Bridging Silence

Deaf education sits at a critical crossroads of language, culture, and policy where past exclusion continues to influence current inequalities. Education systems across the globe have transformed over time, yet deaf students continue to be excluded in most systems because of entrenched oralist ideologies, the absence of inclusive pedagogies, and systemic failures to acknowledge sign language as a valid means of instruction. This chapter examines the international landscape of deaf education, tracing the evolution from oralism to bilingual-bicultural approaches, and evaluating how different national contexts either reinforce or dismantle barriers to inclusion. examines the conflict between perceptions of deafness as a disability to be cured or as a cultural-linguistic identity to be affirmed. It observes how language deprivation, poor policy engagement, and the lack of Deaf representation in decision-making structures advance the systematic exclusion of deaf students.