Culture as consumption in the context of Libras and teacher trainingABSTRACT
This article examines Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) as both an object of consumption and a focus of professional training for deaf educators, drawing on insights from Cultural Studies in Education and Deaf Studies. The qualitative research involved interviews with six deaf graduates of Bachelor’s Degree in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS), who pursued it as a second degree and also completed stricto sensu graduate courses. Findings reveal that training in Libras not only equips teachers to work effectively in educational settings, but also enhances the recognition and legitimacy of Sign Language in Higher Education. Furthermore, the study highlights the challenges that deaf individuals face when transitioning to teaching roles, particularly due to the societal expectations surrounding the use and consumption of Sign Language, as well as the performance pressures associated with their roles.
Keywords:
Sign Language; Consumption; Deaf Studies; Teacher Training
RESUMO
Este artigo explora a Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) como objeto de consumo e a formação profissional de docentes surdos para o ensino de Libras, a partir de contribuições advindas dos Estudos Culturais em Educação e dos Estudos Surdos. A pesquisa, de cunho qualitativo, deu-se por meio de entrevistas realizadas com seis surdos egressos do curso de Licenciatura em Letras-Libras, que o tiveram como segunda graduação e que, ademais, cursaram a Pós-graduação stricto sensu. Os resultados apontaram que a formação em Letras-Libras não apenas capacita os professores para atuarem de forma eficiente em contextos educacionais, mas também valoriza e legitima a língua de sinais no Ensino Superior. Além disso, a pesquisa indicou que o surdo vem a se tornar docente, processo ao qual precisa adaptar-se, principalmente pelo uso e consumo que se vinculam à língua de sinais e pelo imperativo social do desempenho.
Palavras-chave:
Letras-Libras; Consumo; Estudos Surdos; Formação docente
The Context of the Investigation
During the last two decades, deaf individuals have been investing in their careers, in academic productions, and in their professional teaching qualification, due to the changes in the laws, which enabled the access to the university through the recognition of the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) as a means to enter the university. However, the access of deaf individuals, both in Higher Education, as well as in stricto sensu graduate courses, is still a recent conquest, which contains fragilities, as before the Law number 10.436 (Brazil, 2002), academia was not understood as a suitable place for the deaf.
The changes in the law, the defense of Sign Language and bilingual education occur from a process of fighting of the deaf movement for the right to citizenship. The deaf researcher Flaviane Reis (2015) highlights that the section 3 of the document A Educação que nós surdos queremos (Feneis, 1999), showed a manifest from the deaf community for a new professional opportunity to deaf teachers, and claimed for the opening of spaces in university for teacher training directed to deaf teachers.
The fight of the deaf movement resulted in meaningful changes in the law, such as the recognition of the Brazilian Sign Language, in the national level, through the Law number 10.436 (Brazil, 2002), and the present provisions in the Decree Law number 5.626 (Brazil, 2005), which regulates this law. These changes meant a real conquest of the deaf for their rights, besides being considered useful for the inclusive policy, as, since 2005, undergraduate courses were created, to train teachers and interpreters, as well as the creation of the Brazilian Sign Language course in the Higher Education courses of teaching and speech therapy courses.
In Brazilian Universities, undergraduate students started to have LIBRAS as a mandatory or optional course in their curriculum, which increased the necessity of professionals in this area. In one way, we notice the search for an undergraduate course in the Brazilian Sign Language (LL), of students who had already finished High School, as well as deaf students that had already graduated in other undergraduate courses, who were interested in an undergraduate course that was compatible to join in public tenders and in teaching Brazilian Sign Language in universities. With that, deaf professionals who have already graduated in many different areas, but without a specific formation in the area of LIBRAS, start to join the teaching degree in LIBRAS, with the purpose of complementing their degree and, also, obtain titration and knowledge about their language and the teaching of Brazilian Sign Language.
Based on this contextualization, we ask ourselves about other motivations for pursuing a second academic degree in a Brazilian Sign language undergraduate course. This way, the aim of this article is to analyze the experiences of deaf professors, in relation to the double undergraduate degree, one of them being specifically the undergraduate course in Brazilian Sign Language. This article derives from an investigation developed during the master’s degree in education - done by the first author, (Branco, 2019), with the advisor of the second author -, having the contributions of the Cultural Studies in Education and Deaf Studies as theoretical background, with an emphasis on the topic of culture as consumerism.
The research is of qualitative approach, and interviews were made with six deaf students from the Teaching Degree in Libras Language as a second degree, and who took a stricto sensu graduate course. The interviews were made in Libras, the language of the researcher and the interviewees, in an in-person mode1. Later, they were translated to Portuguese and transcribed to the development of the analysis. In the sequence, we will develop the theoretical-methodological articulation of the investigation, and will focus on the concept of consumerism to contextualize the analytical procedures and indicate some of the results.
Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) as an object of consumerism
The concept of consumerism is here developed through reading works that inspire discussions shown here, such as Life for Consumerism, by Zygmunt Bauman (2008); Consumists and Citizens, by Néstor García Canclini (2008), and - lastly - The convenience of Culture: the uses of culture in the global era, by George Yúdice (2013).
If consumerism is considered one of the aspects involved in the circle of culture (Hall, 1997), a language, through its technologies, dictionaries, grammars, classes and other productions, also becomes an object of use and consumerism. We can, therefore, say that Brazilian Sign Language becomes an object of use and of consumerism, in environments where deaf people are involved. The process of consumerism is built and modified in the relations with the spaces that influence Deaf community. With that, Bruna Branco (2019) understands that consumerism involves processes in which the deaf subject becomes a consumer, and, at the same time, Sign Language becomes an object of consumerism.
In the undergraduate course in Brazilian Sign Language, Brazilian Sign Language has a status of language, and the use of resources in the virtual space brings changes to the academic community, and to the way that the deaf community interacts with one another. One of the changes is the use of technologies of visual recording, such as the production of videos in Brazilian Sign Language, the use of signwriting, and the use of written Portuguese as additional language. This way, the classes are made through videos, which attend to a bilingual proposal; the materials, activities, and the works are filmed in Brazilian Sign Language or written in Portuguese, and there is the production of linguistic knowledge about Sign Language.
To better approach the reality of the course, as mentioned before, we will display some reports from the teachers that took the course as a second undergraduate course. The narratives of the interviewees show their cultural baggage, their experiences as graduate students, of the Brazilian Sign Language undergraduate course, and stricto sensu graduate course. We highlight the perceptions of each one about the influence of the Brazilian Sign Language, its connection to the deaf culture, especially after they recognize that, without Brazilian Sign Language, the constructs and the absorption of experiences that constitute the professional knowledge of the deaf teachers would be impossible.
In this context, we can indicate that the Brazilian Sign Language undergraduate course triggers a construction and a transformation related to the educational and formative processes of the students. More specifically, the deafs who were interviewed proposed themselves to a new path, looking for professional development to find new possibilities and opportunities in their lives. Therefore, as deaf individuals started consuming and participating in different trainings, they were faced with contents, technologies, and resources that were inserted into the language. With these changes, based on new influences, according to the interviewees, the implications become consisted by the training in LIBRAS and the meanings of virtual environments.
About the problematic aspects of consumerism, Bauman (2008) promotes sociological analysis and suggests a transformation of people into goods. The term consumerism is expanded, leaving its strictly economic approach, and starts being discussed as a philosophical manner, when people convert themselves into objects in a relation of selling and buying. The central argument is that society values people for what they are able to consume, and that this consumerism culture is characterized by the construction, through consumer goods, of lifestyles. In this way, there is the necessity of fast changes, and the constant mobility of the subjects towards consumerism.
This way, we argue that the deaf subject passes through processes of consumerism, which are intensified when the individual is faced with good texts and with possibilities of expanding their professional work, by participating in discussions proposed in deaf movements, and by entering the academic environment, searching for a qualified degree to teach Brazilian Sign Language. This means that the deaf individual, when he/she becomes a teacher, is modified in this process, especially by the use of the consumerism that is linked to Sign Language, and by the social imperative of performance. This imperative established that it is necessary to not only use Sign Language, but it is also necessary to know how to teach it, to fulfill this requirement, and it becomes necessary to obtain this titulation in the level of undergraduate and graduate degree strictu sensu.
The concept of “culture as a resource” is grasped by Yúdice (2013) in the sense of indicating the administration of culture, allied to a critical education. As Sign Language is the most highlighted cultural marker in deaf communities, taking it as an object of investigation and teaching is one of the ways to promote the development of educational and linguistic policies. It is important to highlight that:
[...] this policy places the questions related to citizenship inside the means of representation, asking not only who counts as a citizen, but how he is constructed; not what their rights and duties are, but how they are interpreted; not what the channels of participation in forming opinion and making decisions are, but what are the tactics that enable them to intervene in these channels and the decisive processes in benefit of the interests of the subordinates (Yúdice, 2013, p 246-247).
Another aspect to be highlighted is the teacher training and development of deaf teachers, who started to impel the acting of these professionals in academic environments, promoting personal and collective conquests. Therefore, it is reinforced that, this way, the social right of having equal opportunities, involves teaching knowledge. Teaching, in the case of Brazilian Sign Language, when involving deaf individuals, is marked by a history of linguistic intolerance and oppression and empowers and fortifies the individual not only as an individual, but also as a community and social group.
The second characteristic of the professional teacher knowledge is its collective nature, the fact that it is constructed in the interior of a profession, or, better saying, of a professional collectiveness. It is not about diminishing the relation of each one, individually, with knowledge, but projecting this personal relation in a collective production. [...] The passage of an individual identity to a collective constitution is essential to the emergence of a professional teaching knowledge (António Nóvoa, 2022, p. 10).
Nóvoa highlights the collective and collaborative processes between more experienced teachers and colleagues with less experienced ones, reinforcing the collective dimensions of the profession. These aspects are constructed also as an articulated mode, between the experience of being deaf and being a professor, when constructing a professional knowledge to act in the area of Brazilian Sign Language.
Rotes and crossroads: theoretical-methodological articulations
The first classes that obtained titulation in the LIBRAS language undergraduate course, in 2010 and 2012, totaled 767 graduates in teaching and 312 graduates in bachelor, distributed in 16 Brazilian states (Quadros; Stumpf, 2014). It is important to highlight that 90% of the students were deaf, in the teaching course, which reveals the importance of the course in strengthening an academic deaf community.
The proposal that the course showed and still proposes, for deaf students, corroborates the affirmation of Pokorski and Karnopp (2023, p. 5), that “the curriculum of the undergraduate course in LIBRAS is constituted in a centralizing shaft of the linguistic policies of protection and propagation of Brazilian Sign Language”, because “it enabled the contact between deaf and hearing individuals from different places of Brazil, and potentialized discussions about the role and space of Brazilian Sign Language inside the school curriculum and the academic curriculum.”.
As indicated in the introductory part, the objective of this article is to analyse the experience of deaf teachers, in relation to the double degree, one of them being specifically the teaching course in Brazilian Sign Language. The delimitation of the investigation considered the geographic proximity of the researcher in relation to the individuals of research, in order to make in person interviews. Due to that, six deaf former students from the first undergraduate course in LIBRAS, of 2006, an undergraduate course coordinated by the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), linked to the university campus of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), of Rio Grande do Sul. It is important to highlight that the creation of the first undergraduate course in LIBRAS in Brazil, in UFSC, became a reference for the deaf community.
About the methodological procedures, initially, the researcher (Branco, 2019) developed a survey on the amount of deaf graduates, of the Brazilian Sign Language undergraduate course that held a double academic degree. Forty six (46) graduate deaf students were identified from the UFSM compass, and more than half of this total, twenty-four (24) had already finished another High Education course. From this total amount, 6 deaf students were selected to do the interviews, considering the disponibility of participation in the research and the additional criteria that they had continued their studies in graduate programs stricto sensu. This criteria happened due to two reasons: first, the graduate students selected, in their master’s dissertations and their doctorate theses, produced knowledge in areas related to two undergraduate courses; in second place, they used concepts that were linked to the Deaf Studies, in their publications, which contributes to the deepening of this research field, e for detailing the question about the graduate experience.
The development of this research was approved by the Ethics committee of the institution of the researcher, and the participants signed the Free and Informed Consent Form (TCLE). The deaf individuals opted to have their names used in the dissemination of the research, because they consider themselves protagonists of their own stories. Therefore, all of the interviewees will be identified by their own names. In order to do the interviews, the following procedures were adopted: the researcher explained the theme, the aims of the research, the video recording and the process of analysis. Afterwards, she explained the TCLE and asked the participants to sign it. The questions directed to the interviewees were linked to the motives why the deaf individuals decided to take a second undergraduate course, more specifically, the LIBRAS course, and what were the changes of this undergraduate course in their personal and collective lives. Table 1 displays a summary about the formation and the professional action of the interviews, starting with the information that was displayed in their Latter Curriculum, during the time of the interviews, and updated to the present article. (Branco, 2019, p. 31-32).
Through the theoretical references, we will proceed to the analysis of the interviews of six deaf individuals identified, through what they told us about the changes that occurred after they graduated in the Bachelor in Brazilian Sign Language course. The proposal is not to describe the Curriculum Vitae for each one, tracing the professional profile of these individuals or telling about their personal conquests, the interest involved a wide range of questions, such as their experiences in the universities and the concept of consumerism. In the same way, we aimed to highlight the influences suggested to the association of deaf, meetings between deaf adults, the linguistic experiences, all the possibilities related to consumerism, not as a criteria for shopping and for merchandising, but for changing the communitary processes through the appropriation of something new. In the sequence, we will develop the analysis and the results of the investigation.
The experiences of deaf individuals in Higher Education
Jorge Larrosa Bondía (2015, p. 18) develops the concepts of experience and affirms that “experience is what we go though, what happens to us, and what touches us”. The author considers experience not as an excess of information, not an excess of opinion of lack of time, or excess of work load. This concept, in dialogue with the thematic developed in this article, is analyzed in the context of education, referencing experiences of deaf teachers with Brazilian Sign Language, as we understand here the pair - experience/sense.
And this, starting from the conviction that the words produce sense, create realities, and - sometimes - work as potent mechanisms of subjectivation. I believe in the power of words, in the strength that the words have, I believe that we do things with words, and, also, that words do things to us. Words determine out thoughts, because we do not think with thoughts, but with words, we do not think based on a supposed geniality or intelligence, but through our own words. And thinking is not only “racioning” or “calculating” or “arguing”, as it has been taught to us sometimes, but it is - above all - giving meaning to who we are and what happens to us (Larrosa Bondía, 2002, p. 20-21).
One of the experiences that deaf individuals tell about their first degree is linked to the way in which they are socially stigmatized, which determines some professional choices. Francielle Martins, one of the interviewees, narrates the process of choosing the undergraduate course.
[...] Since I was a child, my desire was to study medicine and work at a clinic. I have always wanted that. However, the deaf community has always had a label, that marked the impossibility of deaf people to study medicine, as the deaf could not get a job in the medical area. That is what I always thought, that it would not be possible to me. Because of that, I kept imagining, when I enrolled myself to start a course in the health area, something that suited me, I chose the degree in psychology, just because of that, but what I really wanted was to be a doctor. So, I started the degree in Psychology, which was the closest I got to the health area (Francielle Martins)2.
Many representations, linked to the deaf subject, as incapable, without power of choice and with difficulties in communication, are still in society nowadays. We saw, in the interview with professor Francielle, her desire to study Medicine, but these representations influenced her choices and her professional path. Deaf people face linguistic prejudice, because they are represented as the ones who write in a wrong way, omitting words, and do not present a total fluency in the Portuguese language.
Professor Bruna Alberton mentioned how she did not have contact with deaf adults in her childhood and did not have access to information. Therefore, she had many questions about being deaf and about her professional choice. In her interview, she told us about why she chose the mathematics course:
I kept thinking, why couldn’t I be a Math teacher? I used to live in a very small town, in Uruguaiana. I observed that, in the city, the university and the Mathematics course was to work as a teacher. I reflected on this question for a while, until I found the deaf community, and understood that I could and wanted to be a Math teacher (Bruna Alberton).
Bruna Alberton observed the University, but did not have access to the information, and did not know if she could start the undergraduate course. She wanted to be a Mathematics teacher, but her doubts kept her from starting university until the moment she found the deaf community, which offered information about how the courses worked, about stimulus and feelings of safety. Therefore, sharing information was a determining factor for her reflections and professional choices. Holbomb (2011), deaf North American teacher, affirms that sharing information among deaf people becomes a way of survival in which they aim to face intolerance and prejudice, in order to stay in school even under adverse conditions.
Professor Bruna Alberton said that she chose Accounting Sciences, in a university in Uruguaiana, because there was not the presence of LIBRAS interpreters, which caused her linguistic discomfort and impossibility to access the contents taught by the professors. Besides that, the professor indicated the motive for her withdrawal: “So, when I could opt of a graduation, I chose Accounting Sciences. In the beginning, without interpreter, with a lot of theory, questions about fees, politics… I ended up giving up” (Bruna Alberton).
Both the reports from Francielle Martins and Bruna Alberton indicate the possible conditions offered in the moment that they started university to begin their first undergraduate course. We can perceive unflattering representations and a hostile environment, without recognizing Sign Language and with classes that do not present the work of interpresents-translators of Brazilian Sign Language that could help her in that moment.
As for Professor Diogo Madeira, his intention was to work in journalism, however, the opportunity that appeared to him was in the area of Brazilian Sign Language, and he accepted it. However, his sensation was that his journalism diploma was being lost. He would like to continue using this knowledge in his life, but it would be from other times. We present a part of the narrative:
I organized myself and I made a public tender, I was approved to work, the vacancy was to the area of Brazilian Sign Language, but I though about Journalism, anyways, the first opportunity was in the area of Brazilian Sign Language, so I started to work as a teacher. In journalism, however, I can say that my career started disappearing little by little, but I keep writing, publishing, and, yes, I keep writing (Diogo Madeira).
A similar experience was reported by Professor Nelson Goettert, who had the interest in working in the area of informatics, or as a school teacher, teaching informatics for the deaf, however, he was not called. However, holding a degree in Libras, and a graduate diploma, there would be the possibility to make a public tender, because most of the vacancies were centered in Higher Education. The chances of conquering a vacancy in this space were higher, and this is what happened.
I really thought that I could be called to some vacancy, but I did not. Different from the Brazilian Sign Language course, which I was selected to, proving my qualification through the diploma. Of course, I can reaffirm my effective learning in the Language course, but I also keep the informatic course, because it is a diploma… (Nelson Goettert).
In the interview with Professor Carolina Sperb, there was a settlement about the two undergraduate courses that she did, focused on communicative accessibility. She exposed her personal satisfaction with the Brazilian Sign Language undergraduate course, for the fact that it provided an effective participation for her, as well as a possibility for her to express herself. The experience was configured in a different way from what happened in the Portuguese language undergraduate course, that happened at the same time, in another university. This experience indicates that the accessibility in the LIBRAS language course provided a space of participation and a place to build knowledge, through communication directly in LIBRAS, without barriers or impediments in communication. She reported that:
I see that what I learned in the Portuguese Language is inserted in the Brazilian Sign Language as a second language, and I understand the Brazilian Sign Language as more accessible. The Portuguese language course, because of the language, has its grammar and its rules. I could convalidate these courses with similar contents as the ones in the Brazilian Language course, to not see everything again, but not, I preferred to acquire more knowledge and also because the objective was not Brazilian Sign Language there. Not as something basic, but as something to be seen as a language, as my first language (Carolina Sperb).
Besides that, the experience of taking two undergraduate courses at the same time, in Portuguese Language and in LIBRAS language, as narrated by Carolina Sperb, indicated a constant movement of intercultural dialogue, of understanding the cultures involved, of perceiving the difference between the aims and the approaches, as well as the theoretical framework that was constructed in the LIBRAS language course, to answer to the demands of the deaf community.
There is another situation, about the courage of participating, the increase in the production of video recordings, and the spread of this experience, including for the format of the present experience. Carolina Sperb highlighted how important it is to spread information through videos, because they are accessible for deaf individuals.
In the Brazilian Sign Language course, I expressed myself, it required courage, i needed to expose myself. Before, they told me that the videos were important, it was important to watch them etc, but there were few videos, and the Brazilian Sign Language course helped me in this diffusion. Today we have this variety, one example is what we have here, a recorded interview, which is something very fancy (Carolina Sperb).
The interviews indicate that Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) is a cultural mark of deaf teachers. Therefore, the LIBRAS undergraduate course focuses on a connection with the cultural mark, in which the formation is directed to teaching LIBRAS, considering the historical, cultural, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and language acquisition questions, as well as the questions considering the way deaf individuals learn, and the study of the language as a living language, among other aspects.
The experiences of deaf individuals with languages and their recording technologies
In this section, we will analyze some developments that happened in the Brazilian Sign Language undergraduate course, through the interviews that were made with the deaf professors. The investigations developed by Renata Heinzelmann Bosse (2014), deaf researcher, indicate that new thematics of investigation started to expand, through the Brazilian Sign Language course, such as Deaf Literature. The author argues that the video collection in Brazilian Sign Language looked like a closed chest, because the literary productions of deaf community did not circle in the academic debates, for example. In her academic productions, she ensured to present the materials that were inside this chest, emphasizing that Brazilian Sign Language, as an intangible heritage of the deaf community, needs to be preserved.
Deaf Literature, as a research area that has been increasing through the Brazilian Sign Language courses, has enabled many studies and recording to be made. Long ago, the poems in Sign Language would be lost, with the lack of records and the effective exchange between the deaf communities. This movement of registering the poems (in print or digitally) has been favoring the poetic creation, and the production of new texts in Brazilian Sign Language have been gaining force in quantity and, also, strength in aesthetic and theme, serving as a fortress, a safe place for the deaf community, where culture and language are preserved (Bosse, 2014, p. 88).
Preservation and the spread of deaf literature are aspects that are highlighted by the deaf community. The forms of visual records, as well as the recordings of the literary heritage are fortified by the resources that are available in the LIBRAS language course. The virtual spaces are enhanced through the technology that is available through the course and the contemporary world. The use of technology influences the way in which the deaf individual transits into these spaces, how they access information, how they interact with other deaf people, or with hearing people, and how they choose between one language or another. About the producing or consuming culture, it is important to highlight that:
Internet holds a place of exchange or virtual encounters, being more than that, but also a place to produce knowledge, cultures, identities, and resistance. It is important to affirm that the virtual space of Youtube, in this media context, is a social media where productive relations are established. The deaf, when they make use of this space as consumers and producers of their culture, they are spreading representation and giving visibility to the sign Language, promoting a space of teaching, communication, and relation with other deaf individuals or hearing individuals (Pinheiro, 2011, p. 34)
We can relate this question about the internet as a place or meeting point for hearing people and deaf people in the virtual space of LIBRAS language, when we understand that the course that was done by our interviewees occurred in different Universities spread around Brazil. The interaction, the communication, the shared knowledge and the sharing of information about spaces, about the language, happened online. Diogo Madeira highlighted the integration with colleagues from different regions of Brazil, through the access and use of technology.
The Bachelor in Brazilian Sign Language enabled more encounters and contacts, considering the diversity of campus spread around Brazil. I used to study in the Santa Maria Campus, but as we had many campus, the contact and the interactions happened between us, in the forum, in the discussions, and this really marked me. This contact with other individuals similar to me, bilingual, these encounters, all these interactions were what marked me the most, especially that, because four years went on like this (Diogo Madeira).
This report highlights that the LIBRAS undergraduate course was important because of the bilingual-mode format, as well as the contacts provided by the use of technology, through videoconferences, meetings every 15 days, and the possibilities of dialogue with people from all regions of Brazil.
To conclude, we highlight that the discussions presented in this article involve the concept of consumerism, which is connected to the technologies, social networks, education, and languages. Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) constituted the language of the deaf subjects, and the experiences that are reported in the interviews evidence her as a cultural marker of the deaf community. We consider that these notes contribute for thinking about the experiences of deaf people in the universities and the constitution of this citizen, without being limited to the Law or to the LIBRAS course, but, in a general way, to perceive that the potency of all these aspects also happen due to the meetings in the communities, or the deaf association, and the period of their lives, when they were in contact with this context. Above all, it is important for us to be attentive to the fact that, in this process, Sign Language and the value that was culturally given to her, and in education, becomes the way of constitution of the deaf professors in Higher Education.
Final Considerations
When we return to the question that motivated this research, about what motivated deaf individuals to pursue a second academic degree, it is important to draw some final considerations. In this sense, we highlight the innovation and the potency of the undergraduate course in Brazilian Sign Language, as well as the possible conditions that enabled the production of professional knowledge for teachers.
We highlight that the LIBRAS course made it possible for an expressive number of deaf individuals to earn an undergraduate degree in Higher Education. The conditions of access, the permanence, and the participation offered by the course should be considered, especially because of the investment in teaching practices directed to the construction of new knowledge, in which we prioritized the accessibility of the material, in a bilingual version - Brazilian Sign Language and Portuguese Language. Besides that, Brazilian Sign Language acquired the status of language of instruction, making it possible to build knowledge on linguistic and pedagogical features about the teaching of Brazilian Sign Language, as well as professional degrees.
Many questions were indicated in the interviews, but we highlight that all the researchers made a constant search for formation and investment in the professional teaching knowledge, connected to the experience of deaf individuals with educational environments, though which the trainings were reported, in the academia, and in their communities. The question is not only to obtain a degree, of an individual conquest, but also to promote a collective fight, of access to Higher Education and as professors in University. Education, in the case of Brazilian Sign Language, involves the deaf subject, not only as an individual, but of all his/her community, social group.
In these interviews, the deaf teachers and professors defined Brazilian Sign Language as a cultural mark of the deaf community and as an intangible heritage, about the changes in the law and in the educational spaces, about their experiences towards the constructions of professional teaching knowledge.
To conclude, we will use two quotes which contribute to the discussions that were presented up to this point. In the quote of the preface of the book Estudos Surdos II, Gládis Perlin (2010, p. 11) warns that: “Today, away from the hiding places, the graves, freed to our citizenship, we are in movement. Some facets of the contemporary world refer us to different looks in different directions.”. And, by the developed analysis, Yúdice (2013, p. 243) inspires us to think about the game of representations that surrounds us “[...] I think that they believe it is possible to play the citizenship game through the consumer medium, not only of merchandise, but, specially, of representations”.
Culture as consumption, in the area of Brazilian Sign Language and teacher training, is related to the cultural circuit, in which the Sign Language assumes a centrality, through its technologies, through dictionaries, the grammars, the classes and the other productions, of the undergraduate and graduate courses. Therefore, it can be said that Brazilian Sign Language becomes an object of use and consumption, in an academic environment, being a process that is constructed and modified in a connection between the deaf community and the academic community.
In this article, we argue that the deaf person goes through consumption processes that are intensified through legal changes, which created possible conditions to the spread of teacher training, and working in Higher Education. When starting the Brazilian Sign Language course, the deaf student faces collective and collaborative processes between older colleagues and professors, with younger teachers, reinforcing the collective dimensions of the profession. Such processes are constructed through the experience of being deaf, academic and teacher, in the construction of a professional knowledge to act in the area of teaching Brazilian Sign Language.
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Support:
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq/PQ - Processo nº 317132/2021-0, Lodenir Becker Karnopp).
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Research data availability:
All data was generated/analyzed in this article.
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1
One of the interviews was made virtually, through Skype, because one of the interviewees was pregnant at the time.
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2
All the quotes in italics were produced by the interviews, in Brazilian Sign Language, and later translated and transcribed by the researcher.
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How to cite this article:
BRANCO, Bruna da Silva; KARNOPP, Lodenir B. Culture as Consumption in the Context of Libras and Teacher Training. Educar em Revista, Curitiba, v. 42, e98171, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-0411. 98171-T
All data was generated/analyzed in this article.
