Aspects of deaf identity in the context of higher education

Abstract

It was reflected on the identities of deaf individuals in an ethical perspective. The question "Who am I?" is related to reflections on the good life, being necessary to the process of awareness of self and the constitution of the symbolic function to define a personal identity. The communication is central to this study, considering that most deaf suffer delays in language acquisition and exclusion in educational processes. Participated 16 deaf people who had enrolled in higher education institutions. It used the Piaget’s clinical method through individual semistructured interviews in sign language, focused on the reports on the acquisition of sign language and the presence of deaf people in the family or in their romantic relationships. The main data indicate that seven participants acquired sign language between 19 and 21 years old. The main category of deaf identity was the transition’s identity. The auxiliary people in language acquisition were mainly ‘deaf friends’ and ‘people of the deaf community’. From the establishment of deaf identities, it was found that the subjective experience of expansion itself was caused in contact with the deaf community and sign language. Proposals for studies on the establishment of deaf identity in relation to their projections of themselves in the future can be made, contributing to the expansion of the study of the ethical perspective. In education, it is emphasized that the bilingual schools are privileged space of language interactions and development of communicative potential of deaf children.