About us
This website is part of the research project „Developing and Documenting Sign Bilingual Best Practice in Schools“, a partnership of 4 universities and 5 schools in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and the Slovak Republic, see designbilingual.univie.ac.at. The project was financed by ERASMUS+. Starting in 2014 the team of researchers worked for 2 years to collect data on sign bilingual school education in Europe.
Methodology
Step 1: Questionnaire
Finding informants: In 39 European countries we asked several contact persons in the field of Deaf education, sign language research, sign language linguistics and Deaf organizations who they would recommend as an expert. The experts should have in-depth knowledge and a good overview over sign bilingual schools in their country. For most countries we gathered overlapping nominations of experts. In this way, we chose 1 – 3 independent experts in each country. In addition, the National Association of the Deaf (NADs were all members of the European Union of the Deaf) in each country was contacted and asked for their cooperation.
Collecting data: A detailed online questionnaire was sent to a total of 81 experts and 33 NADs. 62 experts and 12 NADs filled in the questionnaire, thus documenting the current situation of education for Deaf children in their respective country.
Analysis: All answers were compared country by country, we clarified contradictions directly with the experts and then we structured everything for a map.
Step 2: Analysing documents
In a second step we analysed all legal foundations for/of sign bilingual education (laws, curricula, syllabi) that we could research and that were sent to us by the experts. The analyses were conducted with the help of native speakers of the respective documents and on the basis of this we drew up country vignettes. Each vignette was then sent to 1 or 2 experts for verification/corrections.
Results
The map on this website portrays European practice in Deaf education. On the one hand the map offers a comparison between countries (traffic light system) and on the other hand it contains specific information about each country (the vignettes). It is the result of our research process and accessible for free.
The data are from 2015 and we plan to update regularly. If you know that something essential has changed in your country, please send an e-mail with that information to verena.krausneker AT univie.ac.at.
Additional results of our research project – materials and tools for sign bilingual teaching – were also published and are freely accessible here: teach-designbilingual.univie.ac.at.
We are grateful to all the generous and supportive colleagues who contributed their bits and enabled us to make the bigger picture available. Thank you!
Team of researchers
University of Vienna (A):
Verena Krausneker
Dominik Garber.
Humboldt-University Berlin (D):
Claudia Becker
Angelina Sequeira Gerardo, Stefanie Klingner, Katharina von Szombathely.
University of Applied Sciences of Special Needs Education Zürich (CH):
Mireille Audeoud
Jeanne Auf der Mauer, Tamara Bangerter.
Comenius University Bratislava (SK):
Darina Tarcsiová
Katka Certikova.
This project has been carried out with the support of the European Community. The content does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Community or the National Agency, nor does it involve any responsibility on their part.
Offenlegung gem. § 25 MedG - Verantwortlich für den Inhalt dieser Seite: Dr.phil. Verena Krausneker, Universität Wien, Sensengasse 3a, 1090 Wien, Österreich. Grundlegende Richtung: „De-Sign Bilingual“ ist eine strategische Partnerschaft europäischer Hochschulen und Schulen mit dem gemeinsamen Ziel einer praxiswirksamen Erforschung gebärdensprachlich-bilingualer Bildung. Die Finanzierung erfolgt durch die Europäische Kommission (Erasmus+).