62 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
as it was the first time in Flemish deaf history that a deaf awareness course had been
offered. The course was linked to the activism of Fevlado and presented deaf people
as a community that shared the same language, habits, traditions, and history. It
also offered deaf people a rhetoric of equal opportunities, rights, participation, op-
pression, deaf culture, emancipation, integration, and so on. Deaf people received
information about deaf education in Flanders, services for deaf people, government
services and organizations for people with disabilities, incipient scientific research
on deaf people and sign language in Flanders, and international deaf organizations
such as the World Federation of the Deaf and the European Union of the Deaf.
The course encouraged deaf people to take responsibility and participate in exist-
ing governmental structures and institutions for deaf people. Although the course
stressed signs as the natural means of communication for deaf people and advo-
cated the recognition of sign language, sign language was defined as Signed Dutch,
which should serve as a bridge between hearing and deaf people. It was the first
time that Flemish deaf people were provided with information about their rights,
their place in society, and other aspects of their history.
They learned much from the information in the course, which was all new to
them. yet in their life stories for the present study, Flemish deaf people did not
elaborate on the content of the kadercursus and the issues discussed in the course.
The research participants were more excited about their global encounters with
transnational empowered deaf individuals (Breivik et al., 2002; Murray, 2008) in
Flanders and abroad. Their eyes gleamed when they recounted detailed memories
of their experiences in deaf dream worlds abroad (see the section of this chapter
titled “Deaf Cultural Rhetoric and Ideal Deaf Places”).
Between 1992 and 1994, Fevlado organized trips to Denmark (1992), the netherlands
(1993), the United States (1994), and England (1994). In Denmark and the nether-
lands, the group received information about the national Deaf Federation, organiza-
tions of parents of deaf children, sign language classes, services for deaf people, and
educational opportunities, among other things. When visiting the Danish national
Deaf Federation, deaf people also learned about bilingual education, the perception
of deaf people as a linguistic minority, and how deaf people could run their organiza-
tion and participate in government decision making.
In the United States, at Gallaudet University, the group followed a one-week
schedule including meetings with university president I. King Jordan, Gallaudet
professor yerker Andersson, and others; visits to the university library, Kendall
Demonstration Elementary School, and the Model Secondary School for the
Deaf; and presentations on studying at Gallaudet. The Flemish deaf people were
impressed with the use of sign language everywhere on campus and in all class-
rooms. They had learned about bilingual education in Denmark, and after visiting
Gallaudet they were fully convinced that bilingual education was the best teaching
method for deaf children (see the article in Fevladoblad titled “Studiereis naar
Gallaudet,” 1994).
At the Centre for Deaf Studies in Bristol (England), the group had a short train-
ing session for deaf sign language teachers. The trip to Bristol was crucial for the
Flemish deaf people in their search for effective arguments for the position that