is not my property, as a car or as a house”. I still find myself thinking over these words. Fulvia Carli [she has been introduced in chapter 3a, she is present in many other chapters and co-authors chapter 12a] once asked me a wise question, that her mother had asked her, in turn. “What is the reason you want to get married?” “Not to have children”, I would respond, as Mario already has one son by first marriage. “Not to share life with someone”, as today marriage is not necessary to live together or to build a home. “To solve bureaucratic formalities”, yes, this is my response: I would say, to share the propriety of the apartment where we live, to share a bank account, to be certain that in case of disease the person I love will be able to take decisions for me. Let us get married and not think it over any longer. “Definitely, not out of love”, no, love is something else. Naturally, love for Mario was great. But love was there before marriage as well.

Figure 57: With Mario, in Rome.

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13a.3 Deaf Women and politics To me, it is beautiful seeing a Deaf person sitting in Parliament. I admire the political profession, but it has never been for me, I am unable to study, satisfyingly comprehend, and manage politics. But, as I said, I am enthusiastic about Deaf politicians. In Italy there has been one, Stefano Bottini, a socialist, the first Italian Deaf political representative, from 1992 and for two or three years. Among Deaf politicians, many are women. I do not mean in Deaf institutions, as the World Federation of the Deaf, where one woman has been President, Liisa Kauppinen – but she has been the only woman leading the WFD! –, I rather mean in Parliaments, in the political institutions that hearing and Deaf people share. Deaf women politicians in recent times are increasing in number. There is or there has recently been one in Spain, one in Greece, one in Austria, one in Belgium, one in Iceland, one in New Zealand. I have met Helga Stevens, a Belgian member of the European Parliament. When I met her, it was the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the World Federation of the Deaf, I exchanged some words with her, and she appeared to me as a very intelligent and simple person. I am strongly attracted to simple persons. Helga Stevens supports and represents not only Deaf people from her own country, Belgium, but Deaf Europeans in general. The subjects she works on are civil liberties, employment and social affairs, language and communication. Deaf politicians are often engaged in the right to sign languages, interpretation, education, fight against exclusion and strategies for inclusion. I am very happy when I think that a person such as Helga represents me.

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13b Deaf women, deaf men, hearing women, hearing men Have deaf people only a deaf identity? Are other social characters as important as deafness in defining their identity? Here is one important question that Deaf studies have posed. More important still, as chapter 9b showed, the social debate in Deaf studies during the past four decades has been strongly centered on deaf identity. As in previous quantitative chapters, also in the present one data will help better understand what it means to be deaf, along sociological categories. In parallel, in this chapter, data will provide the possibility to represent the condition of deaf women in Europe: deaf women, in terms of power, a “minority” within a minority. Are deaf women able to put to use their right to work, to have a career within their working position, and, more specifically, to have a career adequate to their educational credentials? Are they hindered in work by reason of family responsibilities? In one word, are they treated equitably in the labour market, as equals to men? More in general, how socially isolated are deaf women and men, considering their marital status?

13b.1 A theoretical hypothesis: is deaf identity the only identity for those who have it? Previous chapters provided arguments to support the idea that deafness is a genuine “variable”, that is, the condition of being deaf differs from the condition of being hearing. It is an important result, one of the first results that quantitative sociology of deafness produces. The data presented in this chapter will allow to address an issue complementary to the previous one: how far can one actually go along the line of thought that a deaf person is (just) deaf? Theorists such as Harlan Lane have stated that “the salience of deaf identity overshadows differences of age, class, sex, and ethnicity that would be prominent in hearing Society” (Lane 1999: 17). Is this really so? Is deafness a category that comprehensively identifies persons, is it the only definitory element for those who have it? Isn’t any single deaf person also, in her identity, defined by being https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-026

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an Italian, a woman, a vegetarian, politically a leftist, an atheist, a lover of Renaissance art? What is at stake is quite a philosophical question: is identity – both in general, and specifically in the case of deaf persons – oriented on a single axis, or rather are thinkers like Amartya Sen right when they state that human beings have “inescapably plural identities” (Sen 2006, xiii), and that “in our normal lives we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups [and] we belong to all of them” (Sen 2006: xii)? Within Deaf studies, Carol Padden has supported Sen’s idea: “even within the population of Deaf people who use ASL, not surprisingly, there is enormous diversity. Large communities of Deaf people in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Edmonton, Alberta, to give a few examples, have their own distinctive identities. Within these local communities there are smaller groups organized by class, profession, ethnicity or race, each of which had yet another set of distinct characteristics” (Padden & Humphries 1988: 4). The best test for theories is reality, and the way to be able to tell what reality is, is interpreting data. Is social reality clear-cut as Harlan Lane saw it, so that deaf people are predominantly deaf, or is it rather more nuanced and complex, as Carol Padden thinks? Along Harlan Lane’s and Carol Padden precise and opposed lines of thought, this chapter will address the issue whether social indicators single out, in a deaf woman, only her participation to the deaf condition, or, on the contrary, they show deaf women’s participation to the social condition of any other woman. In other words, the issue about deaf identity will be transformed into another one: Are deaf women more “deaf” or more “women”? Or, is the condition of a deaf woman inherently different from that of women on one side, and deaf persons on the other? The underlying assumption is that, if deaf identity prevails, the condition of deaf women will closely parallel that of deaf men. In contrast, if deaf identity does not prevail, data about deaf women will parallel data about hearing women. Instead, if the condition of deaf women proves to be different from that of women in general and deaf persons in general, the data will describe a different situation for this group, as compared to women and to deaf persons.1

1 A long–standing tradition in sociology addresses this latter possibility through the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw 2017), which – in simple terms – means that people at the intersection of systems of inequality and discrimination (like indeed gender and disability) face a peculiar situation, which stems from the fact that the overlapping between these dimensions is something more (or different) from experimenting each condition separately. The interested reader might refer to the book by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge (2020), on top of that by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw (2017), who first spoke of intersectionality.

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Before turning to the data, an introductory note is needed. In previous quantitative chapters, we compared countries as for the various outcomes (employment, type of occupation, educational achievement) of deaf and hearing people. In this chapter, we adopt a slightly different perspective, using four geo-political areas, instead than individual countries, which group the European countries in the Labor Force Survey dataset according to their characteristics in terms of labour market, welfare regimes and – very broadly speaking – political tradition. The four areas are the following: – Northern countries, grouping Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, characterized by a long-standing social-democratic government, with a generous universalistic welfare and inclusive policies towards disabled people, irrespective of one’s participation in the labour marker; – Continental countries, with Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Switzerland, which belong either to the so-called conservative or liberal welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1990), in which the state provides low to moderate support to citizens in need, subject to their participation in the labour market, with rather strict rules for accessing welfare benefits; – Mediterranean countries, with Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain, whose distinctive features have been singled out by Maurizio Ferrera (1996), in which social rights are tied to the participation in the labor market, as in continental countries, but with a much lower level of social expenditure (except than for the pension system); – Former Soviet countries, grouping Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovak Republic, which are evidently connected to one another by their being under the political and institutional influence of the former USSR. Using these meaningful groups of countries, instead of individual countries, allows us to have enough cases for analyzing the condition of deaf women and men as for their chances to be employed, to graduate at the university level, to hold more or less privileged occupational positions, and so on, as we will be showing in this chapter. In contrast, the sample size regarding deaf people in many countries is so tiny, that no firm conclusion could be drawn from analyzing them in isolation. Indeed, by grouping the European countries we lose detail. However, and at the same time, we provide a different insight into the data, being able to include in our analysis a wider array of countries than in previous chapters and shed light on similarities and differences among them. Therefore, albeit driven by considerations on the number of available cases, we believe this analysis

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will be able to provide the reader with interesting results, possibly able to stimulate further research on gender identity of deaf people across Europe. In the following of this chapter, we will be presenting our results in the form of probabilities for deaf and hearing women and men concerning various outcomes (attaining tertiary education, holding a managerial or professional occupation, and so on). These probabilities were estimated by means of logistic regression models; the interested reader may find details of these models in Table 11, in an annex at the end of the chapter.

13b.2 Employment In an equitable world, women should enjoy equal opportunities as compared to men. Since long, sociologists are aware that what mostly constitutes one’s role in society is one’s working position (see for example Runciman 1968). Therefore, the first data to be considered, in order to be able to tell whether deaf women receive opportunities equal to any other person in the labour market, and whether they side with hearing women or deaf men, are those concerning their ability to be employed at all. As far as women in general are concerned, since the Seventies, most European states have observed a growth in women activity rates (Reyneri 2011: 44). But the labor market has not always been generous, nor fair, to women, who are less often employed than men, and also paid less than their male peers (all job characteristics being equal). Moreover, women face the so-called glass ceiling in accessing the job positions at the top of organizational hierarchies (Cotter et al. 2001; Bertrand, Black, Jensen, and Lleras-Muney 2014; Amon 2017), both in the public and in the private sector. Finally, the female workforce is concentrated in some “occupational ghettos” (Charles and Grusky 2004), that is, occupations mainly held by women, which – precisely because feminized – tend to loose prestige and income over time, and to trap women’s career in medium-to-low organizational ranks. Do disability and gender combine to intensify disadvantages? Evidence about disabled women in the labour market indicate that women may be in general less disadvantaged by their disability, than men. Building on European data for the period 1994–2001, a period of economic expansion, an OECD document estimated that having a disability lowers the likelihood of employment for disabled men by 19%, and for disabled women by 12% (OECD 2010, 32). In addition to their policies for disabled people in employment (chapter 6b.), European institutions are engaged in supporting “equal treatment for men and

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women in employment and occupation, including social security schemes” (Directive 2006/54/EC; Directive 2010/41/EU). The issue is then, how extensively do deaf women participate in the labour market? Is their participation similar to that of hearing women? Or are they more similar, in their employment patterns, to deaf men?

Figure 58: Probability of being employed, unemployed and inactive (according to ILO categories) by area, hearing status and gender. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N=780 385).

Figure 58 compares three conditions concerning employment. The first of these conditions is being employed, that is, holding a paid job, either full time or part time, on an either fixed or permanent term basis. The second condition is being unemployed, which means having had a paid job previously, but having lost it, or having voluntarily quitted. The last condition is being inactive, a term that does not fully describe the people whom it refers to (who are seldom truly inactive, and often engaged in unpaid work), but that is routinely used in empirical research on the labour market outcomes. It refers to pensioners, homemakers, students, and all those who neither hold a paid job, nor are looking for it. Four groups of people are compared as for these three conditions, namely, from left to right for each group of countries, hearing men, deaf men, hearing women and deaf women. What is portrayed in this figure is the probability to find oneself in either of the three conditions (employed, unemployed, inactive), being a deaf or a hearing man or woman, in one of the four geo-political areas. Let us answer our main question, regarding whether deaf women side either with hearing women, or with deaf men as for employment outcomes. In

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addition, we consider whether this answer varies by group of countries. We first consider Northern European countries in detail; the interpretation of the results portrayed in Figure 58 and concerning the remaining areas will smoothly follow. In Northern European countries, deaf women enjoy a rather high probability to be employed, close to that of hearing men and even slightly higher than that of deaf men. On the other side, hearing women enjoy a somehow lower probability to hold a paid job, as compared to deaf women, which means that – as far as employment is concerned – deaf women side with men in general, more than with hearing women. Indeed, hearing status does not seem relevant, while gender seem to matter only in the case of hearing women. As for unemployment, workers in Nordic countries show a rather low probability to find themselves in this condition, from 5% (both deaf and hearing women, and hearing men) to 9% (for deaf men). Finally, hearing women in this group of countries show a higher probability to be inactive, as compared to the other three groups of people (deaf men and women, and hearing men). We can therefore say that, as far as Northern European countries are concerned, and in a general situation of a high probability for everybody to hold a paid employment, gender and hearing status matter only in one case, i.e., for hearing women, who seem to enjoy a less favorable situation than deaf women and than men in general (either deaf or hearing). In sum, in Northern Europe deaf women do not seem to pay a price for their condition, and the only group which sets aside from others is that of hearing women. Results are very different in the other three groups of countries. In continentalliberal countries, deaf women side with hearing women, therefore indicating gender as a stronger condition than deafness. Their employment prospects, as well as the probability to be outside the paid labor market, resemble very closely those of hearing women, being at odds with the situation of deaf men and, most of all, of hearing men. At the same time, deaf women have a higher probability than hearing women to be unemployed (9% and 5% respectively), being in this respect more similar to deaf men (who have a probability of 7% to be unemployed). Hence, in these countries, both gender and hearing status matter, since the employment status depends on the intersection of these two dimensions. Mediterranean countries deepen the gap between women and men in the labor market, as compared to continental-liberal countries. The pattern of similarities and differences is very close to that we just saw in the latter case, however being more marked, with women having a much lower probability than men to hold a paid job (59% vs. 74%), but with a higher probability of being inactive. Actually, the alternative to being employed is not, in women’s case, being unemployed (since unemployment is more or less equally likely for all groups), but

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indeed being outside the labor market, which is much more likely for women than men, and particularly so for hearing women. Hence, in Mediterranean countries, gender is the most important cleavage as for labor market outcomes, with deafness being relevant – to some extent – for women, but not for men. As a matter of facts, these countries share a rather familistic welfare regime, with unpaid care work being on the shoulders of families, more than on the state’s (as opposed to Nordic European countries and, to some extent, to continentalliberal Europe), and particularly on women’s shoulders, which prevents them to enter the labor market in higher numbers (Alonso et al. 2019). Indeed, Mediterranean countries are below the 2020 EU-28 average on the gender equality index (EIGE 2020), a finding that supports our own results. When considering former Soviet countries, as showed in Figure 58, the interplay of gender and hearing status is evident. Hearing men and women enjoy a higher probability to be employed than deaf men and women; however, being a man or a woman makes a lot of a difference for all outcomes (employment, unemployment and inactivity): in fact, hearing men have a probability as high as 70% to be employed, while deaf men’s probability amounts to 48%; on their side, hearing and deaf women show respectively a probability of 57% and 40% to hold a paid job. The ordering of these four groups is clear-cut: hearing men, hearing women, deaf men, deaf women. That deaf people hold a paid job less often than hearing people – with the gender differences we showed – is not due to unemployment: indeed, its probability is higher for deaf men (11%) and hearing men (7%), while hearing and deaf women have about the same probability to be jobless (6% and 5% respectively). However, inactivity is much more likely for both deaf women and men, than for hearing women and men, although hearing women are inactive more often than hearing men. In sum, in former Soviet countries, gender and hearing status interplay in shaping the labor market outcomes, so that being a deaf woman qualifies a different situation from being a hearing woman, and both differ from either hearing or deaf men. A possible reason for this situation is easily found, of course, in the swift transition from the soviet to the capitalistic production system, which took place soon after 1989. According to a vast literature,2 Eastern European countries in Soviet times had a high female employment rate. The transition to capitalism particularly hit employment in the service, education and health sectors, which were

2 See for example Einhorn (1993); Funk and Mueller (1993); van der Lippe and van Dijk (2002).

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highly feminized (Cvajner 2018); for this reason, female employment rate markedly decreased. In addition, the official policy towards disabled people in Soviet times was to separate them from the rest of society: Institutionalisation dominated with health, educational and welfare professionals trained to recommend residential care as the most appropriate form of support for disabled adults and children [. . .] A Soviet official even claimed to foreign journalists in 1980 that ‘there are no disabled people in the USSR’. (Rasell & Iarskaia-Smirnova, 2014)

Segregation prevailed in the labor market too. In the former USSR, the All-Russian Organization for the Deaf (VOG), established in 1926, formed work collectives of deaf people, who also lived in closed residential communities providing deaf people of services, infrastructures and cultural institutions. Although this was presented as a way to protect deaf people from the harshness of the mainstream society, and although it fostered the growth of a strong deaf identity and a lively culture (Burch 2000), at the same time this had long-lasting consequences that still contribute to shape the lives of deaf and other disabled people (Rasell & Iarskaia-Smirnova, 2014). In this light, it is not surprising what we see in our data, that is, that deaf people are less often employed and more often inactive than hearing people, and particularly so in women’s case. But virtuous groups of countries, like the Northern European ones, are there to remind that policies can exist, to effectively support deaf women’s rights. Let us now sum up our findings. Engaging into the issue about the strength of deaf identity, as opposed to women identity: do deaf women’s employment rates match deaf men’s employment or hearing women’s employment rates? The answer is: it depends on the groups of countries. In Southern European states and, with some differences, in Continental-liberal countries, deaf women’s employment is similar to hearing women’s employment. In former Soviet countries, deaf women follow the unhappy condition of deaf men, while in Northern European countries they follow the happy condition of deaf men. Is this pattern of similarities and differences justified by educational credentials? Do lower employment percentages correspond to lower educational attainments? Data about educational credentials are needed, in order to respond.

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13b.3 Educational achievements of deaf women and type of occupation as a career indicator

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One might think that, in countries where deaf women are not favored by the labour market, this is justified by their not having obtained high educational credentials. Who could justifiably complain about a less than good job, when she had not satisfactorily completed her studies? Here too, data will provide guidance to understand whether this is the case.

Former Soviet

People with a university degree

Figure 59: Probability of achieving tertiary education, or less, by gender, area and hearing status. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N=783 372).

Figure 59 shows that women’s performance in tertiary education, as visible in light grey bars, is everywhere better than men’s, and this holds also for deaf women as compared to deaf men. At the same time, deaf women’s performance in the labour market is almost everywhere worse than deaf men’s, with respect to their access to employment. Precisely in this, deaf women follow a condition that has long and almost everywhere characterized women in the labour market: having better educational credentials than men, but a worse employment situation. As chapter 6b made us aware, the world of labour cannot be reduced to whether one works or not: importantly, the type of occupation one holds is socially most significant. Figure 60 presents the distribution of two occupational groups of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08) that already was in Table 7 (Chapter 6b), but, this time, it shows gender distinctions. In addition, for

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Figure 60: Probability to hold a managerial or professional occupation, and probability to hold a university degree, by gender, area and hearing status. Occupational groups 1 and 2 of ISCO-08, International Standard Classification of Occupations. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N of managers & professionals=524 611; weighted N of people with a university degree as in Fig. 59).

ease of comparison, the figure repeats the probabilities of holding a university degree, already shown in Figure 59. Firstly, let us consider the solid bars in Figure 60. They show how likely it is (for those who are employed) to be a manager or a professional (such as a lawyer, a physician, an architect, and so on), once one has a university degree. This condition is important, since this way we rule out the influence of education: given that everybody in the group represented by the solid bars shares the same educational level, the probability to hold a prestigious job does not depend anymore on one’s educational credentials. In Northern European countries, the situation is ideal: being a woman or a man, either hearing or deaf, does not make any difference for becoming a manager or a professional, since holding a university degree is everything it takes to enter managerial or professional occupations. Furthermore, this probability is rather high: a university degree gives access to these occupations with a probability of 63–64%. However, achieving a tertiary degree is not equally likely for everybody in society: as we saw previously, women graduate more often than men, and in Northern countries deaf women have the highest probability to graduate at the university level (42%), as compared to hearing women and to hearing and deaf men (38%, 29% and 28%, respectively). This means that deaf women should have a proportionally higher probability to access managerial and professional occupations, which indeed they do not have: Figure 60 shows them having the same probability as the other groups defined by gender and hearing status.

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Therefore, what seemed to be an ideal situation (and which is still much better than what happens in the other countries in Europe, as we will see in a while), with gender and hearing status not being relevant for entering the top positions in society, is indeed somehow less ideal, if we consider that a selection occurs that penalizes graduated women in general, and deaf women in particular. The situation which characterizes the other European geo-political areas can be read in a similar way. Hence, we see that in continental-liberal countries gender and hearing status make a little difference for entering managerial and professional occupations, with graduated women being less likely to do so, as compared to graduated men. On the other side, hearing status does not matter, since deaf and hearing women enjoy the same probability, as much as deaf and hearing men. Once again, the picture changes a bit once we consider how likely it is to hold a university degree, but this time to the advantage of deaf men, who are less likely to graduate than either hearing men, or women altogether, while holding a slightly higher chance to hold a top occupational position. Nonetheless, differences among groups in continental-liberal countries are small, and a situation of relative fairness for women seems to be in place. Mediterranean countries show a peculiar picture. Here, hearing women and men are more likely to graduate than deaf women and men. As for their probability to access managerial and professional occupations, we see a counterintuitive situation: deaf women have the highest probability to be among the ranks of managers and professionals, while hearing women and men enjoy a slightly lesser probability, and deaf men being at disadvantage as compared to the other groups. This unexpected result depends on two factors. The first one is the small sample size, once the data are weighted, which makes the occupational categories of managers and professionals to be rather tiny among the deaf respondents. This makes each respondent to be very influential on the estimated parameters, which may not reflect the actual situation of the group of countries. The second reason calls into question the occupational segregation by gender, that is, the extent to which the two genders hold separated occupations in the labour market. For example, two occupations that are highly separated by gender are nursing professionals and teachers, especially at the primary school level. In our data, and considering all European countries together in 2011, nurses are much more often women than men (87% vs. 13%); the same holds for secondary education teachers (63% women and 17% men), and the more so for primary education teachers (again, 87% vs. 13%).

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This is exactly the situation we find in the Mediterranean countries, where gender stereotyping is still rather strong,3 making women enter preferably feminized occupations connected to care and education, although gender occupational segregation is not extremely high, except than in Cyprus, as compared to other European countries (Bettio & Verashchagina 2009). In short, most of deaf women in our sample concerning this geo-political area are either nurses or teachers, which increases very much their likelihood to be found among professional workers. In former Soviet countries, access to professional and managerial occupations seems to be highly dependent on a university degree, as we can infer from the high probability of being part of these occupational groups for university graduates, somehow irrespective of gender and hearing status. Deaf women seem to be slightly advantaged over the other groups; at the same time, the probability to hold a university degree is rather low among deaf people, which means that the selection for entrance in the top occupational positions occurs in the educational system, before than in the labour market. Therefore, the slight advantage that deaf women seem to have is counterbalanced by their low probability to achieve tertiary education; indeed, in deaf men’s case, this probability is even lower (8%), pointing at a disadvantage of deaf men as compared to the other groups. At the end of this analysis, what is its main message? As in previous cases, the answer is: it depends. Holding education constant (that is, analyzing only university graduates) allows to see more clearly the effect of gender and hearing status on the probability to access occupational positions in society to which more prestige, more income and – in most cases – more power are attached. Considering the overall probability of graduating at the university level allows to put the findings in context. In this picture, deaf women side with hearing women in Northern countries and, to some extent, in continental-liberal countries, while they tend to side with deaf men in Mediterranean and former Soviet countries.

3 According to the data of the Special Eurobarometer 465 on gender equality, Greece, Cyprus and Italy are above the EU–28 average on the gender stereotype index, with Malta being immediately below that average, and Portugal and Spain at some distance (European Commission 2017).

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13b.4 Family and caring responsibilities as main reason to limitation in work

Northern

Continental No family limitations

Mediterranean

Deaf women

Hearing women

Deaf men

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Deaf women

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Deaf men

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Deaf women

Hearing women

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Hearing men

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100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Hearing men

As it has too often happened in various times and societies, women, more than men, are engaged in family responsibilities – the care of children, elderly people, disabled people (Dotti Sani 2018; Kaufmann 1992, 2010). This attribution of roles, without remuneration and with limited social recognition, most of the times is a barrier to proper work and career (Alonso et al. 2019). In chapter 6b, figures 29 and 30 presented the main reasons for limitation in work for deaf persons, not caused by hearing difficulty. In Figure 61, the specific limitation to work consisting in “family and caring responsibilities” is disaggregated by gender, hearing status and area, and has been indicated as the main limitation to work.4

Former Soviet

Family limitations

Figure 61: Probability of family and caring responsibilities as main reason for limitations in work (in deaf persons’ case: not caused by hearing difficulties), by gender, area, and hearing status. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N=98 529).

Figure 61 provides evidence that in all groups of countries women are by far more limited in work by family responsibilities than men, and this can be said of

4 A share of 13% of the total valid sample (with 34 394 cases) declared to have experienced at least a limitation to work, with women experiencing any kind of limitation more often than men (58% and 42%, respectively), and hearing women more often that deaf women (58% and 49%, respectively). The number of cases we are using in this analysis is particularly low (for example, deaf women declaring a major limitation are 205 in total), which qualifies our analyses as provisional and merely suggesting which results we could get with a bigger sample.

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hearing women as well as of deaf women. The only exception are deaf women in Northern countries, whose participation to family responsibilities aligns to the participation to family responsibilities of hearing and deaf men. As is well known, Scandinavian and Northern European welfare states have organized a transfer of family care functions from women to the collectivity, in contrast to Mediterranean countries, where these tasks are attributed to women individually considered, and are not retributed (Reyneri 2011; Daly & Lewis, 2000; Bettio & Plantenga, 2004; Pfau-Effinger, 2013). Data in Figure 61 present a pattern consistent with such a framework. Importantly and somehow surprisingly, Figure 61 provides evidence that Continental countries are equally penalizing for women than Mediterranean countries, a finding that is nonetheless in line with these two groups of countries sharing some characteristics of their welfare states, whose benefits are tied to labour market participation. The only difference between the two groups is that in Continental countries the most limited in work by their family responsibilities are hearing women, while in Mediterranean countries most limited are deaf women. The disadvantage that deaf women experience in Mediterranean countries is not present in any other group of countries – nor the Northern ones, and not even the former Soviet ones. In conclusion, as far as the attribution of family and caring responsibilities goes, and its results in terms of limitations in work, deaf women share their lot with hearing women – and not with deaf men. As we noted, since these results stem from a narrow statistical basis, they should be taken as indicative of a possible tendency we could find when analyzing a bigger sample. Nonetheless, since they are in line with previous results on women performing more unpaid and care work than men virtually everywhere in the world, this tendency will be hardly overturned in future analyses.

13b.5 Are deaf people lonely? Indicators of social isolation Deaf people are a small number. In addition, being mostly born to hearing families, they are not concentrated in any part of the territory of a state. In the United States, where demographics on the deaf population have been produced since a longer time, it has been estimated that persons definable as “functionally deaf – either deaf or unable to hear normal conversation at all, even when using a hearing aid – are 0.38% of the population, or fewer than 4 per 1,000” (Mitchell 2006: 116).

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In chapter 3a, Emiliano Mereghetti witnessed to the great loneliness of his childhood, and the importance for deaf people to meet other deaf people, who in his young age were the only signers. Carol Padden wrote about the mixed feeling of deaf children in special schools, that on one side were “rigidly organized schools”, but on the other side “also revealed . . . a sense of belonging with other children who sign, and whose lives are remarkably like their own”. She adds, “even at a time when distances are short, and information is easy and readily available, isolation still happens” (Padden 1988: 15). Are deaf people lonely? Data should be specifically collected, to provide information on the inclination and the opportunities for deaf people, as both signers and not signers, to seek and find each other’s company. A sociological indicator of such a propensity may be the marital status of deaf people, and very interesting would be to have information about the rate of deaf people, both signers and not signers, who marry deaf people. For the time being, by using the data that are presently available, we can evaluate whether deaf people are more or less often married, than hearing people are, as well as whether deaf women have similar chances to be married as hearing women, instead than to be single.5 This comparison can be useful, albeit indirectly, for appreciating whether deaf women and men are more or less tightly connected to a network of social relationships that comes with marriage (relationships with other married couples, with children’s teachers, with families of their children’s schoolmates, and so on), as compared to their hearing peers. A more direct test consists in considering how likely it is that deaf women and men find themselves living in households composed by only one adult, that is, whether they live on their own, irrespective of their marital status. Unfortunately, there are no such data available for the Northern European countries; therefore, our analysis will forcedly exclude them. Figure 62 shows that, in all groups of countries considered, deaf women are more likely to belong to the category of the singles than to the category of the married. However, the difference between the probabilities of the two groups is statistically significant only in two of the four areas, namely, in Continental-liberal

5 In this analysis, we will exclude people who, at the time of survey, in 2011, were widowed, separated or divorced, wishing to compare the married to the single. It would be interesting to appreciate the share of deaf people who were separated or divorced, since this is an additional indicator of the likelihood for them to be less tightly embedded in a social network. However, the available data do not distinguish between the separated and divorced on one side, and the widowed on the other.

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Hearing women

Deaf men

Hearing men

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

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Former Soviet

Married

Figure 62: Probability of being either single or married, by gender, area, and hearing status. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N=699 712).

countries and in former Soviet countries.6 The same pattern is found in men’s case, with deaf men having more chances to be single than hearing men in Continental-liberal and former Soviet countries, while enjoying the same probability to be either single or married of hearing men.7 When we consider whether deaf men and women are more likely to live alone, we find that, as usual, it depends on the group of countries we consider; however, gender and hearing status also bring about some variability. As we see in Figure 63, the geo-political areas differ as for the more or less high probability to live alone, with Continental-liberal countries showing a much higher probability than other areas. In addition to that, in Continental-liberal countries deaf women have a higher probability to live alone than hearing women, while deaf men have a lower probability than their hearing peers (both differences

6 The probability of observing a difference between deaf and hearing women as for being single is 0.29 in Northern European countries, 0.2 in Mediterranean countries, which means that that difference is not to be found in the population. In Continental–liberal countries and in former Soviet countries such a probability is 0.008 and 0.02 respectively, therefore allowing us to conclude that in these two areas deaf women have indeed a higher probability to be single than hearing women. 7 In men’s case, and considering the areas in the order presented in Figure 62, the probabilities are 0.2, 0.008, 0.9 and 0.020. We note that considering separately the chances to be either married or single of deaf women and men is necessary for accounting for intermarriage between deaf and hearing people. Indeed, if deaf people would only marry deaf people, considering either gender would bring exactly the same results; however, deaf people also marry hearing people, therefore it makes sense to consider the two genders separately.

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being statistically significant). In this respect, deaf women side with deaf men, and not with hearing women. In Mediterranean countries, instead, deaf women show the lowest probability of living alone, while the opposite is found for former Soviet countries, where their probability is the highest (although not statistically different from that of hearing women). Hence, in these two areas, deaf women do not align neither with women in general, nor with the deaf population, showing a distinctive condition.

Figure 63: Probability to live in a one-adult household, by gender, area, and hearing status. Age 22–59, year 2011 (weighted N=708 151).

The first conclusion to draw from these result is that – to some extent, and in some areas more than in others – deaf people do behave as a category, in their marital behavior, and also with respect to the household composition, which indeed shows a more complex pattern than marital status. The second conclusion is that, in areas in which they show a higher probability to be single instead than married, they might be less tightly embedded in their social network than hearing people. This holds especially for Continental-liberal countries, in which the probability for deaf people to live alone is much higher than in other areas, and the more so in deaf women’s case. A particular situation is that of deaf women in former Soviet countries, where they show a higher probability to be single, and also to live alone. On the condition of loneliness, the conclusions will return. First, let the behavior of deaf people as a homogeneous category be commented upon. The reason why distinctions between deaf and hearing people are more or less strong in the four group of countries may be that the deaf community in some areas is more clearly singled out from the rest of society, and therefore lives along patterns of life that are distinctive of a culture of its own, as it was documented in the case of the former USSR (Rasell & Iarskaia-Smirnova 2014). In fact, this is

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especially remarkable in former Soviet countries, where institutionalization and segregation have been present in education and labour in recent history. Further studies should provide data to evaluate how free the choice is for deaf people to aggregate with deaf people. In fact, for deaf people to be together may be the result of a ghettoization, when few opportunities are offered to access society in its entirety – a society that should indeed belong to hearing and deaf people alike –; but it may also be the result of a free choice to be together with people who are similar to them and share with them experiences and personal stories. It has been written that a constitutive trait of Deaf culture is intermarriage between Deaf persons (Lane 1999: 17): it is not the existence of a Deaf culture that should preoccupy, rather the imposition of segregation. Finally, differences between deaf men and women as observed in Figures 62 and 63, albeit limited, can be appreciated in the former Soviet area and, to a limited extent, in the Northern area – but they might be explained by distinct life expectancy for men and women.

13b.6 Conclusions The data presented in this chapter contribute to answer an important theoretical question: whether deafness is really the paramount social characteristic that identifies and distinguishes the condition of the persons who cannot hear from birth, or, on the contrary, there are competing characteristics that segment the deaf population differently than on the basis of hearing. Remarkably, the following characteristics distinguish women in many countries, as statistics has been showing since a long time: reaching higher educational credentials than men, having such higher educational credentials not valued and not rewarded by the labour market, having more family and care responsibilities that hinder them in their careers and participation in the labour market. In these respects, deaf women are more similar to women in general, than to deaf people in general. This is especially important, as it indicates that social indicators do not identify deaf women first and foremost as deaf, but sometimes first and foremost as women. In contrast, other indicators are less clear-cut, such as occupying roles of managers and professionals. And there are indicators, such as the probability not to be married or to live alone, in which deaf women align rather with deaf men, than with hearing women. These results point towards a more complex reality than a paramount distinction between hearing and deaf people. The distinctions among countries attested in all quantitative chapters (chapters 3b, 6b, 10b, in addition to 13b), also

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underline that deaf people do share social characteristics and social conditions of the hearing people in their own countries. The meaning of this conclusion is not abstract, as it speaks to the relationships that are possible between deaf and hearing people. It is not abstract, because, as chapter 9b showed, the issue on which Deaf Studies principal actors mostly debate is deaf identity. The precondition to talk about a deaf identity is that deaf people are strongly singled out. But social indicators attest that it may well be that cleavage lines, in society, sometimes separate deaf people from hearing people, but other times, as this chapter has shown, cleavage lines separate women – deaf and hearing alike – from men. To the distinction hearing/deaf, one can add not only the distinction women/ men, but also many other ones. In other words, a person can be deaf, but also a woman, but also a leftist, but also a vegetarian, but also . . . . Identities are complex and rich: side by side with the deaf identity, other identities are available for anyone to choose or to accept, and to elaborate on. And this is good news. Because in conclusion, in spite of what Figures 62 and 63 told us about the present state of things, the conditions exist for deaf people to feel they are less alone, than they might have thought. Deaf women can feel they are in the company of hearing women – and can ally with hearing women. Plural alliances become available to deaf persons, when they fight for their rights – alliances with women, when it is about women’s right, alliances with people in their same working condition, when it is about labour rights, alliances with LGBTQ+ people, when one person is both deaf and a member of the LGBTQ+ community – and so on. Chapter 6b also reported the possibility of alliances with the disability movement, with the civil rights movements, with workers’ movements. Deaf people are less alone also for another, important reason: the signing community is enlarging, as, year after year, it includes more and more hearing signers. If sign language is so important in the definition of deafness (just one among many: Padden 1988), it happens that, as time goes by, more and more hearing persons share a little bit of this crucial trait. Hopefully, in time, more and more hearing persons will be sensitive to deaf people’s needs and calls. Society might no more be perceived as just something to be transformed in order to become habilitating (Oliver 1990: 3), but as a shared home to live in, equally accessible to hearing and deaf persons, shareable in all of its dimensions: education, labour, research, politics, and social life in its entirety and richness.

Employed / unemployed vs. inactive

Tertiary education vs. up to upper secondary

Managerial & professional occupations vs. other occupation

Family limitations vs. other kinds of limitations (among those who indicated at least a limitation in work)









N

Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   education, age, marital status, area*hearing status, gender*hearing status, gender*area, gender*hearing status*area

Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   tertiary education, age, tertiary*area, gender*area, tertiary*hearing status, gender*hearing status, tertiary*gender*hearing status*area

Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   education, age, area*hearing status, gender*hearing status, gender*area, gender*hearing status*area

Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   education, age, area*hearing status, gender*hearing status, gender*area, gender*hearing status*area

Figure Dependent variable Independent/control variables

.

.

.

.

Likelihood ratio chi square









Degrees of freedom

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Prob > Pseudo R chi

Table 11: Specification and goodness of fit of multinomial and binomial logistic regression models used in this chapter.

Annex to chapter 13b

–.

–.

–.

–.

Log likelihood

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Married vs. single

Living in a oneadult household vs. other household types





Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   education, age, area*hearing status, gender*hearing status, gender*area, gender*hearing status*area

Gender, hearing status, geo-political area,   education, age, area*hearing status, gender*hearing status, gender*area, gender*hearing status*area .

.





.

.

.

.

–.

–.

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Anna’s acknowledgments Here I am, arrived at the last chapter, which for me is the most difficult: acknowledgements. A tough work to embark on! It is about the people who have shared my life, and sometimes words are not enough . . . what words can be more valid than a simple “Thank you”? I am not young, my years weigh, and I hope not to forget anyone. I remember having read a text, where life is compared to a train ride: there are accidents, there are stops, there are pleasant surprises and sometimes sadness. There are thousands of people getting on the train, they might matter in one’s life, or they might not matter. Someone gets on and immediately off, and I have barely noticed him . . . Thanks again to the protagonists of my life: my four parents, Fulvia, Emiliano, Rosaria, Ariella, Roberto . . . I’ve already talked a lot. A special thanks goes to my friend Sara Trovato, my co-author, for giving me the opportunity to realize the dream of turning my life into this book. Without her, I would not have arrived. Thanks also to Carlo for his trust and consultations. And thanks to: Mario, only love of my life. I owe him for being the protagonist of my own life, no matter if sometimes, as we use to say in Italian, small arguments increase the joys of our life as a couple. Mario’s family, Enzo and Cristina and their children, Mirko and Laura and their children. Most especially thanks to my father-in-law, whom I have always contradicted by criticizing Naples, his city, and its difficult life. He used to enjoyed this and to conclude “You are right” – a solution I have adopted when I don’t feel like arguing with someone: well, it works. Everyone in Mario’s family made me feel one of the family. My grandparents and my uncles who are no longer there who have been able to fill me with love. My cousins (Lucca & Castaldini and their wives and children). Edgardo Carli for his life teachings. I’m sorry I always considered him boring and unbearable, but everything he did was for my own good. A great man. Fulvia, I thank her for being my older sister. She has always been very strict, but her lessons made me grow. A great woman, like her father. Armando Giuranna, for saving me twice – in impossible missions! –, and yet he succeeded. Federica Felli, my primary school teacher, a sweet fairy. Rosaria Giuranna’s parents and family for the protection they provided me when I was alone in Palermo. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-027

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Margherita and Paolo Lunardi, Anna Ridolfi, Brunella Calonaci, Anna Maria D’Agata . . . my childhood friends who never made me feel “excluded” in childhood games when I was the only Deaf child in the group. Joseph Castronovo who upset my life by opening it to the world. Roberto Wirth, for the research work he entrusted me with, even though I didn’t achieve it through the finish line as I would have liked. Above all, for the trust he has in me, and because he knows I am a friend he can count on. To Virginia Volterra, who has always believed in me and valued me. “Terrible” Serena Corazza, who deserves thanks for providing me with so many opportunities to dive into the world of research and for her friendship. Elena Pizzuto, the first person who made me happy by making me discover that signs are a real language. Professors Cecchetto and Zucchi for making me feel as though I was a professor as well. Roberto Rossetti, co-author, thanks for putting up with me during our research work and for his sincere friendship. Antonella Rana for her great support in the creation of the book Il colore del silenzio. A special thank goes to my friend Gabriele Dall’Asta (and to Parma’s ENS consiglieri) for a great success: after a long struggle, he managed to name a parc in Parma after Edgardo Carli. Maria Pia Cugini, has been my best friend, always present throughout my life. Raffaele Donati for bringing me so many books and movies from abroad. Thanks to my special friends: Alessandra Biagianti (who inspired this book), Brahim Matloub, Graziella Anselmo and her children Ami, Asava and Andre (my godson), Manola and Silvana Cugini with their daughters, Paolo Petrucci (who collaborated with me in cultural activities in Florence, including Tv news), Monica Piani (my teacher of English), Natalia and Matteo Mastromatteo, Rossano Borgioli (for the many videos and interviews we realized together) Daniela Mazzocco, Yuliet Cortes, Gaia Pelotti, Ludovico Graziani, Sara Reggiani, Emanuela Cameracanna, Ginetta Rosato, Rocco and Nicoletta Morese and their daughters, Stefania Fadda, Umberto and Teresa D’Agostino, Giuseppina Iuculano, Daniele Chiri, Anna Maria Bonciani, Caterina Dambra and Domenico Fachera, Marinella Salami, Mauro Mottinelli, Daniela Dell’Orzo, Enza, Gabriella, Giuseppe and Alexandra Giuranna, Marisa ed Ela Smiroldo, Nella Romeo and Walter Cavallini, Mimma Sergi and Nicola Ottomano, Rossana Vacchelli and Beppe Bolzoni, Loredana Maranghi, Paolo Girardi, Caterina Bagnara, Carmen Guevara and her family. Thanks to the director of the bank in which I worked, dott. Di Marzo, an apparently tough person with a heart of gold, who required me to respect the

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rules of life. I detested him, but he was my protector in the worst times, I owe him a lot. Aldo Aldi, a friend and almost a part of my family. A genius “solver” of all home problems, who created incredible works for me and my family. Boccacci and D’Agata families, and their daughters for their wonderful friendship with my family. ENS, Ente Nazionale Sordi’s headquarters in Rome under Ms Ida Collu’s presidency, and its board, for inviting me to participate in Deaf associative life with important positions – one as a national member of FALICS – the E.N.S. deparment in training in language and culture –; one as national manager of the Art Culture Theater and Leisure Department; and one in support of Equal Opportunity. Thanks to my dear colleagues from Palermo, Florence, Milan and Monza: Luigi Zancla (he found an apartment for me in Palermo), Concetta Alioto, Antonino Furitano, Francesco Ferotti, Francesco Agnello, Sary Strazzeri, Clelia Lardeo, Angelo Alaimo, Vera Riccobono, Antonella Cardia, Salvo Viola, Santi Catona, Carlo Parrini, Ennio Frilli (my savior), Anna D’Amico, Massimo Speltoni, Bruno Vecchio, Claudio Madonia, Giuliano Morandi, Fabiola Paulli, Cristina Macchi, Alessandra Ferrari, Alberto Begal, Francesca Bertello, Raffaele Aprile, Ruggero Poggianella, Laura Farina and Carmelita Lonardo. Special people and special colleagues, they were real friends, even if lately I don’t see them anymore. My colleagues at Unicredit bank, and the participants to Unicredit seminar “Se mi guardi ti sento”: Paolo Svolacchia, Annalisa Pampo, Simona Armaroli, Corrado Avarino, Maria Pia Marzocchi, Ambra Benazzi, Paola Loda and an infinite number of colleagues from various parts of Italy – I’m sorry if I cannot mention everyone. My foreign friends (countless names): Felix Pinedo, Lourdes Pinedo, Louanna Pinedo (my goddaughter), Bernard Bragg, Howie Seago, Lorna Allsop, Kaisa Alanne, Kerstin Olsson, Gunilla Wagstrom, Gunilla and Lars Wallin, Aino Lahdenpera, Debbie and Peter Zacsko, Lars Wikstrom, Asger and Ritva Bergamann, Liisa Kauppinen, Levent Beskardes, Jorgen and Judy Nielsen, Carole and Larry Moskowitz, Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, Akihiro Yonaiyama, Yutaka Osugi, Masao Ito, Yoriko Kawai, Fanny and Henry Corderoy du Tiers, Sofia Isari, Arunas Brazinskas, Tomas and Ulf Hedberg, Christine and Uwe Schoenfeld, Christian and Irmi Schoenbeck, Clayton Valli, Sergei Chachelev, Marie Jean Philips, Olivier Schetrit, Victor Abbou, Pauline Spanbauer, Thomas and Philippa Sandholm, Lynn Jacobowitz, Vonne and Barry Gulak, Carlos and Palmira Michaud, Ceil Lucas, Ina and Robert Rieger. My physician, Dr. Desirée Merlini – she can be defined as a veterinary: she does not ask me what I have – but she wants to understand what I “feel”.

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I thank associazione Benefica Cardano (Mr. Soliani, Ghezzi, and Matera) for their collaboration and for giving me access to many of the photos published in this volume. I sincerely thank my most recent co-authors: Graziella, Mirko, and Claudio for the excellent collaboration, Sara for choosing the four of us, and above all for her trust. Thanks to Erickson publishing house for accepting our work. I thank Giuliana and Francesca for giving me a chance to take back love and teach LIS. Thanks go to the persons who attend my seminars: they participate without asking me what the topic is, they are always present at any type of event I organize. Last thanks to sign language interpreters who patiently followed and translated my speeches (Franchi, Peruzzi, Verdirossi, Zanchetti, and many others). Thanks to them I was able to present my ideas, my feelings and my works to the public without the obligation to use my “flat” voice in front of the hearing public. Has my long list concluded? I hope I have not forgotten anyone, if I did, I ask for forgiveness. My journey still continues . . . and I wish to share it further with the dear ones who got on my train.

Conclusion Anna and Sara, a Deaf and hearing woman, wrote this book together, with the intention to cross the lines. As Virginia Volterra underlined (chapter 11a), Anna has been a bridge between two worlds. She has always been a participant in the hearing world – in work, in research – but coming from a Deaf family, she has been a native signer, she has studied and interpreted Deaf culture, she has been a leader of the Deaf community. Anna loves to share what she discovers in books with Deaf people – and she has presented her findings in dozens of conferences in sign language packed with hundreds of Deaf people. Anna wanted her story to be written for hearing and Deaf people to be able to read it. Besides Anna’s story, to be found in the “a” chapters, the reader has read in these pages a series of essays, the “b” chapters. A minimal objective of the essay chapters was to realize a non-discriminatory research. Their most realistic objective was to provide the reader with solutions and reflections on how to improve the participation of Deaf people to as varied institutions as education – from primary school to university and research –, labor market, cultural institutions, and political institutions. The maximal objective of the essay chapters in this book was to contribute to the foundation of a sociology of deafness that might be able to find its place within the broader domain of sociology (chapter 9b) – with the higher standards that sociology proper, as compared to advocacy, adopts. As far as the first objective, the “minimal” one, non-discriminatory research, is concerned, Kenneth D. Bailey (1978) indicates that research with disadvantaged communities should not 1. exclude such groups from research; 2. reinforce and perpetuate stereotypes; 3. deny heterogeneity within the group; 4. amplify differences between privileged and disadvantaged groups; 5. distort research results; 6. be a research that is conducted approximately. As readers will go through these conclusive pages, they might keep these objectives in mind, as they will justify a series of theoretical choices. These conclusions will be mostly centered on synthesizing the content of this book along the lines of the second objective, the “most realistic” one: providing solutions and reflections on how to include Deaf people in institutions that belong to them as citizens. As to the third objective, the “maximal” one, contributing to founding a sociology of deafness – well, the reader that will go through these conclusions will agree that its achievement depends on the success in achieving the second objective. Let us synthetize, then, the conclusions that can be drawn from this book.

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The Deaf condition, quantitatively (chapters 3b 6b 10b 13b) This is the first publication providing an idea about the aggregated condition of deaf1 people in a series of European countries and allowing to compare what institutions do and do not achieve for them in each country considered. Institutions are more or less performant, and one could not hold responsible a non-performing system specifically for its deaf students’ less-than-good results, when hearing students also perform poorly, or for its deaf workers unemployment, when also hearing workers are equally unemployed. As a consequence, deaf and hearing data have been compared within the same educational or labor system, that is, one has to compare deaf and hearing data within each country. This has led to consider societies somehow as variables, and deaf persons as constants. This is, if any, a move in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters’ style, that is, switching perspectives and considering as strange and new the “obvious” hearing society that everyone is accustomed to. To be more precise, more than a constant, the achievements of deaf persons have been considered as a dependent variable, while societies were observed to vary, in their policies, to determine variations in deaf persons achievements. Inequalities do exist between deaf and hearing people: they exist in access to higher levels of education, in the choice among educational fields, in the access to professions, especially to the ones that exert social power. But, and this is the most important result of data analyses, the evidence that some European societies have indeed achieved considerable results in education (chapters 3b, 10b) and in labor (chapter 6b) implies that there is no crystallized social injustice against deaf people, but rather, solutions exist that some countries have achieved, others have not. Another result is that many considerable social cleavages are not to be found between deaf and hearing people, but between men and women, or among people with different educational level, irrespective of whether they are hearing or deaf (chapter 13b). The distinctions between deaf and hearing people split society according to categories that are not always confirmed by social data. In particular, deaf and hearing people share the same condition, even more so than deaf and disabled people do (where “disabled” does not include deaf; chapters 3b, 6b, 9b).

1 As observed in chapter 3b, the capitalization for the word “deaf” has not been used in the quantitative chapters, since the data sample had not been selected by asking a question about the deaf person’s being a signer or identifying with Deaf culture.

The Deaf condition, quantitatively (chapters 3b 6b 10b 13b)

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This shows that the attitude which insists uniquely on the contrast between deaf and hearing people is not justified: social injustice is to be found along other distinctive lines: gender, education, occupation. But as they realize they share the condition of hearing people of the same gender, of the same education, of the same occupation, Deaf people can also realize that in many of the battles they fight they are not alone, if only they seek and accept alliances (chapter 13b). Education remains a place of inequalities (chapters 4a, 3b, 6b) – and it is justified to consider it a crucial issue, as it has always been considered within research on deafness (chapter 6b). But there are solutions, as the ones presented in chapter 4b. Italy, the state where Anna’s biography takes place, presents a very interesting mainstreaming model for all disadvantaged minority categories in school as well as in society (Trovato 2016). This book begins with a narration of school segregation (chapter 2a) in Italian special schools, that after 1977 would mostly be transformed in mainstreaming schools, while since the mid 90ies, bilingual projects would appear in single selected schools (chapter 4b). In special schools, sign languages would circulate in schoolyards and corridors, in mainstreaming schools it would be suppressed, in bilingual project it would become language of instruction for Deaf students as well as for hearing students. The idea supported by the 1977 law was that all students should be treated equally. From this idea, it first followed that all deaf students should be equal to hearing students in as much as they should talk without signing. However, a different interpretation of the idea that all students should be treated equally emerged in pioneering bilingual projects: it was the hearing context that could adapt itself to the Deaf minority, and make use of signs (chapters 2b, 4b, 10b, Trovato et al. 2020). The result was a bilingual school where no one could tell a Deaf boy or girl from a hearing boy or girl: all of them equally signed. The same that can happen in classes, can happen more generally in all social situations. Sign languages will exist as long as Deaf people will exist. In spite of almost one and a half century of oralism [education in the spoken language alone] being the solution in all over Europe since 1880, sign languages have persisted. Even though cochlear implants may today become the norm in richer countries, in most of the world, sign languages will continue to be resorted to. François Grosjean wrote that unlike unimodal bilingualism [bilingualism between spoken languages] that after some generations is usually not preserved, bimodal bilingualism [bilingualism between the spoken and signed modality] cannot be overcome from generation to generation: Deaf people will be signers because of their hearing loss (Grosjean 1992: 312–313).

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Deaf people will remain champions in sign languages, and they will be such also as teachers, on condition that hearing people will want to learn sign language. Institutions will be shared upon the condition that there will be hearing people available to provide access – through the use of sign language. Sharing society and its institutions with Deaf people should start by sharing their language – and not by imposing spoken language. If a qualified minority of hearing people could start signing, it would provide access to all Deaf people it interacts with in its professional roles (Trovato [forthcoming]), so that Deaf people would be recognized in their rights to citizenship (sign languages grant fundamental rights to Deaf people, chapter 2b). The challenge in front of us is creating a hearing society that is aware about what is needed, competent, and ready to take its responsibilities towards Deaf persons. What should never more happen is for a new Joseph Castronovo to start a theatre project (chapters 8a, 8b), a new Anna to want to publish a book and meeting with hearing professionals in Institutions that do not understand how much is at stake when they just say “no” (chapter 11a). Shared work between hearing and Deaf people is achieved inclusion, and as such is positive. But needing the collaboration of hearing people as a pre-requisite for any project, means, quite to the contrary, that what might be called “society” – the majoritarian, all-encompassing human social structure, as opposed to “community”, the Deaf, the signing community –, belongs to hearing people alone, and Deaf people need a special hearing permission to be allowed to achieve their projects. It means that Deaf people are not citizens in the same manner as hearing people are. This is the reason why hearing people are called to take their own responsibilities (chapter 1b). One might think of establishing Deaf Institutions (chapter 7b) in support to Deaf people (chapter 5b): as in the United States and in France, to make an example, publishers exist such as Gallaudet University Press and Monica Companys. These are solutions created by institutions that are specialized in deafness. They are spaces of freedom. But to enlarge the borders of territories where Deaf people are citizens, better still would be to have an extensive hearing society nonspecialized in deafness, but aware about the needs of Deaf people (chapters 11b, 12b). This was achieved by French massive participation of (hearing) media in French Deaf awakening, by a use of theatre as a cultural means able to reach extensive sections of hearing society (chapter 8b). Even in the absence of a “Deaf awakening”, an ethics of the meeting with Deaf people has been – and therefore can be – used in sections of societies that were just engaged in doing their jobs, and were not specialized in deafness, as some Italian research groups in Milan and Trento were (chapter 11b).

Power and empowerment

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Letting Deaf persons speak, or better said, sign for themself To achieve citizenship rights, Deaf people should first of all be listened to. It may appear as paradoxical, but those who need to listen more than they usually do are hearing people. Taking the stand on behalf of Deaf people is exemplified in chapter 5a, with the decisive intervention of a Deaf leader like Edgardo Carli in behalf of a teenager Anna (on Carli see also chapters 7a and 12a). The topic of letting Deaf persons speak, or, better said, sign for themselves is developed in chapter 5b, authored by Luca Des Dorides. Chapter 7a synthesizes a long interview, lasting various days, that involved Anna Folchi and Emiliano Mereghetti. The methodology used in chapters such as 7a is Weberian, in as much as it gives the word, pardon, the sign, to social actors, in order to gather their own interpretation of events. The object dealt with is the evolution leading Deaf people towards the feeling of personal worthiness that is often associated with sign language. The central point resulting from the interview is the interplay between the hearing research community and hearing society in its entirety on one side, and the Deaf community and its leaders on the other side. The perspective of Deaf interviewees is central not only in chapter 7a, but also in chapter 12b, centered on Deaf university education and Deaf participation to research. In chapter 12b, interviewees are Deaf researchers, who tell what they think can improve effectiveness in Deaf participation to educational Institutions. Letting Deaf people sign for themselves has another meaning: allowing them to choose what their elective language is, as hearing professionals do not often do – and Deaf authors have remarked that while opting out of “spoken language only” towards sign language often takes place in Deaf persons’ lives, the opposite, that is, moving away from sign language towards “spoken language only”, never takes place (among others, Padden & Humphries 2006: 82 and chapter 12b.6). As important as it can be, giving the word to Deaf people is cultural, is political, is even biological – as some language acquisitionists observe (Lenneberg 1967; chapter 2b) – but it is not all. A discourse on power is equally needed.

Power and empowerment When Michel Foucault (chapter 1b) thought that power acts over those who are observed (Foucault 1975), he did so by imagining powerful ones in the position of the beholder who is not seen.

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This is precisely why Anna’s voice is so important in this book (chapter 1a). Minorities we don’t even suspect we have power over, observe us in turn, describe us, return us to the role of a deviant majority. Majorities constitute the environment in which minorities live. Majorities exert power over minorities not in the sense of influencing their behavior, but in the sense of influencing the environment in which minorities live, and especially of the Institutions that simplify or hinder social action: language is an Institution, mindsets are Institutions, representations, norms and social control have to do with Institutions, the use of professional power is conferred by Institutions. A discourse about hearing power and its correct use has to focus on yielding power to Deaf people – and on the effective ways for this to be done. Such ways include what is usually referred to as empowerment. “Empowerment is viewed as a process: the mechanism by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives” (Rappaport 1984, 1–7). In various chapters, empowerment is met with, applied to a series of situations involving Deaf people. Victor Abbou’s story (chapter 8b) was the story of a person and a community that considered themselves inferior to hearing people. In such a case, empowerment restored a feeling of personal value. Joseph Castronovo’s story of an attempted empowerment of a Deaf theatre group in Palermo (chapter 8a) is a story of a hearing society not perceiving that for Deaf persons to be empowered by Deaf persons would have been crucially important. What Rappaport labels as “social structure”, that is, the social context where Deaf people live, has also to be transformed: Empowerment implies that what you see as poor functioning is a result of social structure and lack of resources which make it impossible for the existing competencies to operate. (Rappaport 1981: 16)

A work of empowerment cannot be successful if it is not played on a double domain: the community to be empowered and its individuals on one side, and the society at large on the other side. To be precise, as chapter 8b told, there is a third domain to be taken care of, because that is where empowerment succeeds or not: it is the interface between community and society at large – in our specific case, the interface between the Deaf and the hearing worlds. As a consequence, successful empowerment leads to social innovation, that is, to a transformation of society as whole.

Sharing society with Deaf people

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Social innovation This book has selected a series of case studies that reconstruct moments of great advancement lived by one generation of Deaf people, at a precise moment in time and space (chapters 7b, 8b), a didactic methodology that can support improvement in Deaf education (chapter 4b), school legislation that might have led to good achievements in Deaf education, by supporting bilingualism and communication needs (chapter 10b). But the processes of social innovation that have originated in Deaf people for Deaf people are most interesting. Chapter 7a tells the story of the foundation of Ente Nazionale Sordi in Italy, a unified association for all Italian Deaf people, which would extensively reach Deaf people all over Italy after its foundation in the Fifties. What the authors like to underline in this story, is the democratic quality of a shared leadership, plural in values, tolerant, and welcoming dissenting views. The already-mentioned chapter 8b presents two parallel grassroot projects, both initiated by Deaf men coming from the United States, Alfredo Corrado and Joseph Castronovo. These men were able of a creative leadership, the one that scholars of institutional innovation consider as shaping institutional change/ progress (Moulaert 2017, 29). The two projects were not equally successful. Chapter 8b endeavored to explain what the conditions for success were, that is, what differences existed between the two projects in the process, and in the context where they took place. Chapter 10b tried to provide evidence that school legislation innovating towards bilingualism contributed to better school achievements by Deaf students – but data were unfortunately too restricted, so that the request has been placed for statistical agencies working at an international level to collect more extensive and at the same time more targeted data.

Sharing society with Deaf people Disability is a variable that depends on the environment surrounding a person, and not on the person. This is the notion that has been supported in the pages of this book. It was already a very authoritative notion before this book, adopted by the World Health Organization, in its ICF, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. The most specific among the facilitators relating to deafness is the use of sign language. In a world where some hearing people were able to sign, Deaf people would be completely at home. An increasing interest in

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sign language, an increasing dissemination of sign languages are already ongoing processes. But the work to be done does not end with the use of sign languages. More generally, that disability is eliminated by introducing facilitators and abating barriers can be granted in the abstract. Taking responsibility for it is harder. For this reason, we hope, reading these pages will provide solutions and reflections. Between an abstract proposition and its realization this book has introduced the practical test of a series of situations, drawn from different domains. This practical test, from chapter to chapter, sometimes consisted in a theoretical argument supporting the validity of the ICF position – as in chapters 1b or 9b –, sometimes in case studies supporting the ICF position – as in chapters 7b, 8a, and 8b – sometimes in a series of operational tools – as in the chapter 4b, where didactic tools have been provided to allow teachers to take on this responsibility, or as in chapter 10b, where legislation was compared that leads to better or worse educational achievements for Deaf students. In any case, the point was showing that breaking down barriers is possible, useful, and right. The word now passes to the readers: the realization of an inclusive world is up to you. As it goes in Italian, buon lavoro!

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Index Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables, the letter “n” refers to notes. Abbé de l'Epée 123, 214, 225, 232, 255 Abbou, Victor XIX, 173, 220–225, 236–238, 315, 408 access XV, XVII, XXI, 2–5, 17, 29, 38–40, 53–82, 99, 112, 130, 140–143, 148–152, 158, 161, 174, 195, 231, 238–240, 255, 273–300, 325, 348–353, 358–360, 370, 385–388, 394, 404–406 Ali, Vincenzo 26, 178, 180, 181, 182, 190 Angelini, Natalia 303 Anselmo, Graziella 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 218, 229, 232, 310, 313, 314 anti-segregation movement 275 ASL (American Sign Language) 10, 36, 37, 171, 199, 200, 202, 206, 213, 217, 234n12, 245, 248, 250–251, 259, 316, 318, 323, 378 associations of disabled people 147. See also Disability Alliance; UPIAS (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) Associazione Benefica Cardano 179, 182 audism 1, 3, 8, 122, 141, 258. See also discrimination Austria 55, 59n, 62, 66, 70–74, 70, 73, 75, 80, 81, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 151–154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 375, 379 awareness. See Deaf awareness. See hearing awareness about Deaf needs Bailey, Kenneth 403 Baj, Claudio 98 Barba, Eugenio 206, 231n7 barriers XVIII, 15, 44, 82, 139, 144, 163–165, 377, 389–390, 398, 410 Basaglia, Franco XII, 275 Basso, Paolo 124, 124n2, 301, 304 Bavelier, Daphne 329 Belgium 56, 375, 379 Bellugi, Ursula 237, 317 Benetti, Stefania 328 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110763140-030

Benigni, Roberto 269 Bescardes, Levent 236 bilingualism – in education XVII, 4, 29, 42, 76–79, 87, 93–114, 95, 101, 220, 231n4, 238, 252, 256, 276–277, 291–299, 311, 319, 350, 405–406 binomial logistic regression 81n, 158n, 161n, 163n, 396–397 Blind people 8, 113, 131, 136, 186n2, 254, 265, 273–275, 280–283, 281, 285–287, 286, 290–291, 328, 332 Bonfiglioli, Claudia 330 Borgioli, Rossano 249, 303 Bottari, Davide 332 Bottini, Stefano 375 Bourdieu, Pierre 121, 294–295 Bouvet, Danielle 317 Bragg, Bernard 53, 195, 200, 202n, 205, 208, 212, 227, 229, 244–246, 252, 266 Brazil 22, 143, 366–367 Brogi, Enrico 26, 178, 182, 190 Buttitta, Ignazio 206, 230 Cantin, Yann 219 capacitation 14, 18, 38–43, 53, 65, 179, 217, 220, 221–223, 241–242 Carbonera, Felice 124n3 Carbonieri, Giacomo 124, 124n2, 301–302, 304, 318, 320 Carli, Edgardo XXIII, 26, 83, 88–90, 118–120, 117, 120, 178–193, 178, 335–348, 338, 348, 371, 407 Carli, Fulvia 49, 88, 89, 90–91, 117–120, 304, 320, 342, 345, 374 Caruso, Enrico 21 Caselli, Cristina 329, 330 Castaldini, Magda (Anna’s mother) 19–28, 19, 45–50, 83–89, 119, 246 Castronovo, Ami 209 Castronovo, Asava 209, 213–214

432

Index

Castronovo, Joseph XIX, XXII, 172, 195–215, 198, 216, 217–219, 223, 228–235, 240–242, 244, 246, 269, 315, 334, 367, 406, 408–409 Cataldo, Giusy 208 Cavalli, Adele 21, 22 Cavalli, Elvira 21–22 Cavalli, Gemma (Anna's great-grandmother) 20, 21, 22 Cavalli, Ida 21 Cecchetto, Carlo XXII, 310–311, 313–314, 323–327, 329 Ceria, Silvia XVII, 97, 101, 114 Cericola, Simone 97 Chachelev, Sergei 252 Children of a Lesser God 198, 212, 227, 254, 271–272 Chiri, Daniele 97–98 cochlear implant 4, 17, 29, 35, 38, 42, 61, 77, 97, 239, 262, 266, 327, 328, 329, 331–334, 353, 366, 405 Chomsky, Noam 323 civil rights movement 128, 148, 275, 395 Clerc, Laurent 211, 270 CNR (Rome research group) XXII, 167–>176, 197, 198, 230, 308–313, 314, 316–321, 323, 327, 329, 330, 333 cognitive science 276, 316, 323, 326, 327–333 Collignon, Olivier 328 Collu, Ida 28, 172 Comitti, Carlo 26, 178, 182, 190 Congress of Milan 1880, 26n, 87, 123, 126 Continental countries 152, 379–397. See also Austria; France; Germany; Ireland; Netherlands; United Kingdom Corazza, Serena 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 246, 249, 301, 308–309, 317, 319, 320 Corrado, Alfredo XIX, 173, 215, 218–228, 232, 234–240, 409 Cossato bilingual project XVII, 93–114, 95, 101–102, 105, 108, 109 Cuxac, Christian 220, 317 D'Annunzio, Gabriele 21 Dante 195, 267, 268–269

data XIII, XVII, XVIII, XXIII, 10, 14, 56, 58, 59, 96, 95, 123–124, 183–184, 255, 257, 259, 314, 330, 331 – previously unpublished 53–63, 62, 64–82, 93–97, 123–124, 139–166, 149, 150, 157, 158, 160, 164, 165, 273–291, 278, 281, 284, 286, 288, 377–397, 381, 385, 386, 389, 392, 393, 396–397, 404–406 – availability XXI, 34, 79, 82, 151, 153, 161–162, 276, 285, 288–299, 391 Deaf awareness XIX, 167–176, 177, 180, 186, 188, 198–200, 204, 207, 217, 219, 222, 223, 229, 251, 266. See also Deaf “awakening/s” Deaf “awakening/s” XIX, 170, 173–175, 177–194, 214–215, 218–225, 233, 406 Deaf associations XIX, XXIII, 17, 26–30, 122, 124, 124n3, 177–194, 177, 180, 183, 220, 233, 235, 303–304, 369. See also Associazione Benefica Cardano; ENS (Ente Nazionale Sordi); Società di Mutuo Soccorso Gerolamo Cardano di Milano DeafBlind people 113, 155, 307, 323, 326 Deaf children XVII, 9, 13–14, 17, 34–44, 45–52, 83–89, 103–114, 126, 166, 235–236, 252, 259, 260, 270, 277, 294, 353–354, 365–366, 372 Deaf community XI, XII, XVIII, XX, XXI, 4, 11, 26, 28, 43, 53, 61, 79, 86, 121–132, 142, 143, 167, 170, 171–176, 181, 195–196, 199, 213, 217, 218–221, 224, 226, 232, 240–242, 256, 257, 261, 266–267, 291, 302, 305, 311, 313, 315, 319, 322, 324, 325, 326, 328, 330, 331, 334, 347, 349, 350, 351, 360, 361, 365, 366, 368, 393, 403, 406–410 Deaf culture XX, 52, 61, 63, 79, 168, 205, 210, 222, 225, 249, 252, 257–258, 265–267, 303, 312, 323, 326, 394, 403, 404n Deaf/deaf 61–63, 262, 298, 404n Deaf education XVII, XXI, 9, 53–82, 83–91, 155–162, 174 – access to 66, 79, 174, 273–299

Index

– bilingualism, in XVII, 4, 29, 42, 76–79, 87, 93–114, 95, 101, 220, 231n4, 238, 252, 256, 276–277, 291–299, 311, 319, 350, 405–406 – Deaf teachers in XVII, 78, 97–98, 104, 113, 129, 201, 203, 213, 248, 257–258, 264, 266, 271, 355, 364, 366 – having a great space in Deaf Studies 142–143, 155–162, 405 – in institutes XVI, 9, 22–26, 115–120 – legislation in XXI, 273–299 – lower secondary 64–82, 70, 90–91, 102–113, 102, 115–120, 277–288, 284, 286, 288 – mainstreaming 50–51, 76, 145, 275–276, 281–287, 290–291, 295–298, 354, 405 – middle school. See lower secondary – nursery school 42, 97, 99 – primary 50–51, 64–82, 70, 85–87, 89–90, 101–102, 102–113, 277–288, 278, 284, 286, 288 – quality of 65–66, 73–75 – religious XVI, XVIII, 19–30, 22–26, 83–91, 115–120 – secondary. See lower secondary; upper secondary – special 66, 77, 275–276, 277, 290–291, 354 – success in XVIII, XXI, 70, 76–79, 81–82, 83–84, 93–114, 142–143, 157, 161, 273–299, 349–370 – tertiary XXIII, 69, 69n9, 70, 71–72, 73–75, 73, 76–79, 96–97, 158, 238, 277–288, 278, 284, 286, 288, 315–334, 349–370, 385–388, 385, 386 – university. See tertiary – upper secondary 64–82, 70, 75, 80, 119–120, 273, 277–288, 278, 284, 286, 288, 371 Deaf identity XI, XX, XXIII, 39, 60–61, 76, 166–176, 199, 222–223, 229, 259–262, 298, 377–397 – as reified 258, 260–261 Deaf history 19–30, 83–92, 115–120, 123–131, 167–176, 177–194, 195–216, 217–242, 257–259, 265–272, 302, 315–334, 335–348

433

Deaf leadership XII, 53, 115–120, 121–132, 167–176, 177–194, 195–216, 217–242, 265–272, 311, 335–348, 321, 403, 407 Deaf newspapers 177–194 Deaf occupations XVIII, 25, 69, 87, 139, 141–143, 148, 155–162, 157, 158, 160, 238, 259, 325, 367–368, 380–388, 386, 396, 405 Deaf people – being disabled 38, 124, 143–144, 163–165, 255–256, 409–410 – as disabled 139–140, 144–148, 254–255, 274–275, 280–290 – as an ethnic group 255, 259, 260–262, 378 – hearing representation of 121–132, 258–260, 296 – as a minority group 258–261, 293–299, 377–398 – as segregated 23–26, 77, 148, 262, 275, 369, 384, 394, 405 – as socially isolated 50–52, 84, 85, 118, 144, 179, 180, 185, 215, 354, 357, 367, 369, 13b, 377, 384, 390–394, 392, 393. See also Deaf people as segregated Deaf painters XXII, 209–212, 269, 304–306, 312 Deaf partisan XXIII, 117, 120, 178, 335–348, 338, 348 Deaf people and politics 26–30, 85–86, 128–131, 175–176, 177–194, 367–370, 375 Deaf poetry XIX, 195, 197–199, 200–203, 204, 206, 209, 213, 222, 223, 229, 230 “Deaf President Now!” 128–130, 177, 215, 217 Deaf researchers XXII, XXIII, 141, 170, 209, 213, 215, 264, 265, 266, 300–314, 302, 315–334, 349–370, 407 Deaf Studies XV, XVI, XVII, XX, XXII, 8, 10, 11, 16, 63, 64, 72, 82, 139, 140, 161, 162, 197, 202, 203, 213, 253–263, 273, 301, 316, 319, 320, 322, 324, 327, 330–334, 349, 353, 362, 363, 364, 366, 377, 378, 395 – and criticism towards hearing society XVII, 7–18, 72, 139, 161 Deaf teachers XVII, 78, 97–98, 104, 113, 129, 201, 203, 213, 248, 257–258, 264, 266, 271, 355, 364, 366

434

Index

Deaf theatre XIX, XXII, 29, 135, 143, 173–174, 195–215, 217–242, 244–247, 315, 319, 329, 406, 408 Deaf women. See gender Deafhood 3, 255–256, 261 deafness – cultural notion of 140, 254–259, 334 – medical notion of 9–10, 41, 60, 122, 125, 131, 140, 143, 255–256, 257, 258, 262, 331, 334, 366. See also under disability – operational definition of 55–59, 60–63 – prevalence of 55–59, 57–58, 59 – social construction of 253–263 De Carlis, Giovanni 26, 178, 181, 182, 188, 190 De Crescenzo, Luciano 89 De Predis, Cristoforo 211, 269 Denmark 56, 76, 77, 143, 236, 257, 297, 379 Desloges, Pierre 53 Dewey, John 99 didactics. See educational methods Di Renzo, Alessio 170 disability XVIII, 9, 41–43, 54–59, 67–68, 98, 122, 139–140, 144–148, 162–163, 380–381, 389. See also barriers – assistive model of 125, 145, 152, 154, 165, 255, 390 – déficience/handicap 254, 256 – medical model of 15, 125, 131, 255, 258. See also under deafness – as opposed to the Deaf cultural model 255–256 – social model of 15, 131, 145, 255 Disability Alliance 145 Disability Studies XX, 8, 15, 140, 255 discrimination XV, 1–5, 8, 79, 86–87, 121–131, 146, 152, 228, 253–263, 295–297, 378n, 403. See also audism Donati, Raffaele 301 Driver, Jon 328 Dye, Matthew 332 Eastern Europe 234n, 379–397. See also Poland educational methods XVII, 25–26, 45, 65–66, 73–75, 76–79, 81–82, 83–91, 93–114, 127n, 238, 262, 364–370.

See also bilingualism, educational; oralism – in foreign languages 90–91, 251–252 – individual tailoring 76–79 – in reading 88–91 – school organization and curricula 100–102, 101, 349–370 – workshop in text-writing 93–114 educational systems XVII, 25, 64–82, 142–143, 155–162, 158, 273–300, 349–370, 388 – equitability of 64–65, 71–72, 349–370 – fields of 66–67, 79–82, 80, 91, 94, 96, 349–370 – ratings 65–66, 74–78, 93–98, 95, 296 employment 41, 59, 60, 61, 133–138, 139–166, 380–384. See also occupation – access to XVIII, 69, 140, 148–155, 149, 150, 377, 380–384, 381, 385 – experiences 1–2 – rates XVIII – underemployment 64, 66, 259 educational reforms 273–300 Einaudi, Luigi 183, 192 empowerment XIX, 18, 54, 122, 129, 130, 196–215, 210, 217–242, 237, 239, 257, 261, 316–322, 330, 333, 351, 355, 368–370, 407–409 – Deaf participation in 167–176, 177–194, 195–216, 217–242 ENS (Ente Nazionale Sordi) XIX, XXIII, 26–30, 116–118, 128, 130, 133, 136, 172–174, 177–194, 196, 206, 212, 214–215, 217–218, 235, 246, 251, 266, 272, 301, 309, 311, 318, 320, 329, 347 equality and inequality 3, 7–18, 41, 64–82, 139–166, 180, 241, 255, 294–295, 297, 352, 371–375, 377–397, 381, 385, 386, 389, 404–406 equitability 63, 64–65, 69, 71–72, 151, 156, 162, 296, 377, 380 Esping-Andersen, Gøsta 151, 379 ethics 121–122, 186, 315–334, 217–242, 316, 326, 330, 339, 406 European Union 31, 40, 44, 53–63, 62, 76, 145–146, 162, 242, 269, 275, 298, 323–325, 375, 380–381, 388n

Index

Eurostat LFS (Labour Force Survey) XVII, 54n, 59–63, 62, 81, 148, 290, 293–299, 379 Facchini, Massimo 317 FEAST (Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory) conference 324 Ferreiro, Emilia 99–100, 104–105 Ferreri, Giulio 126 Ferrero, Paolo 172 FIAS (Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni tra Sordomuti) 179–182, 185, 187, 192 Finland 56, 62, 66, 70, 71–74, 73, 75, 76–79, 80, 143, 148, 149, 150n, 255, 297, 309, 319, 379 floor taking in own defense XVIII, 117–120, 117, 121–131, 168 Florence XIV, 2, 21, 22, 27, 45, 83, 85, 86, 119, 133, 168, 179, 184, 196, 206, 245, 250, 250, 267, 269, 270, 302, 341, 347 Folchi, Antonio (Anna's grandfather) 20, 22, 25 Folchi, Luigi (Anna's father) 19–28, 19, 24, 45, 46, 49, 117 Folchi, Vittorina (Anna's aunt) 19–28, 19, 24, 45–50, 84, 85, 88, 91, 119, 133, 245 foreign languages learning, for Deaf people 82, 90–91, 117, 251–252, 315, 366 Foucault, Michel XII, XVI, 7–18, 122, 139, 141–142, 155–162, 257, 407 France XIX–XX, 31, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 66, 70, 71–74, 75, 80, 90, 123–124, 143, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 153, 154, 156, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 162, 164, 164, 173–174, 175, 195, 208, 212, 215, 217–242, 243–244, 268, 270, 289, 315–334, 349–370, 379, 406 Freinet, Célestin 99, 102 French “Deaf Awakening” XIX, 173–174, 215, 217–242, 406 Friedmann, Naama 362 FSI (Federazione Italiana Sordomuti) 180–181 Gaarder, Jostein 89 Gagni, Ariella 90–91, 119, 306 Gallaudet, Edward Miner 127

435

Gallaudet University XIX, 128–129, 171, 172, 200, 202, 202n, 204, 210–211, 212, 217, 232n9, 245, 361, 366, 368, 406 gender XII, XIII, XVII, XXIII, 13, 15, 23–26, 45, 46–47, 62, 78, 81, 122, 135, 163, 186n, 190, 256, 262, 294–295, 296, 297, 345, 371–375, 377–397, 381, 385, 386, 389, 392, 393, 396, 404–405 Germany 55, 56, 57, 143, 231n2, 236, 297–298, 315–334, 336, 349–370, 379 Gherardi, Roberta 93n, 114 Giampietro, Eduardo 126 Giuranna, Armando 118, 133, 134, 196, 212, 235 Giuranna, Enza 201, 208, 209, 232 Giuranna, Giuseppe 200 Giuranna, Rosaria 1, 133–135, 134, 196, 198, 199–201, 203–204, 207–209, 218, 230, 231n6, 232, 243–244, 246, 249 Goffman, Erving 15, 275 Gramsci, Antonio 127 Grémion, Jean XIX, 143, 195, 217–242, 224 Grill, Jerrod 200, 202, 203, 211 Grosjean, François 405 hearing people – awareness about Deaf needs XI, XXII, 1–5, 11–14, 16, 17, 50, 152–153, 217, 224–242, 239–241, 266, 312, 315–334, 349–370 – collaborating with Deaf people XXIII, 2–5, 11–14, 41–44, 45, 86, 93–114, 136, 138–139, 144–148, 168–171, 177–194, 198–200, 204, 205–206, 208, 210, 217–242, 258, 315–334, 349–370, 357–360, 377–398 – in opposition to Deaf people XXIII, 227–228, 354, 404–405 – as seen from a Deaf perspective XII–XIII, XVI, 1–5, 46, 51, 84, 86, 170–171, 194, 204, 221, 226–228, 349–370, 355 hearing society at large, non-specialized in sign language, and Deaf people 195–216, 217–242, 322–323, 323–334, 349–370 hearing societies, varying in how they treat deaf people 7–8, 14, 53–82, 139–166, 217–242, 265–272, 377–398 Higgins, Paul 15–16

436

Index

ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) 15–16, 16, 60, 143, 145, 163, 242, 409, 410 Ieralla, Vittorio 26, 28–29, 118, 177–194 Il Ciclope (Deaf theatre in Palermo) XIX, 198, 204, 207–208, 215, 235, 246, 249, 305 ILO (International Labour Organization) 63n, 145, 148, 149, 156, 3 indicators XXIII, 53–82, 139–166, 273–300, 322, 377–398 institutes for Deaf education XVI, 9, 22–26, 115–120 Institutions 17, 54, 122, 137–138, 214–215, 217–242, 239–242, 349–370, 403–410 – institutional conditions facilitating innovation 214–215, 217–242, 239–242 interpreters 2, 82, 90, 97–98, 101–102, 103–107, 120, 135, 137, 141, 155, 169, 171, 199, 220, 224, 230, 234n12, 237, 238, 245, 265, 271, 305, 317, 319, 325, 352, 355, 356, 357–360, 365, 366 intersectionality 378n interview XIX, XXII, 23, 63, 167–176, 189, 225, 252, 270, 271, 298, 301, 306, 311–314, 349–370, 407 INVALSI 93–97, 95, 98 Ireland 56, 68, 379 ISCO (International Standard Classification of Occupations by ILO) 63n4, 156, 157, 385, 386 Italy 1–6, 19–30, 45–52, 55, 56, 59n, 62, 66, 70, 71, 73, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 83–92, 93–114, 115, 120, 121–132, 133–138, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 153, 154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 164, 167–176, 177–194, 195–216, 217–242, 265–272, 275, 277–287, 278, 281, 284, 286, 289, 290–291, 297, 301–314, 315–334, 335–348, 349, 350, 351, 366, 370, 371–376, 379, 388n, 405, 406, 409. See also Florence, Milan, Palermo, Rome – Southern 13, 133–136, 190, 195–216, 126, 190, 206–207, 218–219, 232 ITI (International Theatre Institute) 208, 231n6, 231n7, 233, 234, 234n11, 236

Ito, Masao 252 IVT (International Visual Theatre) XIX, 173, 212, 219–242 Jacobitti, Eugenio 21–22 Japan XX, 143, 248–251, 248, 270 Jordan, King I. 129, 217 Kauppinen, Liisa 375 Klima, Edward 317 labelling XI, 9, 122, 123, 136n, 292, 295–298, 336 – Italian sign language labelled as LIS 168, 172, 318 laboratory on texts (didactic methodology) 93–114 labor. See also employment; occupation – legislation 133, 139–140, 144–148, 152, 153, 154–155, 156, 186, 187, 348 – policies 63, 139, 145–148, 152–155, 164, 379, 380, 384 – quotas 133, 146–148, 148n, 152, 153–154, 187, 325 labor market XVIII, 68, 139, 140, 142, 144, 148, 150, 151, 153, 154, 157, 158, 159, 161n, 254, 377, 379, 380–384, 403 Laborit, Emanuelle 195, 227, 236–237, 241 Làdavas, Elisabetta 327 Ladd, Paddy XX, 8, 10, 10n, 11, 155, 253–263 Lamano, Luca 170 La Nave, Rocco 208 Lane, Harlan XX, 8–10, 65, 67, 141, 143, 155–156, 253–263, 304, 349, 377, 378, 394 Lang, Jack 224, 234 leadership XXII, XIX, 26–27, 53, 116, 139, 140, 144, 148, 151, 167, 169, 170, 172, 174, 177–194, 178, 195, 218–219, 220–221, 221–223, 224–228, 228–230, 234, 240, 242, 256, 292, 311, 321, 332, 341, 343, 345, 370, 403, 407, 409 legislation 4, 185, 239 – on Deaf associations 27, 116, 181, 183, 186, 191, 193

Index

– international Charters 31, 40–41, 44, 113, 131, 145, 146, 148, 156, 162, 172–173, 262, 276 – on labor 133, 139–140, 144–148, 152, 153, 154–155, 156, 186, 187, 348 – on school XXI, 170, 273–299, 352, 358, 366, 405, 409, 410 – on sign language 31, 76–79, 130, 240, 334. See also under sign language – on nondiscrimination 151, 152 LFS (Labour Force Survey) XVII, 54n, 59–63, 62, 81, 148, 290, 293–299, 379 LGBTQ+ community 395 Leonardo da Vinci 210–211, 210, 269 Lerda, Maria Teresa 97 Levine, Edna 229 Liennel, Chantal 236 Liennel, Joel 208 linguistics 17, 106–113, 108, 109, 130, 171, 215, 270, 303, 323–327, 350, 353, 354, 363 – generative linguistics 323–327, 333 – psycholinguistics 35–39 – sociolinguistics 250–251, 303–304 LIS (Italian Sign Language) XIV, XV, XIX, XXII, 94, 97–105, 110, 112, 113, 130–131, 135, 168, 171–175, 184, 185, 197, 205, 249, 250, 270, 271, 303, 304, 307–314, 318–319 LMGI (Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale Italiano) 172 LSF (French Sign Language) 173–174, 220, 222, 231n4, 235, 235n, 237, 238, 251, 258, 351 Lucas, Ceil 323 Lucas, Samuel R. 295–296 Lucioli, Tommaso 170 Lundquist, Tommy 228, 229 Luxembourg 56, 379 Magarotto, Antonio 26, 178, 181–184, 190–192, 270, 347 Magarotto, Cesare 28–29, 116, 118, 178, 192–193 mainstreaming, in education 50–51, 76, 145, 275–276, 281–287, 290–291, 295–298, 354, 405 Maione, Biagio 126

437

Manderioli, Angelo 20 Manderioli, Gemma (Anna's grandmother) XXVII, 20–22, 45, 46, 47–48, 84, 86–87, 89 Markowicz, Harry 238 Mastromatteo, Matteo 303 Matlin, Marlee 195 Mayberry, Rachel 35–39, 36, 99 Mediterranean countries 379–397. See also Italy; Portugal; Spain mentors, in university 328, 355, 362–364 Mereghetti, Emiliano XVII, XXI, 3, 30, 50–51, 51, 167–176, 193, 195, 266–270, 267, 268–270, 268, 304, 312, 320, 321, 391, 392, 407 Messina, Giovanni 302 Micheloni, Francesco 126–127, 127 Mignosi, Elena 197, 206, 230, 232 Milan XIV, XXII, 21, 22, 97, 123, 124, 124n3, 127, 171, 172, 179, 182, 183, 185, 192, 205, 207, 211, 250, 250, 251, 266, 267, 305, 306, 309, 312, 313, 316, 330, 336, 337, 347, 373, 406 Minoja, Giuseppe 124, 124n2, 125, 301, 304 Minola, Elisabetta 97 Minucci, Mario (Anna’s husband) 246, 266, 306, 372–374, 374 Minucci, Vincenzo (Anna’s father in law) 372–374 Moody, Bill 224–225, 234n12, 237 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat XII, 7, 12, 404 Mottez, Bernard XX, 219, 220, 226, 238, 253–263, 317 Mottinelli, Mauro 7–8, 10, 13, 14 multinomial logistic regression 68, 70n, 74n, 282n2, 284n, 285n, 396–397 National Theatre of the Deaf 205, 212, 227, 229, 244, 245, 246 Netherlands 56, 59n, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73, 73, 75, 80, 143, 149, 150n, 229, 231n2, 231n7, 233, 323, 379 networking XIX, 11, 12, 13, 29, 177–194, 207–209, 218, 221, 225, 230–233, 234, 240, 324, 332, 345, 357, 391, 391n, 393

438

Index

“normal science” 322–334 Northern countries 76–79, 144, 148, 247, 292–299, 379–397. See also Denmark; Finland; Norway; Sweden; Scandinavia Norway 56, 76, 77, 143, 292, 295–297, 379 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) 68, 74–79, 146–147, 162, 296, 380 OECD-PISA tests 65–66, 74–79, 93, 296 Oliver, Michael 15, 144 oralism 10, 26, 35, 38, 42, 87, 126, 166, 182, 217, 238, 259, 309, 262, 297–298, 405 Orioli, Walter 206 Padden, Carol XV, XX, 7–9, 13, 16, 64, 252, 253–263, 311, 316, 378, 391 Palermo XVIII, XIX, XX, XXII, 1–2, 21, 29, 133–138, 168, 179, 196–199, 202, 203–209, 212–215, 217, 218, 223, 230, 232–235, 239–242, 244, 246, 305, 311, 371, 408 Parrini, Gastone (Anna's uncle) 19–27, 19, 28–29, 45, 46, 47, 83, 85, 86, 117, 133, 135, 184, 188, 371 Pavani, Francesco XXII, 327–333 Pennacchi, Barbara 170 Petrucci, Paolo 270 Pidello, Simona 97 Pinturicchio 209–210, 305 Pio XII, 192 Pitruzzella, Salvo 206 Pizzuto, Elena 168–170, 197–200, 212, 230, 234n12, 311, 317 pluralism, in Deaf associations XIX, 177–194 Poland 56, 59n, 62, 66, 68, 71, 70, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 164, 229, 231n7, 231n8, 379 policy evaluation 273–299 Portugal 55, 56, 59n, 62, 66, 70, 71, 73, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 153, 154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 164 poverty XVIII, 53, 143, 155, 162–163, 190

power XI, XII, XVI, XVIII, 7–18, 177, 198, 213, 407–408. See also empowerment – and language 121–131, 128 – micro-physics of 10–14, 16–18, 53, 139, 141–142, 156, 161, 204 – relations XVIII, 8–18, 155–162, 240, 241 – unequal distribution of 83, 141–142, 155–162, 253–263, 407–409, 255, 257, 258, 377 Prestini, Giuseppe Enrico 179, 180, 180, 188 Preto, Ermes 93n, 97 primary education. See under Deaf education professional roles XIII, 11–14, 16–18, 53, 54, 66, 69, 139, 141–142, 156, 161, 204, 406 Quintus Pedius 305 quotas (in employment) 133, 146–148, 148n, 152, 153–154, 187, 325 Radelli, Bruna 100 Rana, Antonella 304–305 Rappaport, Julian 408 Raseri, Enrico 123–124 regression. See binomial logistic regression; multinomial logistic regression resources XVII, XIX, 17, 60, 76, 78, 130, 153, 193–194, 221, 234–235, 239–240, 324, 325, 326, 331, 352, 356–357, 358, 354–355, 357–360, 361, 365, 366, 408 responsibility XIII, 2, 13, 14, 16–18, 26, 43, 53–54, 65–66, 73–75, 217, 254, 255, 291, 321, 327, 334, 344, 367, 406, 410 Reynolds, Joshua 305 rights 31–33, 32, 39–43, 186, 356–357 – of citizenship XXII, 5, 18, 31, 32, 32, 192, 218, 227, 241, 255, 315, 356, 370, 406–407 Rinaldi, Pasquale 329, 330 Rinoldi, Antonio 304 Robbins, Ralph 225 Roeder, Brigitte 332 Rome XXII, 28–30, 28, 86, 115–120, 168–171, 177–174, 197, 207, 230, 271, 302, 306, 308–310, 312, 316, 347, 348, 374

Index

Rome research group (CNR) XXII, 167–176, 197, 198, 230, 308–313, 314, 316–321, 323, 327, 329, 330, 333 Rossetti, Roberto 304–306 Rubino, Francesco 26, 177, 178, 181, 182, 188, 189, 190, 192, 338, 347 Sacks, Oliver 169, 170, 171, 173, 312 Saggin, Mario 184, 191, 193 Santoro, Mirko 325, 351 Scabia, Giuliano 206 scaling, in social innovation 232–233 Scandinavia 76–79, 144, 148, 247, 292–299, 379–397. See also Denmark, Finland; Norway; Sweden; Northern countries Scuola Comprensiva di Cossato Capoluogo XVII, 93–114, 95, 101–102, 105, 108, 109 Sebasti, Leopoldo 26, 178, 182, 190, 191 secondary education. See under Deaf education segregation, Deaf 23–26, 77, 148, 262, 275, 369, 384, 394, 405 Sen, Amartya 41, 229, 261, 378 SEN students (Special Education Needs students) 55, 56, 76, 275, 289 Shearer, Tony 222 signing community 170, 315, 316, 324, 330, 334, 395, 406–407 sign language. See also LIS, LSF, ASL, bilingualism – acquisition, as a first language XVII, 17, 34–44, 46, 78, 97, 99, 103, 169, 277, 292, 294 – acquisition as a second language XXII, 36–37, 172, 307–308, 251–252 – and cognition 35, 39, 40, 41–44 – and communication XV, 50–52, 85, 104, 322, 360–362 – and creativity 195, 197–198, 199, 200, 202–205, 208, 211, 222–223, 236 – and Deaf identity 128, 166–176, 198–199, 200, 207, 219, 222–223, 229, 256–257, 259, 316–321, 333, 360, 368, 395 – and education 53, 76, 77–78, 81–82, 93–114, 141, 171, 172, 197, 217 219,

439

235n, 237, 259, 265, 266, 271, 277, 291, 292, 334, 354, 360–363, 365, 366, 370. See also bilingualism – legal recognition of 76–79, 130–131, 174–175, 240, 292–293, 334 – as a means of inclusion 94 – as a minority language 9, 31–44, 40, 43–44, 130, 140, 262 – opposition to 3, 4, 26, 35, 38, 126, 130, 131, 172, 238, 257–258, 259, 330, 331, 353 – in painting XXII, 209–212 – research on 31–44, 123–124, 167–176, 195–216, 217, 220, 237–239, 249–251, 261, 276, 301–314, 315–334, 336, 353 – right to XV, XVI, 4, 31–44, 76, 78, 113, 121–131, 360–362 – social recognition of XIX, 1, 128, 130, 167–176, 220, 239, 263, 318–319, 263, 266, 293 – as a social resource 43, 52, 223, 354, 360–363, 370 – and spoken languages 4, 10, 17, 19, 26, 26n, 31, 34–39, 42, 58, 66n, 77, 81–82, 83, 84–86, 87, 88–89, 93, 99, 101, 103, 121, 167–168, 182, 195, 199, 205, 209, 219, 222, 230, 234n12, 248, 250, 251–252, 266, 270, 276, 292–293, 298, 313, 314, 318, 324, 328, 332, 336, 352, 354–355, 358, 364, 366, 370, 405, 406, 407 – and spoken languages in their written form XV, XVII, XXIV, 82–83, 84, 88, 91, 93–114, 127n, 195, 276, 292–293, 303, 320, 366, 354–355, 363, 366, 403 – use XIX, XXI, 1, 3, 4, 19, 39–44, 77, 126, 155, 167–169, 171, 173, 199, 220, 259–260, 264, 267, 270, 271–272, 332, 354, 364, 403, 405–410 SILIS group 309 ‘68 students’ unrests XVIII, 115–120, 275 social barriers XVIII, 1–5, 15, 44, 139, 163–165, 349–370, 377, 389–390, 389, 389n, 410 social innovation XIX, XX, 214–215, 221, 232–233, 239–242, 349–370, 409–410

440

Index

– scaling in 232–233 social power See microphysics of power social representations XVIII, 10, 121–132, 258–260, 256, 312 Società di Mutuo Soccorso Gerolamo Cardano di Milano 179 sociology of deafness XV, XVI, XX, 7–8, 14–18, 253–263, 353, 377, 403–410 – quantitative XV, 10, 14, 54–63, 63–82, 94–97, 294–299, 139–166, 273–300, 377–398, 404–406 solutions 7–18, 31–44, 53–82, 83–92, 93–114, 139–166, 177–194, 217–242, 273–300, 315–334, 349–370, 403–410 Soviet countries, former 379–397. See also Eastern Europe, Poland Spain XXI, 55, 56, 59n, 62, 66, 71, 73, 73, 74, 143, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 153, 154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 164, 175, 208, 229, 231n6, 273, 287, 288–289, 288, 290, 291, 293, 375, 379, 388n special education 66, 76, 98, 277, 289, 316, 331, 353, 354, 370, 405 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 258 spoken language learning. See under sign language Stevens, Helga 375 Stokoe, William XIX, 17, 128, 174, 215, 317, 318 student learning assessments – INVALSI 93–97, 95, 98 – OECD-PISA 65–66, 74–79, 93, 296 subsidies 125, 145, 152, 154, 165, 255, 390 Supalla, Ted 271 Svartholm, Kristina 292–293 Sweden 29, 55, 56, 57, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73, 73, 74, 75, 76–79, 80, 81, 82, 143, 146, 147n, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154–155, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 162, 163n, 164, 164, 212, 229, 230, 231n7, 231n8, 233, 248, 273, 291, 292–297, 309, 379 Switzer, Mary 229 Switzerland 56, 231n7, 271, 331,336, 379 Tarra, Giulio 124n3 Teberosky, Ana 99–100, 104–105 Terracini, Umberto 184 tertiary education. See under Deaf education

Teruggi, Lilia 97, 105 Teruzzi, Monsignor Giovanni 181, 182 Tessitore, Salvatore 208, 230 trade unionism 144–148, 186, 189. See also networking Troisi, Massimo 269 Turkey 33, 34 Ubertalli, Anna 93n UFSI (Unione Federativa Sordomuti Italiani) 180–184, 185, 190, 192 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) 113, 193, 208, 231n7, 231n8, 232, 233, 234, 275, 276 United Kingdom 56, 57–58, 59n, 62, 66, 71, 73, 73, 74, 81, 82, 143, 146, 147n, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 157, 157, 158, 160, 160, 164, 164, 212, 379 United States XX, 9, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 53, 55, 63, 64, 68, 130, 139, 140, 142, 143, 148, 151, 151n, 153, 156, 168, 169, 172, 173, 197, 198, 204, 205, 207, 209, 211, 213, 214, 217, 218, 221, 226, 227, 229, 231n2, 231n7, 234n11, 244, 245, 246, 275, 311, 317, 319, 323, 329, 367, 390, 406, 409 UPIAS (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) 139–140, 144–148, 154, 155, 369 USI (Unione Italiana Sordomuti) 180–181 Valli, Clayton 252 variables 7, 63n, 74n, 81n, 158n, 161n, 163n, 282n, 284n, 285n, 377, 396–397, 404, 409 Vasak, Karel 31–32, 32 Volterra, Virginia XXII, 89, 168–170, 172, 174, 197, 198, 246, 249, 266, 301, 303, 304–305, 308–310, 311–313, 316–324, 403 Wagstrom, Gunilla 209, 212, 228, 229 Weber, Max 167, 407 welfare 32, 42, 140, 142, 146n, 148, 150–155, 187, 379, 383, 384, 390. See also quotas

Index

Western Europe 32, 53, 234n11. See also Austria, France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom WFD (World Federation of the Deaf) 28, 28, 29, 177, 192–193, 215, 232n9, 232n10, 233, 238, 249, 309, 311, 319, 375

441

WHO (World Health Organization) 15, 16, 60, 131, 143, 145, 153, 163, 409 Wirth, Roberto XXII, 306–307, 307, 315, 321 Zanchetti, Rosanna 304 Zucchi, Sandro 310–311, 313–314