Identity, deaf culture and the building of subjectivity and education: crossings and social implications

Abstract

The issue of identity is one of the most important for Psychology. So, the aim of this paper is to investigate how identity is constituted as confronted with deafness. A qualitative research was done to bring it out. In this study, four interviews were done with deaf people focusing the identity construction process. The results point out the deaf people’s need of developing affirmative actions so as to consolidate a singular community and culture. The contribution of this study is to show how important the functional condition is for the constitution of identity, as well as the organization of political games wherein both deaf and hearing groups live.

Identity; Deafness; Social movements; Deaf culture