Abstract

This study explores how members of systematically disadvantaged groups describe their interactions with members of dominant groups. In an effort to examine both positive and negative intergroup relations, this paper reports on a study of deaf and hard-of-hearing adults' retrospective accounts of their best and worst experiences with hearing teachers and peers when they attended their local public schools during their K-12 years (Oliva, 2004). Written accounts from 60 deaf and hard-of-hearing adults were content analyzed. Their most positive experiences occurred when hearing teachers and peers were accommodating, encouraging, supportive, and interested in deafness. Negative reflections described hearing teachers and peers who were discriminatory, non-accommodating, and insensitive.

Introduction

How do members of systematically disadvantaged groups navigate their interactions with members of dominant groups? Are there contexts that might be particularly useful for understanding the intergroup experience? In her intensive study of deaf and hard-of-hearing students who were mainstreamed1 during their K-12 years, Oliva (2004) documented the experience of being the only deaf or hard-of-hearing child in a public school. Oliva referred to such individuals as "solitaires," who by definition were isolated in their schools but also shared critical experiences, feelings, and perspectives with other people in similar situations, albeit in different schools. Social psychological research on "solo status" suggests that being, for example, the only woman among a group of men or the only African American among a group of White people may compromise psychological well-being and academic and job performance (Sekaquaptewa & Thompson, 2002; Thompson & Sekaquaptewa, 2002; see also Tatum, 1987, for an analysis of the experiences of middle-class African American families living in predominantly White middle- and upper-class towns, and Tatum, 1997, for an analysis of the experiences of students of color in predominantly white educational settings). Sekaquaptewa and Thompson (2002) noted that white men among a group of white women do not experience the same negative consequences; negative outcomes are a function of being a member of a disadvantaged social group and are therefore inextricably related to broader societal attitudes, expectations, and stereotypes. Solitaire, or solo, status thus provides an important context in which to study intergroup relations.

In their foreword to Oliva's (2004) book, Brueggemann and Kelley provide a picture of the broader social context in which solitary deaf and hard-of-hearing students navigate their interactions:

In sharing their stories of isolation and loneliness, these deaf adults discover… that they are not alone with their experiences…. For example, as children, many of the 'solitaires' dreaded disclosing their hearing loss to others. This dread demonstrates that there was a particular shame that they felt about their deafness, which made them uncomfortable with talking about it and often lead to attempts in hiding it. But the 'solitaires' did not create this shame — it was forced on them by those around them. Many 'solitaires,' after disclosing (intentionally or unintentionally), had stories of being teased and not accepted…. [Attempts to hide hearing aids or other indicators of deafness reinforce] that deafness is something to hide. But the problem with hiding this truth, Oliva recognizes, is that 'lack of disclosure permits, enables, and perpetuates the invisibility of deafness' (p. 73). And in perpetuating this invisibility, it is difficult for either deaf or hearing to become comfortable with the idea of hearing loss (p. xvii).

It is clear that much of what defined the experiences of the deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals described in Oliva's book were the ideas, attitudes, expectations, and prejudices of hearing people. More specifically, and most relevant for the purposes of this paper, every interaction that the solitaires had was an intergroup interaction, an interaction with a hearing person who did not share (at least one of) their important identities. The contexts in which these deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals lived and went to school, therefore, provide an important opportunity to study intergroup relations.

Prejudice and discrimination in the areas of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and disability have been well-documented (see, e.g., Herek, 2000; Jones, 1997; Trentham & Larwood, 1998). Social psychologists working in the area of intergroup relations have advanced theories to explain why prejudice and discrimination exist, how groups and identities form, and how to improve intergroup relations and reduce prejudice (see, e.g., Oskamp, 2000). Perhaps the most influential and generative theory in intergroup relations is Allport's (1954) contact theory, which proposes that intergroup relations would be improved by increased contact between groups in situations in which each group had equal standing and cooperated on a task, and where group contact had institutional support. Much research has supported Allport's theory (see Pettigrew, 1998, for a review) and the theory has also generated critiques and modifications (e.g., Devine & Vasquez, 1998; Hewstone & Brown, 1986).

Two important limitations to contact theory to date are of concern to us in this paper. First, Tropp (2003) noted that "the bulk of the contact literature has examined contact outcomes for members of dominant groups, with limited consideration of the distinct concerns that may be associated with contact for members of devalued groups" (p. 131). Second, Devine and Vasquez (1998, p. 243) noted that "very few studies have examined what goes on in actual interactions between majority and minority group members" and suggested that one of the biggest challenges for members of dominant groups is to maintain non-prejudiced attitudes and behavior over time. Their Prejudice Reduction Process, outlining three stages related to reducing prejudice, is worth reviewing in detail.

Devine and Vasquez (1998) proposed a three-step process of prejudice reduction. The first step is establishing non-prejudiced attitudes and standards. Step two involves internalizing non-prejudiced standards. These two steps together "establish the motivation to respond without prejudice… [However,] attitude change is not sufficient to overcome prejudice. Once motivated, people have to develop the ability to respond consistently with those non-prejudiced standards" (p. 250). Thus, stage three involves behaving in a consistently non-prejudiced manner. This, according to Devine and Vasquez, is where people tend to get "tripped up" (p. 250). Our interest here is, in part, to analyze non-prejudiced behavior (in contrast to prejudiced behavior) in an effort to understand what helps (and hinders) intergroup relations from the perspective of members of a target group.

The remainder of this paper will focus on intergroup relationships from the perspective of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals from Oliva's (2004) study who were mainstreamed in public schools when they were growing up. Although many deaf and hard-of-hearing people — especially those who use American Sign Language — do not identify as disabled, instead adopting a linguistic and cultural identity (and often referring to themselves as Deaf; see, e.g., Davis, 1995; Padden & Humphries, 1988), the paradigm of disability is useful in this intergroup context for a number of reasons. As solitaires, very few of the individuals in this study identified themselves as part of the Deaf community during their K-12 years. In addition, most hearing people view deaf and hard-of-hearing people as disabled, and this has an obvious impact on intergroup relations.

The existence of negative attitudes toward, and negative stereotypes about, people with disabilities among non-disabled people has been well-established (see Ostrove & Crawford, 2006, for a recent review). Gill (2001) noted that, "Multiple sources of evidence about the disability experience confirm the prevalence of a disturbing division of understanding between disabled people and non-disabled people in the world of social relations" (p. 364). As Olkin (1999) summarized the literature on attitudes toward disability, "There are hundreds of studies on this issue, and overall the results are not encouraging" (p. 72). In contrast to the ample evidence for discriminatory and difficult relations, much less is known about "disabled people's positive relationship experiences" (Gill, 2001, p. 368).

Documenting non-prejudiced attitudes and behavior in any intergroup context is not easy. There is no universal formula for dominant group members to follow that will guarantee that they will be viewed as individuals who "get it" (Gill, 200, p. 368). As Kivel (2002) noted for white people who want to be anti-racist, there is no "right way" to do this. Effective interaction in the disability/deafness context is further complicated by variability within the categories of "disabled" and "deaf" — what one individual may find a useful attitude or accommodation may be experienced as condescending or unnecessary by another (see Ostrove & Crawford, 2006). Olkin (1999), in writing about what psychotherapists should know about disability, offers some "etiquette lessons" for working with clients with disabilities. For example, she suggests that therapists should not stare, should not tell their clients about other people they know who have disabilities, and should not assume disabled people need help. Therapists should also not help without asking if help is needed, should communicate directly with the client (not to their personal assistant, interpreter, etc.), and should not be afraid to ask for clarification. After enumerating these, however, Olkin concludes with the following caution: "Don't take these rules too seriously. They are guidelines, not absolutes. For every person with disabilities who appreciates your sticking to these guidelines, there may be another who resents those very actions" (p. 194).

In their discussion of teaching about and with a disability, Brueggemann, Garland-Thomson, and Kleege (2005) grappled with an important issue in cross-ability interactions: as professors with disabilities, they talked with one another about how to balance the desire to be treated like everyone else with the need to have one's disability acknowledged in ways that are useful. Garland-Thomson noted, "We don't want [non-disabled people] to forget [our disabilities] but what we do want, I think, is for them to realize that our impairments no longer have the determining force of a master status…. We want to redefine, to reimagine, disability — not make it go away. But, also, not have it remain with its stigmatic force. So we want it to go away in a way that we want it to go away" (p. 15). Kleege offered the following perspective on the matter: "[My] larger goal about changing the world is that I would like for disability not to have the status as this thing that you don't talk about and the thing that you can't look at and the thing that is so tragic, and so foreign, and so horrific that the polite thing to do is to pretend it isn't there" (p. 16).

In our previous work in this area (Ostrove & Crawford, 2006), we found that women with disabilities appreciated their interactions with non-disabled people who were respectful and knowledgeable about disability, who made and maintained eye contact, and who were at ease and not condescending. We found that it was often easier for participants to describe effective interactions by enumerating ineffective ones; examples of being treated with condescension or pity, or as if they were not even there, were much more readily available in the women's minds than were non-discriminatory examples. These qualities of ineffective interactions are not only reflective of prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities, but offer examples of what to avoid if one is attempting to foster positive intergroup relations.

The purpose of the current study was to make an additional contribution to the body of intergroup relations research about the positive (and negative) relationship experiences of people in various disability groups. In this study, we analyzed stories written retrospectively by deaf and hard-of-hearing adults about the best and worst experiences with teachers and with peers they recalled from their kindergarten through 12th grade years as solitaires. The existing literature on prejudice and discrimination helps us understand their worst experiences. Our analysis of their best experiences offers some insight into the less studied aspect of intergroup relations — positive experiences. We also expect that an analysis of these experiences can not only illuminate something important about what is experienced as positive and what is not in deaf-hearing interactions, but can be applied more broadly to other intergroup relations and also to any interaction between a "solitaire" (with respect to race, class, sexual orientation, etc.) and the members of the surrounding dominant group.

Method

Participants

Sixty (60) people participated in this study of deaf or hard-of-hearing people who had been mainstreamed in public schools when they were growing up. Qualifications for participation included having been the only deaf or hard-of-hearing mainstreamed student in their school for at least seven of their K-12 school years, having had at least a 50-decibel loss in both ears prior to age seven, and having graduated from high school in 1995 or earlier. Participants were recruited through a private e-mail subscription list focused on issues of interest to deaf and hard-of-hearing people. One hundred forty (140) people responded to the initial call, of whom 125 responded to an initial essay question about why they were interested in participating in the study. Sixty (60) people agreed to participate in the full study and met all requirements. Participants ranged in age from 28 to 65 and were from all over the United States. The majority of participants were female (73%) and white (93%; see Oliva, 2004, for a more extensive description of the sample).

Data Collection

Participants responded to four essay questions based on themes that emerged from the initial essay question, one of which was used for the current study. The exact prompt was as follows: "Tell me about the worst and best experiences you had with a teacher and with a fellow student. Please describe in as much detail as possible exactly what happened, and why it was so awful, or so great." Each participant could in theory provide up to four stories (describing their best teacher experience, their worst teacher experience, their best peer experience, and their worst peer experience). Fifty respondents provided at least one (best or worst) teacher story; 46 respondents provided at least one (best or worst) fellow student story. All stories were entered into Ethnograph (v. 5.0), a software program designed to organize qualitative data thematically. We used this software to organize the data using the coding system described below.

Content coding

The responses to each of the four stories were content analyzed (see, e.g., Smith, Feld, & Franz, 1992) using a system developed by Ostrove and Katowitz. The coding system was developed to capture the most salient themes present in 15 randomly selected teacher stories and in 15 randomly selected peer stories, and was then applied to the responses from all 60 participants. We created and refined codebooks for recording the presence of relevant themes in the 15 teacher stories and in the 15 peer stories, sent these codebooks and themes to Oliva, and consulted with Oliva via videophone to discuss and agree upon the final list of themes. Ostrove and Katowitz coded a subset of the remaining stories in order to establish inter-rater reliability. Average interrater reliability for the teacher data was .87; for the peer data it was .80 (see White, 1992, for discussions of thematic content analysis and intercoder reliability of content-coded material). Katowitz and Ostrove double-coded the responses from all sixty participants; all disagreements were resolved through discussion.

Participants indicated in their responses that they were relaying a "best" or "worst" teacher or peer story. Best teacher stories were coded into five categories. Two were based on teacher behaviors: providing accommodation (e.g., taking extra time or making sure the student always understood what was happening) and treating the student like any other student. Three were based on teacher attitudes: taking an interest in deafness/hearing loss (e.g., asking questions, encouraging disclosure); being encouraging with respect to academic and extracurricular activities (e.g., believing student was intellectually capable, encouraging student to join the debate team); and being caring and sensitive. Best peer stories were classified into six categories, some of which were similar to those extracted from the best teacher stories. Three were based on peer behavior: being accommodating or helpful (e.g., serving as a notetaker in class, helping student understand what was happening in social situations); treating the peer like other peers; and being protective (e.g., standing up for the student). Three were based on peer attitudes: taking an interest in deafness/hearing loss (e.g., asking questions, encouraging disclosure); being supportive, inclusive, and taking time to get to know the person; reciprocity (making it clear that the deaf or hard-of-hearing person also had something to give in the relationship).

Worst teacher stories were coded into four categories. Three were based on teacher behaviors: discriminatory treatment (e.g., assumed student to be incompetent), humiliating treatment (e.g., singled out student in embarrassing manner), and lack of accommodation (e.g., persistently speaking while facing the blackboard). One was based on teacher attitudes: insensitivity or ignorance (e.g., becoming upset with a student for mishearing instructions). Worst peer stories were also classified into four themes that were similar those extracted from the teacher stories. Three were based on peer behaviors: discriminatory treatment specifically related to deafness (e.g., making fun of speech, making person look stupid); general bad treatment not specifically related to deafness (e.g., bullying, general name calling); and lack of accommodation (e.g., not being willing to fill student in on what was happening in a conversation). One theme was based on the students' feelings: isolation or unpopularity.

Results

Tables 1 and 2 summarize the percentage of participant responses that were categorized into the above themes that captured positive interactions and negative interactions. Below we provide examples of responses that were classified into each theme.

Positive experiences

Teachers.

The majority of the participants (64%) described situations where a teacher provided accommodations. These teachers took extra time to help the student with assignments or with specific skills, seated the student in the front of the room, made sure the student understood what they were saying, or changed their teaching style in some way that made it more possible for the deaf or hard-of-hearing student to do well in their classroom. For example, one participant wrote,

Mr. R was very aware of my deafness, and took that into consideration while teaching. He made sure he taught facing the class so I could speech-read him. He made sure not to mumble, and lucky for me, he never grew a mustache. Mr. R. was very careful to explain the problems in my English papers so I understood them.

Twenty-two percent (22%) of the respondents described teachers who specifically treated them "like everyone else." For example, one person wrote: "I enjoyed being her student because with her I felt like I had no handicap at all, and that I was seen as an 'equal' in the classroom." A similar number (20%) told stories of teachers who took a specific interest in their hearing loss. One participant said, "[My English teacher] was perhaps the only teacher I had that was genuinely interested in my hearing impairment. He would ask me questions and get me talking about it."

Almost half of the respondents (42%) described a teacher who encouraged them. These stories featured teachers who believed in the student's intellectual abilities and told them so, who encouraged the student to develop particular academic skills, or who actively and intentionally encouraged the student to participate in extracurricular activities such as theatre or debate. One participant described her best experience with a teacher as follows: "I had a teacher who taught hearing impaired in high school who would not let me say I can't do something. She pushed me and made me see [the] skills that I had as an individual. She is also the one who got me to go to college." Another participant relayed the following story,

It would be the spring of 9th grade with my Civics teacher. He was looking for good students who had a quick mind to debate the finer points of government for the annual debating team. His eyes and attention came to rest on me. All these kids backed him up in my class, stating that they always fought over me for review teams before testing. … I was horrified — me, speak in public debating? I can hardly stand confrontation! All spring, he badgered me, and got me ready. … A few days before, I begged the teacher to excuse me, and he took my face in his hands, and looked — it seems — into my soul, and told me, "I see the person you really are. You are smarter than anyone in this school. I see past your hearing problems. I SEE YOU." I blinked, tears formed in my eyes as my mind grappled with what he was really saying to me. "Show people who you are, past your ears. Believe in yourself!" is what he went on to say to me. Then, suddenly, the conversation was over. I have always remembered that moment, and slowly I began to believe in myself, to be able to make my own decisions and handle my own fate. (Incidentally, I refused to worry about time in debating for rebuttals, I just concentrated on speaking clearly, my partner wrote down points the other teams spoke on, and I argued our point back from all of my research, quoting this and that. We won the County Champs that year. I still have the award and pictures. I treasure them. From then, I began to believe in myself, that I could figure my way out of tough spots.)

Teachers who were generally kind and sensitive were featured in about one-third of the responses.

Peers.

As was the case in their descriptions of their teachers, the respondents' good experiences with peers highlighted people who were accommodating. Almost half of the sample (41%) reported relationships with a peer that was classified as accommodating or helpful. Peers who were accommodating provided help in the classroom or in social situations outside of the classroom, or made sure that the deaf or hard-of-hearing person understood what was being said (e.g., they wrote things down, repeated as needed, enunciated clearly, etc.). For example, one participant recalled an incident in which a peer helped her in a social situation:

I remember one time I went to a party and we were playing a bunch of group games where there was a lot of talking. I have a really difficult time in situations like this….and I don't know why this happened but a girl that I was acquainted with came and sat beside me and asked me if I knew what was going on. She filled me in and pretty much helped me out through the rest of the games. She saved me there.

Another participant recalled a friend helping her learn the words to new music because, at the time, lyrics were not included with the records: "We would sit in front of a stereo and play and re-play songs over and over while she would enunciate all the words to the songs. Sounds silly, but it meant a lot to be able to 'sing' along to all the music." Finally, a participant noted that his best experience with a peer was in the classroom, in which his classmate would give him extra help during oral tests to make sure that he understood what the teacher was saying: "So after the teacher said the word…C would turn to me and repeat the word for me."

Nine percent (9%) of the participants wrote about someone who would "treat me like any other peer." This happened in a variety of ways, and included friends or classmates who acknowledged the person was deaf or hard-of-hearing but did not make it the central issue. As one participant noted "[He was] someone who didn't see me primarily as a deaf person but as someone who happened to be deaf." Fifteen percent (15%) of respondents described ways in which they were protected by their peers. Examples of protection included standing up for the person or literally protecting against physical harm. One participant recalled that the best peer experience occurred when "a popular classmate stood up for me when another classmate was making fun of me."

Approximately one quarter of the sample reported relationships with peers who showed a general interest in deafness/hearing loss by asking questions and encouraging the individual to disclose information about being deaf or hard-of-hearing. For example, one participant said "I think [this] was the first person that I ever really talked to about my hearing problem in a detailed way, and it was nice to have someone show some interest."

One third of the sample described peers who were accepting, supportive, inclusive, and took the time to get to know them. One participant said that her best experience was with someone who "never frowned when the subject was repeated because she knows I didn't hear it the first time. She took the time to understand what my needs are and when I need them." Finally, two respondents described relationships with peers in terms of reciprocity, in which it was clear that the deaf or hard-of-hearing individual believed that he or she had something to offer in the relationship.

Negative experience

Teachers.

A majority (60%) of the participants' negative experiences with teachers were those in which they were discriminated against because they were deaf or hard-of-hearing. These teachers explicitly indicated that they did not want the student in their class, or that they thought the student was not intellectually capable. They adopted a condescending attitude toward the student, or questioned whether or not the student was "really deaf." In one case, after a student did well on an exam, the teacher said, "A lucky dog learns a new trick." Another participant wrote:

One day I went to class early and I overheard [the teacher] telling another person that she hates when they put special education students in her class, she said that she automatically fails them for the class, because they are too dumb to do any better than that.

About a quarter of the respondents described being humiliated by their teachers. Some of these teachers seemed to be deliberately mean; others may have been well-intentioned, but the student still felt embarrassed (e.g., a teacher asked, in front of the entire class, whether the student could hear what was happening in class). One participant described an incident that seemed deliberately mean (and sexist and heterosexist) as follows:

[My] sixth grade gym teacher … thought my speech was funny and liked to make fun of me. I was an excellent softball player, but he didn't know that. When I was at bat during one of the first games that we got to play, he said in front of the other guys, "C — if you don't get a hit, I am going to send you to play with the girls."

One third (34%) of the participants' stories described teachers who were explicitly unaccommodating — they did nothing to help the student understand what was going in the classroom, they maintained rigid seating assignments that meant that a hard-of-hearing student with a last name that started with a letter toward the end of the alphabet had to sit in the back of the room, or they persistently faced the blackboard when they spoke. For example, one participant wrote:

I had one social studies teacher who has a tendency to talk while she's writing on the blackboard. I don't mind the notes on the blackboard but it's her talking to the board instead of the class that bugs me! I almost always have to remind her to look up front while she's talking! She often has to apologize but I never understood why she can't "remember" to do that.

Forty-four percent (44%) of participants described teachers who were generally insensitive, intolerant, ignored them, or just didn't "get it." For example, one student wrote:

I was beaten up in [gym] class, three times. The first time, beaten so my ears bled. Kids laughed and called me "freak". Teacher just told me I had to get tough and deal with the "real world". This went on for months… I asked the teacher to keep an eye on me, and that met with rolled eyes. No help, no protection. Again, indifference because of my hearings aids and deafness.

More than half of the responses in this category related incidents in which the deaf or hard-of-hearing student got in trouble because he or she did not hear something. For example, one participant described the following incident:

Once when I was working on a homework assignment toward the end of class, my head was down oblivious to all sounds as I was concentrating hard on my work; according to student witnesses, he had called my name several times and I was deaf to hearing my name being called. He lost patience and almost threw a stapler at me.
Peers.

Parallel to their experiences with teachers, about a quarter of participants had peers who were discriminatory or prejudiced toward them because they were deaf or hard-of-hearing. These peers made deliberate attempts to make the deaf or hard-of-hearing student look stupid or misunderstand something, or to embarrass him or her. They called the deaf or hard-of-hearing students names specifically related to being hearing impaired/deaf, made fun of their speech, and expressed doubt that the individual was indeed deaf or hard-of-hearing. One student recalled an experience in which her peer deliberately tried to make her look foolish in front of her classmates: "A boy in my class asked me for a 'red ruler' and I gave him the red ruler. All of a sudden, this boy was screaming and laughing hysterically by saying, 'Hey guys, did you hear that?? I asked her for a red pencil and instead she gives me a red ruler!!'" In addition to making the person look foolish, other students described fellow peers who mocked their speech patterns. For example, one person wrote, "The boys in my class thought it was cool to make fun of the way I talked." One participant reported experiencing prejudice and discrimination from her boyfriend when he requested that she not tell anybody at her new school that she was hard-of-hearing. Another participant recalled another student who "actually stood up in front of class to say I have the 'DD' hearing aids and batteries. The 'DD' stands for deaf and dumb." One participant summed up the experience of being the target of discrimination and prejudice by saying that it led him to believe "that I was worthless and that deafness was really a curse."

Almost half of the sample (41%) reported relationships with peers in which they were generally mistreated, though it was not clear that it was specifically about being deaf or hard-of-hearing. Peer behaviors in this category included bullying, teasing that was not specifically related to being deaf such as being called a "faggot" or having the word "retarded" written on their locker. It also included friends/peers who were unreliable in terms of support and kindness.

Seven percent (7%) of the participants described a peer who was unaccommodating, in that the person explicitly did not do anything to help the individual. For example, one person wrote, "I couldn't follow the incessant chatter…and the student next to me would not tell me what's happening or what everyone is saying. Actually, she would make any communication short with me." Twenty-eight percent (28%) of the sample reported feelings of isolation, unpopularity or not belonging. One student wrote, "I never had any friends…[I] spent my time trying to pretend that being alone was okay. But … I desperately wanted to belong and be liked."

Discussion

The goal of this study was to examine retrospective accounts of positive and negative experiences of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals with hearing individuals in the hopes of illuminating something about the nature of successful and unsuccessful intergroup relations. We also hope to inform the study of (and ideally improve) intergroup relations between any "solitaire" and member(s) of the dominant group with respect to class, sexual orientation, race, etc.

As noted earlier, there are no universal standards for positive intergroup relations (Kivel, 2002; Olkin, 1999). We cannot offer a conclusive paradigm for improving intergroup relations but can instead examine and illuminate what was effective and what was not for this particular sample of solitaires. Indeed, we found some clear commonalities between the positive teacher and peer interactions and the negative interactions that may help us shed light on a more general theme.

Although the relationship between a student and a teacher and the relationship between a student and a peer are very different, we found many commonalities between peer and teacher relationships in both the "best" and "worst" categories. Participants' best experiences with both teachers and peers were those in which the hearing person was accommodating, treated them like any other student, took an interest in deafness/hearing loss, and were caring, sensitive, or supportive. These findings are consistent with those of Ostrove and Crawford (2006), whose participants (women with disabilities) reported their desires for respect and accommodation in their relations with non-disabled people. We also suggest that it may be a combination of all of the "best" qualities (and none of the "worst") that defines deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals' most valued relationships with specific hearing people.

We also conclude that positive relationships require a delicate balance between "treating the individual just like everybody else" and simultaneously being aware of their minority status ("taking an interest"; "being accommodating/helpful"). This is an important and complicated finding that is consistent with Brueggemann, Garland-Thomson, and Kleege's (2005) conversation about teaching and disability. Indeed, reflecting Olkin's (1999) observation that what is useful for one person may not be for another, some students' best experiences with teachers were those in which they were treated like any other student; for other students, the best teachers did something special or out of the ordinary (ostensibly) because of the student's hearing loss. Although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories, they point to an interesting and complicated issue in cross-identity relationship building: in what situations is it important that there is no "special treatment" afforded people in targeted groups, and in what situations is it important that their particular identity status be recognized and acknowledged (see also Ostrove & Crawford, 2006)?

The participants' retrospective accounts of their worst experiences with teachers and peers reflect the widespread discrimination and insensitivity that existed — and still exists — toward deaf and hard-of-hearing people specifically and toward people with disabilities more generally (see, e.g., Cooper, Rose, & Mason, 2004; Gill, 2001; Louvet, 2007; Phemister & Crewe, 2007; see also Kiger, 1997, for an analysis of both positive and negative attitudes toward deaf people). Common themes across both teacher and peer interactions included discriminatory treatment, humiliating treatment, insensitivity/ignorance, and lack of accommodation, and highlight what to avoid if one is interested in pursuing a successful intergroup relationship.

To what extent are these findings relevant to the solitaire experience with respect to race, sexual orientation, social class, or other social identities? Previous work on solo status in the domains of race and gender illuminate the psychological costs of the solo experience itself on members of disadvantaged groups (see, e.g., Sekaquaptewa & Thompson, 2002), but that work was not specifically about the nature of intergroup interactions in solitaire contexts. To the extent that solitaire status may heighten awareness of discriminatory attitudes (and possibly exacerbate discriminatory behavior), our work suggests — not surprisingly — that target group members' experiences of other intergroup interactions will be characterized both by the nature of the societal discrimination that exists toward members of the group in question, and also by non-discriminatory attitudes and behavior on the part of some dominant group members.

It is also possible that we have captured the qualities of good and bad teachers and the qualities of friends in general, and not those that are specific either to deaf and hard-of-hearing people or to the solitaire experience regardless of identity. Certainly, most good teachers accommodate to the learning styles of their students, take special interest in their students as individuals, and have a generally caring attitude. Friends help their friends when they need it and know how to include others and make them feel like they belong. Although it is possible that any students would tell these kinds of stories about their teachers and their peers, we do think that there are aspects to these stories that are specific to deaf-hearing interactions. The most effective and beloved teachers made very specific kinds of accommodations; the best peers figured out how to be inclusive and accommodating in ways that were very specific to this population. Certainly, the worst stories reflect not only generally poor teaching styles and negative peer behavior, but also illuminate very specific examples of discrimination against deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.

There are several other limitations of the present study. First, the sample size was relatively small (N=60) and not representative of deaf and hard-of-hearing people as a whole for several reasons. The majority of the participants were white women who were college graduates. The fact that all but one participant were college graduates contributed to several limitations: the aforementioned limitation of the sample not being representative, self-selection bias, and a possible positivity bias. Oliva (2004) noted that the participants' level of education made them more likely to have access to computers and the internet and therefore more able to participate in the study, which recruited participants primarily via the internet (p. 192). Additionally, this is a group of participants who elected to write about their experiences — perhaps theirs were particularly good, or particularly bad. Indeed, it is possible that the experiences of these participants were relatively more positive than those of deaf or hard-of-hearing students who did not complete high school or attend college.2

Finally, as Oliva noted, the year in which participants graduated from high school ranged from 1980 to 1995. All of the participants in this study defined themselves as having been fully mainstreamed. However, because the mandated "mainstreaming era" did not begin until the early 1980s, it is possible that the year in which the student graduated may have had an effect on their responses (Oliva, 2004, p. 191). Because the latest possible year of high school graduation in this study was 1995, we are also unable to determine if the solitaire experience has improved since then. As Oliva noted, this study provides information that may be useful for focusing on and studying the experiences of current solitaires but does not provide specific insight on the experiences of the younger cohort (Oliva, 2004, p. 193).

We noted in our introduction that members of dominant groups tend to get "tripped up" in their interactions with non-dominant group members when they try to sustain non-prejudiced attitudes and behavior over long periods of time (Devine & Vasquez). Although there are no easy formulas for effective intergroup interaction, our findings suggest that being interested, accommodating, and caring — and avoiding being explicitly discriminatory — may be important ingredients for establishing positive intergroup relations in the domains of deafness and disability and beyond.

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Table 1. Positive intergroup experiences: Content coded themes
Theme coded in participant responsesTeachers
(% of responses)
Peers
(% of responses)

Teacher or peer:

Provided accommodation64%41%
Treated participant like everyone else22%9%
Expressed interest in deafness20%28%
Was encouraging with respect to academic or extracurricular activities42%n/a
Was caring and sensitive30%n/a
Included participant effectively; was supportiven/a33%
Was protective of participantn/a15%
Developed relationship based on reciprocityn/a4%
Table 2. Negative intergroup experiences: Content coded themes
Theme coded in participant responsesTeachers
(% of responses)
Peers
(% of responses)

Teacher or peer:

Discriminated against participant based on deafness60%28%
Treated participant in humiliating manner24%n/a
Was not accommodating34%7%
Was insensitive44%n/a
Discriminated against participant (but not based explicitly on deafness)n/a41%

Participant:

Felt isolated or unpopularn/a28%

Authors' Note

Some of the work described in this study was supported by a grant from the Paul A. Anderson Interdisciplinary Summer Research Fund at Macalester College. Portions of this study were presented at Macalester College's Summer Research Poster Session (November, 2005) and at the annual meeting of the Society for Disability Studies (June, 2006, Seattle, WA). The authors would like to thank Krista Yank for her comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Correspondence may be addressed to Joan M. Ostrove, Department of Psychology, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St Paul, MN, 55105; ostrove@macalester.edu.

Endnotes

  1. All of the participants in Oliva's study from which the data for this study were drawn identified themselves as having been "mainstreamed" — that is, as having attended their local public schools, not schools for the deaf or hard-of-hearing, without any mandated or institutionalized modification of the educational environment. The term "inclusive education" more accurately reflects current practice (which began to be adopted in the U.S. in the late 1980s and the 1990s [see Osgood, 2005]), and may well describe the experiences of some of the students, but it is not a term that was used by the participants themselves nor by Oliva in her efforts to recruit this very specific sample. (See also Oliva, 2004, p. 25, for a discussion of the inadequate nature of the term "inclusion" to describe the experiences of solitaires in general.)
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  2. We would like to express our thanks to the editors and reviewers for this comment.
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