DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING LEARNERS IN EUROPEAN UNION POLICY: MEANINGFUL ACCESS ACROSS DISABILITY, EDUCATION AND ACCESSIBILITY FRAMEWORKS

Autori

  • Georgios Stathis Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting, Faculty of Humanities, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece
  • Dimitra G. Vangeli Equal Access Unit for Persons with Disabilities and Persons with Special Educational Needs, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece
  • Christos Georgokostopoulos Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece
  • Constantina Corazon Argyrakou School of Humanities, Aegean College, Athens, Greece
  • Emmanouil D. Milakis School of Vocational Training for Persons with Disabilities of Athens, Greek Public Employment Service, Athens, Greece

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejse.v12i7.6970

Parole chiave:

deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, European Union policy, meaningful educational access, inclusive education, policy coherence

Abstract

European Union (EU) policy increasingly frames disability and education through rights, inclusion and accessibility, yet it remains unclear whether these commitments address the distinctive linguistic and communication conditions of Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners. This study examines how EU disability, education, digital and accessibility frameworks represent these learners, establish the policy conditions for meaningful access, interact across policy domains and evolve between the 2010-2020 and 2021-2030 periods. A comparative qualitative policy analysis was conducted on 24 legal, strategic, technical and interpretive documents, combining directed coding derived from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) with inductive thematic coding. The findings show that Deaf-specific linguistic and communication rights are articulated most clearly in the UNCRPD framework and a non-binding European Parliament resolution, whereas mainstream education policies generally subsume learners within broad disability or disadvantage categories. Digital and audiovisual instruments provide more operational requirements  for captions, real-time text and accessible technologies, but these provisions remain weakly connected to pedagogy, support services and institutional responsibility. The later strategic period strengthens rights framing, participation and monitoring and consolidates the increasingly operational digital-accessibility architecture, without equivalent progress in sign-language education, interpreting, transcription or communication-quality standards. The EU policy architecture is therefore normatively compatible but operationally fragmented. The study argues that meaningful educational access depends on policy coherence linking linguistic rights, communication support, accessible digital environments, professional capacity, resources and accountability in practice.

Biografie autore

  • Georgios Stathis, Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting, Faculty of Humanities, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

    Georgios Stathis is a Greek Sign Language interpreter, a PhD candidate in the Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting at Ionian University, Greece, and an external associate of the Specialized Translation and Language Technologies Laboratory. He works as a Greek Sign Language interpreter at the Equal Access Unit of the Hellenic Open University. He served as President of the Greek Sign Language Interpreters’ Association. His professional and research interests include sign-language interpreting, linguistic accessibility, communication rights, and equitable access for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in education, culture, and public life.

  • Dimitra G. Vangeli, Equal Access Unit for Persons with Disabilities and Persons with Special Educational Needs, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece

    Dimitra G. Vangeli is a Greek Sign Language interpreter at the Equal Access Unit for Persons with Disabilities and Persons with Special Educational Needs of the University of West Attica, Greece, and a Special Education teacher. She holds a Master’s degree in Special and Inclusive Education from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, and a Bachelor’s degree in History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology from the University of Thessaly, Greece. Her research interests focus on inclusive education, linguistic and communication access, and the educational participation of Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners.

  • Christos Georgokostopoulos, Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Christos Georgokostopoulos is a PhD candidate in Sign Language Linguistics at the University of Thessaly, Greece. He is also an educator in Greek Sign Language as a second language and in sign language interpreting, as well as an occupational therapist at a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital. His research focuses on second language acquisition in signed languages and on the modality-specific factors that shape language learning.

  • Constantina Corazon Argyrakou, School of Humanities, Aegean College, Athens, Greece

    Constantina Corazon Argyrakou is a Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Aegean College and a PhD candidate in Cultural Geography at Harokopio University, Greece. Her research interests focus on intercultural and inclusive education, with particular attention to the relationships among language, culture, and identity and to the ways in which educational environments shape participation, belonging, and the recognition of culturally and linguistically diverse learners.

  • Emmanouil D. Milakis, School of Vocational Training for Persons with Disabilities of Athens, Greek Public Employment Service, Athens, Greece

    Emmanouil D. Milakis holds a PhD in Education Sciences and a Master’s degree in Technologies of Learning and Communication from European University Cyprus. He is a Special Education IT instructor at the School of Vocational Training for Persons with Disabilities of Athens, Greek Public Employment Service, Greece. His research interests include inclusive and special education, educational technology, digital accessibility, and disability and education policy.

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Pubblicato

2026-08-29

Fascicolo

V. 12 N. 7 (2026)

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Articles

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