This research examines the deaf/blind population as a minority within the current American culture, for the purpose of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of mainstream society and determining possible ways in which the discipline of social work can engage the process of social transformation and reform with this population. The research will set forth salient characteristics of this group and discuss ways in which the deaf and/or blind population has been identified as a minority within society, and also discuss the content of the values and traditions, strengths and resources, and needs and problems that the deaf/blind contribute to the diversity of contemporary culture. Based on evidence provided, the research will evaluate the dimensions of power informing the experience of culture by the deaf/blind, citing, as appropriate, how concepts of powerlessness figure into such experience, whether social or economic, with a view toward evaluating the impact of mainstream values and power on the values of the relatively less powerful subgroup. As well, reference will be made to the content and scope of social and economic contribution that the deaf/blind community make to the culture, vis-à-vis the mainstream culture's social and economic resources and services targeted toward meeting the needs of that community.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed into law in 1990 and implemented in 1991, was a revised and extended version of a the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 of the earlier law prohibited employment discrimination against physically disabled persons, and the entire law applied to state and local organizations that received federal funding. The 1991 law was far more comprehensive and has been described as a civil rights law for the disabled (Weston, 1994), inasmuch as it applies to all institutional entities, whether federally funded or not, and inasmuch as it enlarges the scope of the definition of disability to...