The subject of this article requires the crossing of three research fields: childhood, disability and ethnicity. Multidisciplinary studies in these different themes help us to explore the issue of deaf and hearing-impaired children with an immigrant background and their families. The relevant and mostly anglo-saxon literature develops the thesis of people being "both stigmatized" because of their deafness on one hand and because of their ethnic origins on the other hand. Our empirical work took place in a special school for deaf and hard of hearing students in Paris. The data we obtained through interviews with students, their parents and teachers led us to be more cautious as far as this statement is concerned. Indeed, according to the people interviewed, there is no labelling at school since all the students suffer from the same disability which seems to prevail over their ethnic origins. Our results imply to put forward another idea: as our respondents are migrating and integrating a new society, their deafness could also enable the mobilization of resources coming either from the ethnic community they belong to or from the deaf community they all share. © 2008 Association ALTER.

Education Deaf children deafness Ethnicity Semi-structured interviews

teacher immigrant social psychology France human medical research controlled study priority journal childhood interview student hearing impairment ethnic difference Adolescent male female special education stigma child psychiatry Article major clinical study medical literature disability ethnicity parent