A prevailing public school system

Two defining features of the Nordic welfare states are their public school systems and guaranteed free access to education for all their citizens. Although educational ideologies and policies vary between the different countries, the significant shared similarities are as follows: Not only do national educational acts specify national curriculums, Nordic schools themselves are also predominately owned and run by the government. The vast majority of Nordic children and adolescents thus receive their education in public schools. The school systems are financed via public taxes, and no additional charges or tuition fees are demanded. Private educational facilities exist in parallel to the public schools, but they are attended by only a fraction of the total number of students. The Nordic school systems are fairly similar in that they provide around ten years of compulsory schooling and three years of upper secondary schooling, during which students can either prepare for higher education (and almost all Nordic higher education facilities are also publicly financed institutions offering free tuition) or receive vocational training. Education is also a relevant topic for Nordic children's early years. Kindergartens and pre-schools are routinely referred to as institutions providing early childhood education and care (ECEC; see, for example, Engel et al., 2015). ECEC institutions are thus also staffed by teachers specialising in early childhood education, and their work is regulated by public educational policies, regardless of whether the facility is public or private. Although ECEC is not compulsory, it is subsidised to varying degrees by the different Nordic states in order to make ECEC available and affordable for any family that wants it. As public authorities have effective control over the education sector from a child's early years until they reach the age of around eighteen or nineteen, the educational systems–including ECEC–in different Nordic countries are also tasked with providing special needs education and accommodating other needs, such as the teaching of native languages to students with a minority background. The latter has traditionally been education for populations of indigenous people (Sami and Kven) in Sweden, Finland and Norway, but also–to varying degrees in the respective Nordic countries–students with an immigrant background. The teaching of signed languages are sometimes compared to the teaching of other languages, but traditionally, sign language education is rooted in the traditions of special education provision. Public financing of special needs education and other adjustments for groups of students are also routinely provided.

Deaf education in the Nordic countries

Historically, deaf students in the Nordic countries were educated in publicly funded deaf schools, often with boarding facilities for students who had to travel to attend them. The first schools were established early in the 19th century. There is evidence that many of these facilities saw the use of sign language as productive (Skavlan, 1875), albeit primarily as a means to more effective teaching of orally spoken language to deaf students. The sign language approach, however, was abandoned when the (so-called) "Oralist Method" replaced the "Manual Method" (employing sign language as the modality of instruction) by the end of the 19th century (Simonsen, 2000). "Oralist" alludes to the methods being primarily based on spoken–oral–language training through the teaching and learning of compensatory techniques such as lip reading and promoting speech production through articulation training. Oralism has been accused of promoting the normative idea that deaf children should be normalised and overcome their ostensible "hearing impairment" through training and the rehearsal of orally-spoken language sounds (Henner & Robinson, 2023). This primary focus on orally-spoken language lasted until the late 1960s or early 1970s in deaf schools across the Nordic countries. By the end of the 1980s, there were a number of different facilities offering education for DHH children. These institutions were generally run according to the legal provisions for special needs education, which had softened up the methodological insistence on the use of orally-spoken language alone and begun to apply some means of signing (Vogt-Svendsen, 2024). The understanding and recognition of national sign languages as full-fledged natural languages had slowly made its way into the Nordic societies and deaf schools in the late 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, the schools, their teaching, and speaking sign language were still mainly regarded as a branch of special needs education, existing alongside other branches such as education for the visually impaired or for students with learning disabilities, who also received their education in congregated institutions (Dammeyer & Ohna, 2021).

The 1980s saw a wave of critiques from both researchers and practitioners, who argued that segregation of different groups of students from mainstream education had to stop (Haug, 1999). The Nordic countries all adopted and signed the 1994 Salamanca Statement, which made inclusive schooling the principal goal for all public education, including ECEC. The doctrine of inclusion is most likely one reason why most DHH children in Nordic countries today receive their primary education in settings where they may be the only DHH person, possibly besides one adult (teacher, assistant and/or interpreter), who knows (some) sign language. DHH children may thus have limited access to peers who also speak sign language and generally limited access to sign language socialisation spaces (Lyxell, 2014).

The scale of the reduction in the number of schools and ECEC institutions varies across the Nordic countries, as do the differences in terms of the speed of the changes, but the current situation reveals many similar features. The number of deaf schools has declined considerably over the past 30 years, as has the number of ECEC institutions for DHH children (Dammeyer & Ohna, 2021; Krausneker et al, 2022). Very few schools offer boarding facilities other than for short stays, and younger students especially no longer stay at the schools for longer periods. Inclusive schooling ideologies and the consequent policies, as well as the increased use of advanced hearing technologies, such as cochlear implants, are often suggested as the main driving forces behind this decline in congregated deaf schools (Dammeyer & Ohna, 2021; Snoddon & Murray, 2019; NOU 20:2023). Another possible factor contributing to the dismantling of boarding schools is simply that the concept of boarding schools, especially for younger students, has become increasingly alien to Nordic parents since the beginning of the 1990s. Institutionalised low academic expectations for deaf children in the former special needs education schools (Haualand et al., 2003; Lane, 1993) and the attention drawn by researchers to the vulnerability of students when removed from their homes and families (Kvam, 2004) may be other factors that have contributed to the decline in the number of special needs education boarding schools.

The educational history of Nordic deaf students (also in ECEC institutions) reflects a partial shift from a traditional special needs education perspective to a linguistic (bilingual) perspective, combined with a growing focus on inclusion as a value system, a state wherein all children are educated in the same classrooms, and a goal: to end educational "segregation" (Powers, 2002). Although deaf boarding schools are almost extinct (with a few exceptions, most notably in Sweden), in no Nordic country have deaf schools and ECEC institutions severed their traditional ties with the special needs education systems they originated from, and sign language and hearing status have thus remained two intrinsically linked concepts to this day (Kermit, 2018). 3 Backed up by the formal recognition of sign languages as full-fledged languages in the respective countries, many schools have, nevertheless, managed to shift the focus from traditional practices centring on learning the national orally-spoken language to practices where communicating in sign language can occur in all classes and subjects and where the development of a bimodal and bilingual capacity is the main goal. In the following sections, we will indicate some of the particular factors that have consequences for the opportunities for children and young people in the Nordic countries to learn and speak sign language today.

Norway

With the revision of the Norwegian Education Act in 1997, a national curriculum for Norwegian Sign Language (NTS) was established for the first time (Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research, 1996; The Education Act, 1998, § 2-6). The Norwegian Education Act suggested that students following this curriculum should learn NTS as their "first" language and written/spoken Norwegian as their "second" language (The Education Act, 1998); the intention being that they should become bilingual to such a degree of proficiency in both signed and written/spoken Norwegian that they can use these languages to access Norwegian society on a par with other Norwegian students. In Norway, this ambition was embedded in the Education Act. Particular to Norwegian legislation is the institutionalisation of the right to follow the national sign language curriculum independent of school placement. Hence, the right to follow the national curriculum in NTS does not require students to attend a school with other DHH children. A deaf or hard-of-hearing child may be the only student taught in NTS in their respective schools, where they are expected to follow the national curriculum for Norwegian Sign Language. (The school also has the opportunity to exempt the student from parts of the curriculum and replace these parts with a special education individual plan.) An official government report overseeing the situation for Norwegian Sign Language (NOU 2023:20), estimates that about 267 DHH students in Norway received education in NTS in accordance with the Education Act for the academic year 2022/2023. The report estimates that 137 of these students attended a school where they were the only student (or one of two students) to learn or be taught in NTS. However, the total number of students receiving some kind of education in sign language as a special education measure is unknown, and these students are not included in the numbers above.

Sweden

Whilst the right to be taught in and about sign language is detached from school placement in Norway, Swedish Sign Language (STS) is only taught according to a national curriculum in special schools for DHH children (Sandberg, 2016; Holmström & Schönström, 2017). Sweden could be said to stand out in the Nordic context in that several of its public special schools for the deaf remain vital, although their numbers have declined, as has the number of students in each school (Lyxell, 2014, 2019). Outside these schools, the decision to offer education in or about STS is delegated to local education authorities. The latter represent a wide variation in the scope and manner in which children outside special schools receive education in STS, if they are offered the opportunity at all (Haualand & Holmström, 2019; Holmström & Schönström, 2017). Hence, we see a situation where one could assume that Swedish children who learn and are educated in STS also have access to spaces (special schools) where they can engage in peer-to-peer socialisation, but where children outside these schools have the opportunity to learn or socialise in STS only to a limited or varying degree. According to a Swedish official report (SOU 2016:46, 124), there has been a decline in the number of students enrolled in special schools over the past two decades. As of 2016, there were 368 students in one of the five special schools for DHH children run by national authorities, but the number increased to approximately 418 students in 2022, according to the Swedish National Agency for Special Needs Education and Schools (SPSM, 2023). 4 Outside these schools, approximately 1,400 Swedish schools have reported that they have one or more students with severe hearing loss (SOU 2016:46). 5 A survey by Schönström & Holmström (2017) shows that only one third of Swedish municipalities have access to a so called "hearing pedagogue" 6 . As there are no national guidelines on education in STS outside the special schools, and the hearing pedagogues' formal qualifications are not standardised, both the degree and scope of education in STS and access to peers who speak STS is generally limited (Schönström & Holmström, 2017).

Denmark

During the 1970s and 1980s, Denmark was one of the Nordic forerunners in research, documentation and education in and about the national sign language (Bergmann, 2015; Dammeyer & Ohna, 2021). Many activities took place through a centre for sign language and sign-supported communication (Center for tegnsprog og tegnstøttet kommunikation). Since 2000, however, there seems to have been a rapid decline in research and education regarding deaf children and sign language, and one possible reason is that both medical and education authorities in Denmark have put a strong emphasis on the innocuously-named "Auditory-Verbal Therapy" (AVT) approach to DHH children in conjunction with cochlear implants, which has contributed to the virtual extinction of educational opportunities in DTS. Denmark therefore differs from the other Nordic countries, where education in both signed and orally spoken languages has remained an option for all DHH children, including those with cochlear implants. The Danish Association of the Deaf estimates that ten out of sixty students in one of the three deaf schools spoke sign language in 2019-2020 (Danske døves landsforbund, 2021). Denmark has also been criticised by the United Nations (UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2014; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2017) for neglecting to provide access to sign language, particularly for deaf children and their families.

Finland

Although the rights of persons who speak sign language are enshrined in the Constitution of Finland (1995), as well as in the Sign Language Act (2015), the organisation of education in sign language is delegated to local authorities. According to the Basic Education Act (1998), all children attend their local schools, and the local municipality is responsible for organising special support for any child who needs it (e.g., sign language) based on a pedagogical assessment, not a medical diagnosis. For a deaf child, this means that the municipality should consider whether sign language can be used as a language of instruction (which is very rarely possible to arrange in local schools) or whether the instruction and classroom activities are interpreted by a sign language interpreter. In some cases, younger students may have a personal assistant in the classroom with them. Only three schools in Finland currently have more than five signing and/or DHH students. A Finnish survey of teaching arrangements for deaf and sign language-using pupils in basic education (2014) assumes that there were about 500 students with a hearing impairment enrolled in 304 Finnish schools in 2013/2014. Of these, fewer than 100 had SVK as their primary language, and it is not clear how many of the students with a hearing impairment or children of deaf adults actually receive some kind of education in SVK or have an interpreter in school. (Selin-Grönlund et al., 2014). The local schools and municipalities may have expertise in hearing impairment, but little in sign language. Most DHH children are provided with special support and have an extended period of compulsory education. For this reason, most of the teaching staff in the classrooms are special education teachers. 7

Special needs education provision in the Nordic context

Disability researchers have pointed out that the Nordic welfare state systems have produced a distinct "Nordic model of disability" (see, for example, Shakespeare, 2006), where the mutual obligations between individual and state are a central theme. Although this approach is often celebrated for its recognition of disability, it is embedded with a strong underlying moral expectation that also characterises the Nordic systems of special needs educational programmes. The ethos of the Nordic welfare systems entails the normative expectation that every citizen must do their best to economically and politically contribute to the support of the welfare system so that the state maintains its capacity to help those who cannot themselves contribute. Historically and traditionally, the special needs education provided for deaf students had as its principal aim the provision of an education that would enable deaf people to support themselves. Deaf people were offered vocational training at the deaf schools and typically became shoemakers, seamstresses, bakers or carpenters. In more recent times the special needs educational doctrine adopted the idea that learning orally-spoken language through a process of rehabilitation would enable deaf students to become "normal", or at least as "normal" as possible (Kermit, 2006). This doctrine survives to this day, although it has also been challenged by ideals of inclusion and diversity. The welfare system still tacitly implies that striving to become a productive citizen is a good thing, and thus still encourages the educational philosophy that adult professionals can help children with impairments to overcome their disability. Attending a local school can also be seen as an act of "normalisation" of DHH children.

Summary: Sign language education in the Nordic countries

The Nordic countries were among the first to sign and ratify the UNESCO Salamanca Declaration (1994), in which inclusion is established as the main educational doctrine for students with disabilities. Inclusion is also the most important educational principle in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN General Assembly, 2007), which the Nordic countries have also ratified. In the Nordic context, however, inclusion remains largely a formal concept. Although the concept permeates education laws and regulations throughout the Nordic countries, inclusive practices have been slow to materialise. As a regulatory principle, inclusion has had the practical effect that students with disabilities to an ever-increasing degree attend the same school as their typical peers. This reduction of inclusion to "placement" has, however, been much criticised (Haug, 2016). Nevertheless, it could be suggested that the decline of the deaf schools is partly an effect of this ambition to place all students under one roof.

Although there are variations in how processes pertaining to inclusion and education in sign language have played out in the respective Nordic countries, some common trends can be identified. There has been a decline in the number of schools where sign language is spoken by teachers and among peers, as well as in the number of students attending the remaining deaf schools in all the Nordic countries (Dammeyer & Ohna, 2021). This development parallels a growth in the number of DHH children (with an assumed right (or need) to learn sign language) in mainstream schools, where a child may be the only one, or one of very few children, who are expected to receive (some of) their education in sign language. As the children are scattered throughout a variety of both local and regional schools and programmes, the exact number of students who learn or speak sign language in the Nordic countries is difficult to obtain, beyond those that have been indicated in the national overviews above. It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess what kind of education in, or access to, sign language there is for children outside those schools that have a significant number of DHH students. Moreover, none of the countries specifies any rights to education in sign language for hearing children from signing families, so the tie between questions regarding hearing status and sign language rights has never been severed. This means that hearing children growing up in signing homes mostly go unrecognised by educational authorities. A report from the Swedish Språkrådet (Lyxell, 2019) and a campaign by the Norwegian Ministry of Education to promote sign language education among children of deaf parents in the municipalities are two rare examples of public recognition of the need to provide hearing signers with the opportunity to learn and speak sign language outside the family.

Regardless of the legislation and organisation of opportunities to receive an education in and about sign language in the Nordic countries, the mere legal question of a person's right to sign and to be taught in sign language seems to foreground the practical question of how a child or an adolescent can access spaces and contexts where they can socialise in sign language with signing peers and adults. Moreover, the question of what the "right" to learn and to be educated in sign language means seems not to be a straightforward one in the Nordic countries, with major variations visible in the legalisation and practical implementation of the regulations pertaining to education in sign language. An overview of formal sign language education rights and of the organisation of formal instruction of sign language in the Nordic countries already exists (Sahlin, 2021), but we lack knowledge about children and adolescents' opportunities to access spaces for socialising through and in sign language outside classroom settings. To answer these questions, we will give an account of the method we used to identify relevant literature to learn more about the existence and characteristics of such spaces.

Qualitative meta-analysis

When the selected references were categorised according to their methodologies, two categories stood out as clearly addressing aspects of accessibility to sign language. The first category comprises four studies that try to assess in quantitative terms the access to spaces where sign language is the primary modality by drawing on empirical data from surveys (Arnesen et al., 2008; Hendar, 2012; Holmström & Schönström, 2017; Takala et al., 2000). The second category comprises four qualitative empirical studies investigating aspects of access to socialising spaces for signing children and adolescents (Berge et al., 2003; Halvorsen et al., 2019; Hjulstad, 2017; Tapio & Takkinen, 2012).

The remaining five original references consist of two comparative studies between a Nordic and a non-Nordic country (Hult & Compton, 2012; Hyde et al., 2005), one literature study with a historical focus (Nilsson & Schönström, 2014) and two articles conducting a policy analysis (Snoddon & Murray, 2019; Svartholm, 2010). Although these studies are of high quality, they were excluded as they focused on legal rights and recognition rather than contexts for linguistic socialization and acquisition.

Qualitative thematic content analysis: attempts at quantifying access

Marjatta Takala and her fellow researchers (2000) conducted a longitudinal intervention study with a follow-up of eighty-one families with deaf children in Finland in the period 1995–1999. The intervention consisted of two to four hours of sign language teaching for the participating deaf children, either at their schools or at ECEC institutions, and up to 100 hours of sign language education per year for their parents. The relevance of this study is that it documents efforts to establish a space where DHH children and their families can meet and learn from other people who speak and learn sign language. The authors point to several challenges and doubt that the signing children were reaching an age-equivalent proficiency in sign language compared to hearing children's oral language production. The parents also reported that their levels of sign language proficiency did not allow them to act as effective language models for their children. Nevertheless, learning sign language put the families in contact with the wider deaf society in their local municipalities. Obvious obstacles appear when hearing families do not live near other families with DHH children, resulting in difficulties with establishing or accessing spaces for speaking sign language.

The second example of a quantitative study is a Norwegian study published by Knut Arnesen, former principal of Skådalen School for the Deaf (now closed), and his research team (2008). In this study, a large nationwide survey is presented in which parents, teachers and DHH children were asked to make assessments "on topics related to the children's language milieu at home and at school" (p. 65). The informants were assessed using a range of mapping instruments. Arnesen and his team found that all the DHH informants who were exposed to "the two native languages [Norwegian Sign Language and Norwegian] as well as other forms, most frequently blend and sign with speech support" (p. 75). What the team found was that the reports on language use by the different groups of informants conflicted to such a degree that it "was not possible, based on these data, to determine with certainty the primary language of these children. A related consideration is whether the students' exposure to NTS and Norwegian was consistent and complete enough to support development of the native languages" (p. 75).

This conclusion is highly relevant to the current review study. Arnesen and his team point out that DHH students are at risk of being under-exposed not only to NTS but also to language in general. Although sign language was used in deaf schools in Norway, different blends of NTS and Norwegian were practiced, particularly in schools where the level of proficiency in NTS among hearing teachers was low. Furthermore, with reference to a 1990 study by Bochnerand and Albertini (referenced in Arnesen et al., 2008), Arnesen and his team point out that developing "native language" (their wording) "is not merely a question of frequency, variety, and consistency in language use, but of the accessibility of the language and the relationship between input and intake. The intake threshold is defined as a measure of intake quantity and quality that the learner needs to achieve mastery of the target language" (Arnesen et al., 2008, p. 75). The study frames the question of access in a very succinct manner by questioning whether deaf schools with varying competencies in sign language among the teachers were ever places where exposure to signing communities was sufficiently large to ensure an individual child's language development to the extent where sign language could become a native language. It should, however, be noted that the growing body of research on bi- and plurilingual people indicates that it is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine what a "primary" or "native" language means to an individual. This question is more of a contextual and identity issue than of formal acquisition of, or education in, a particular language. In light of general knowledge about bi- and/or plurilingualism, Arnesen et al.'s aspiration to identify the primary language for each child may thus be a futile one.

Hendar (2012) and Holmström and Schönström (2017) also present results of quantitative surveys. In 2012, Ola Hendar published an extensive study focusing on DHH students' learning outcomes compared to those of typical hearing students. He presented one result of particular interest to the present review study. He asked teachers to assess the extent to which students following the national curriculum for NTS were receiving their education in a context that could be characterised as a signing environment. Hendar's respondents reported that around 50 percent of students following the national curriculum for NTS received their education in a predominantly signing environment. However, only 35 percent of DHH students who were given special education support in combination with the national curriculum for NTS received their education in a predominantly signing environment (p. 71). This result suggests that, in 2012, up to half of the DHH student population in Norway attended schools that were either traditional deaf schools or mainstream schools where groups of DHH students were co-enrolled. As mentioned above, the right to study the national curriculum in NTS does not limit sign language teaching to deaf schools. Students are also entitled to be taught sign language in their local mainstream school.

Holmström and Schönström (2017) conducted a similar survey among Swedish teachers in 2017. In this survey, the number of respondents is limited (N = 26), but the results are triangulated with nine qualitative interviews. This survey focuses on DHH Swedish students in mainstream schools only. Holmström and Schönström pay particular interest to the group of professionals named "hörselspedagog" (Hearing Pedagogue: HP–see above in the section on Sweden)–"a kind of pedagogue that is responsible for hard-of-hearing students" (Holmström & Schönström, 2017, p. 29). The authors point out that the emergence of cochlear implants has altered and relativised the traditional division between "deaf" and "hard-of-hearing" students in the sense that many in the latter category are clinically deaf once they remove the outer parts of their implant. Some of these students with implants and some hard-of-hearing students in mainstream schools were offered a limited possibility to learn and speak STS with the assistance of an HP. However, the distribution of HPs is uneven across Sweden, and the HPs' qualifications in STS vary widely. Summing up, the authors conclude that "the access that DHH students have to STS is generally limited. Primarily, it is in the lower grades that any form of signing exists, as it is mostly pre-school teachers who want to learn and use sign communication in any form" (Holmström & Schönström, 2017, p. 36). This result is very much in line with what is assumed as the situation for Norwegian DHH students in mainstream schools, although the latter group are entitled by law to be educated in Norwegian Sign Language, but no similar study to that of Holmström and Schönström (2017) has been conducted in Norway.

The four studies outlined above tried to obtain quantitative measures to analyse different aspects relevant to the question of access to sign language. None of them, however, made any attempt to demonstrate or analyse the quality of access or signing space. On the other hand, Hendar's approach of asking teachers to assess the degree to which students were taught in a signing environment provides quite a clear answer in terms of the percentage of students with or without access to a space where sign language is used to communicate among groups of children and adults. In general, the quantitative data presented here support the notion that signing spaces are a restricted commodity.

Qualitative studies describing access

The four qualitative studies focusing on access span a range of themes. Together, they also demonstrate that the question of access must involve qualitative assessments, and that some of these deal with aspects that are difficult to measure outright. Elina Tapio and Ritva Takkinen (2012) write predominantly about experiences with psychosocial and ideological barriers that prevent children and adolescents from having the opportunity to socialise in sign language. First and foremost, Finnish DHH students generally experienced the medical profession as a resource which did not recognise sign language as a natural and full-fledged language. As a result, DHH students must struggle not only for the opportunity to meet other students who communicate in sign language, but also for mere recognition of their language. The discrimination DHH students experience is symbolic but also practical. For example, although signed- and orally-spoken language may be formally seen as equal, DHH students must sometimes choose between pursuing the education they most want to pursue versus education that is provided in a signing environment but not fully aligned with their personal or professional interests.

Two publications emphasise the importance of having more than one signing student enrolled in a class or at a school, although they examine very different contexts. Sigrid Berge and her research team (2003) interviewed deaf students as well as staff members in Norwegian upper secondary cluster schools that practiced the co-enrolment of two or more deaf students in classes with hearing peers. The number of deaf student informants is small (N = 5). Nevertheless, these informants strongly emphasise that signing among each other is important to them, and a reason why they attend the cluster school. These cluster schools were established in the late 1990s and still exist. Berge et al.'s study confirms results from international research (Hjulstad et al., 2015) arguing that cluster schools and co-enrolment might provide deaf students with access to a signing environment with peers. Johan Hjulstad (2017) studied a pilot project in Statped (the Norwegian special needs education service) in which the stated aim was to accommodate mainstreamed DHH students with a new virtual sign language space in order to provide a learning environment in which they could participate in sign language lessons along with other remote signing students. Although remote teaching had been going on for years, this project acknowledged the significance of peer collaborative language learning and classroom language socialisation. Although the study explored the participants' interactions to examine how a virtual video-mediated environment impacted languaging, the study mentioned several examples of innovative ways in which the teachers and students took advantage of this video-mediated setting to socialise outside traditional classroom teaching. Relevant to the context of this review are examples of when the Norwegian students met online with a class from a Swedish deaf school and the students were able to interact with each other despite the language barriers that normally separate both Norwegian and Swedish speakers and signers. Another side effect of creating this virtual teaching space was that the deaf students quickly began to take the opportunity offered by the virtual classroom to chat informally and make plans to meet outside the classroom setting, in addition to completing the activities set by the sign language teacher. One of the publications included in Hjulstad's dissertation (2017) specifically examines a lesson where the students took advantage of the affordances of the virtual environment to invite hearing classmates to their "muted" space, thereby creating enthusiasm among their hearing peers for learning some basic signing and recognising some sign vocabulary needed to participate in this setting.

The article written by Rolf Piene Halvorsen et al. (2019) reports observations from a deaf youth club that was invited to arrange a crash course in sign language for hearing peers at the neighbouring youth club. Besides emphasising the importance of the youth club as a signing space, this text also implies that there are qualitative dimensions to this space that promote languaging and socialisation. The youth club is a peer community where spontaneous mutual recognition and interaction take place, and this provides a range of opportunities for the members, who get to experience the myriad ways in which language can be used.

The qualitative data available support the notion that for the opportunity to acquire sign language through socialisation, some sort of congregation of signing people is a prerequisite. In addition, the qualitative studies indicate that spaces where sign languages are spoken are often multilingual, and sign language is rarely the only language used in these spaces. People also communicate in local written or orally-spoken languages and, sometimes, in more than one sign language. The parents in Finland (Takala, 2000), the young people at the youth club (Halvorsen et al., 2019) and the students (Arnesen et al., 2008; Hendar, 2012) all describe using sign language in environments where other languages are also used continuously. The studies also suggest that the complexity involved in establishing spaces for sign language socialisation supersedes the simple question of co-enrolment or cluster schools for students who have the right, and/or who want, to be educated in sign language. For these spaces to be established and maintained, however, there is a need for facilitation in terms of recognition as well as ideological, practical and financial support.