My name is Paul Richard Petersen. I’m from Norway. I have studied political science. For my thesis I researched the politics in the Deaf Community, and investigated whether this is different to hearing politics. 

 

5 years ago, I wrote a thesis comparing Deaf Politics to Hearing politics. And I wanted to compare this with the differences in “Deaf identity,” if this was ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ and if this showed different factors. So I had to make a kind of definition for the different levels of identity. So I made 8 criteria to explain this. For example, did one go to a Deaf school? Etcetera.  If you got 8 points out of 8, you fitted the XL t-shirt. If you got 2 points, you fitted the S t-shirt. So here, we have 4 levels: S, M, L and XL. Yes, I see a difference in the political activity of Deaf people who fit the S and the XL T-shirt.

 

The 8 criteria are:

 

Background:

1 belonging to a Deaf organization or club

2 attended a Deaf school

3 fluent in Sign Language

4 have family members who are deaf.

 

Behaviour:

1 read Deaf Magazines regularly

2 active in the Deaf Club

3 go to the Deaf Club

4 have Deaf friends.

 

In my research, I wanted to see the difference between Deaf who had a strong identity and other Deaf who had a less strong identity of being Deaf. From my research, these 8 variables were discovered. It was not easy to make such a concise judgment. I want to emphasise that this criteria does not show Deaf identity to the full, it is merely a product of my research and theories. It is what I suggest. But this criteria could be a good measure of the different levels of Deaf identity, and we can choose from this.