study explores how members of systematically disadvantaged groups describe their interactions with

members of dominant groups. In an effort to examine both positive and negative intergroup relations,
this paper reports on a study of deaf and hard-of-hearing adults' retrospective accounts of their best
and worst experiences with hearing teachers and peers when they attended their local public schools
during their K-12 years (Oliva, 2004). Written accounts from 60 deaf and hard-of-hearing adults were
content analyzed. Their most positive experiences occurred when hearing teachers and peers were
accommodating, encouraging, supportive, and interested in deafness. Negative reflections described
hearing teachers and peers who were discriminatory, non-accommodating, and insensitive.