The population of the United States (U.S.) is changing rapidly across such categories as race, language, culture, and socioeconomics. This growing diversity extends to people who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH). The change indicates an increase in the number of immigrant students who are both hearing and D/HH. Today teachers are expected to serve a diverse population of D/HH students, thereby necessitating culturally competent classrooms. However, and in most cases, when educators consider a culturally competent classroom, one cultural group omitted among students, in general, is that of D/HH students and worst D/HH immigrant students. One reason for the neglect of immigrant D/HH students in U.S. classrooms is that most teachers have limited knowledge, skills and resources in designing inclusive culturally competent classrooms that support immigrant D/HH students. This apparent neglect necessitates this chapter. This chapter provides teachers with information and guidelines they will need to create culturally competent and inclusive classrooms with a particular focus on D/HH immigrant students. The chapter begins with brief background information about D/HH immigrant students and a conceptual framework that provides a lens to issues discussed in the chapter. Next, the chapter discusses the process of designing culturally competent classrooms for D/HH immigrant students. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research and implications for practice not only for deaf education teachers but also for mainstream education teachers, deaf education teacher preparation programs, and researchers—among other professionals who interact and work with D/HH immigrant students.
TopIntroduction
The United States’ population is fast becoming more diverse across many categories. Demographics changes have been noted since 1990, when Whites constituted 70% of the total U.S. population (Frey, 2018). Today, more than 30% of the entire U.S. population is ethnically diverse groups, and by the year 2050, members of the minority diverse groups are expected to make up 50% of the entire U.S. population (Wells, 2000). A retrospection of the U.S. population statistics shows that Hispanics represent the largest and fast-growing minority group in the U.S., accounting for more than 50 million people or about 16.5% of the entire population in 2010 (Fry & Lopez, 2012). Surpassing the Hispanic population in the US is the Asian American population, which is the fastest-growing and largest immigrant group (Kurien, 2018). In addition, and according to the 2010 U.S. census, there are approximately one million legal immigrants from Africa (the majority of whom are from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Somalia) residing in the U.S. in 2000. The population of legal immigrants from Africa grew annually at the rate of 50,000 legal residents (Harushimana & Awokoya, 2011). Most of these immigrants are Limited-English Proficient (LEP) and experience difficulty communicating in English language (Batalova & Fix, 2010; Spees, Potochnick & Perreira, 2016).
School population is also affected by these demographical changes. The report on the status and trends in the education of racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. in 2018 indicated a decline in the percentage of White and Black students and an increase in the percentages of school-aged children from other racial/ethnic groups (de Brey et al., 2019). The percentage of White students enrolled in the K-12 school program decreased from 59% to 49.7% at the beginning of 2003 through the 2015 school year (Snyder et al., 2016). At the same time, the percentage of students of color enrolled in public schools increased from 41% to 50.3% (Snyder et al., 2016). By the Fall of 2025, the projected percentage of non-White students enrolled in public schools will increase to 54% (Snyder et al., 2016). The changes suggest that educators and other stakeholders will serve an increasingly diverse population of students, necessitating culturally competent classrooms (Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2016; Maxwell, 2014; Wells, 2000). Despite the change of demographics in the society and in the schools, Brown (2007) averred that the U.S. educational system has not been responsive to students from culturally diverse backgrounds, sometimes being asked to leave their cultures at the classroom doors and learn European American culture. The situational analysis of diversity in U.S. schools leads us to question how culturally responsive the U.S. educational system is to D/HH immigrant students living in the U.S.