Commentary: Shapes and Sites of Deaf People’s Transinstitutionalization

This commentary describes our perspective on transinstitutionalization as deaf teachers and researchers from different regions of Canada, and accounts for some of the ways in which transinstitutionalization manifests in the lives of deaf people, particularly in educational settings. In the present day, so-called inclusive education is often presented as the progressive alternative to institutionalization, or deaf schools. However, mainstream education in regular settings without adequate sign language support and the continuing polarization of language and identity options for deaf children are two of the main ways in which transinstitutionalization recurs for deaf children and adults and threatens the vitality of sign languages.