Deaf education policy as language policy: A comparative analysis of Sweden and the United States

The present study offers a cross-national, comparative analysis of Swedish and US deaf education policies to examine the ways in which status planning and acquisition planning for sign languages are taken up. Major policy documents were selected from each polity, reflecting key national legislative policies as well as the primary texts that guide educational implementation: for Sweden, the Ordinance for Special Schools, the Education Act, and the national syllabi for special schools; for the United States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Analysis of these texts shows that such planning tends to be explicit in Sweden while implicit in the United States. Moreover, the Swedish policies focus on the development of sign language/national language bilingualism whereas the policies of the United States foreground assimilation to the hearing world; however, it is noted that implementational space for sign language and multilingualism are present in the policies of both countries to varying degrees.