Almost 3.5 million citizens in the United States and the European Union are born with or acquire (before the age of 18) a hearing impairment severe enough to affect their educational opportunities. The inclusion of these individuals in the social and economic mainstream is an explicit goal of the US and the EU.

Project Inclusion will identify universal design principles, effective policies, and programs related to the inclusion of people who are deaf in education within each partner country (Sweden, Greece, Netherlands, and the US).

Faculty will develop and offer a course that presents the cultural, social, historical, political, and economic forces that frame current deaf education policies in each country. Further, the course will review methods used to determine the educational placement of deaf pupils in primary and secondary education. Finally, students will examine a wide array of programs and will be exposed to key policymakers and educators through videotape and personal contact. Students will form multicountry teams that will be charged with comparing, contrasting, and critically analyzing policy and program characteristics in deaf education within the four partner countries. Students will suggest changes to improve the design of educational programming for deaf people in their home countries. The course will prepare students to become full participants in shaping national and global policies regarding education of people who are deaf. Students will be expected to present their findings to colleagues, faculty members, and educational policymakers upon return to their home countries. The course will be a formally approved component of the curriculum at each participating academic institution and will be an elective course offered to a select group of students.

An innovative Internet technology developed at Rochester Institute of Technology will deliver the program. An intensive two-week, four-country team meeting, offered on a rotating basis in the participating countries, will complement it. Students will be future educators of the deaf and a significant number of the students will themselves be deaf.

ONLINE REFERENCE: 

Project Inclusion
   http://www.rit.edu/inclusion  

Kenneth Nash
Project Director
U.S. Lead

Rochester Institute of
  Technology
National Technical
  Institute for the Deaf
Carey Building
52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623
Tel: 585-475-5298
Fax: 585-475-7690

James DeCaro
Project Co-Director
U.S. Lead

Rochester Institute of
  Technology
National Technical
  Institute for the Deaf
Carey Building
52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623
Tel: 585-475-6319
Fax: 585-475-7690

Berth Danermark
European Lead

Orebro University
Department of Social
  Sciences
Orebro 701 82
Sweden
Tel: 46.19.152059
Fax: 46.19.152695