Plurilingualism and Policy in Deaf Education

The polarization of language choices for deaf children and youth – that is, spoken English or American Sign Language (ASL) – encourages competition in deaf education for resources, personnel and spaces. This chapter examines a plurilingual frame towards a contemporary policy document concerning language pedagogy for deaf children. I analyze two historic Saskatchewan Ministry of Education documents which contain language planning discourses that subscribe to the cognitive-imperialist ideological frame concerning language acquisition in deaf children. In 2016, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission Report and the theatre play, Deaf Crows, in referring to direct experiences of deaf children and their parents,