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

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.

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.