I began my research with these questions: What is the experience of Chinese parents of preschool-age deaf children? What are their attitudes toward their child's deafness? and What courses of action do they follow in response to it? I hoped to find out how Chinese parents felt when they first suspected their child might be deaf, how they reacted to the diagnosis of deafness in their child, who they looked to for support, and what state services were available to them. I wanted to ascertain the parents' method of communication with their child at home, their attitude toward the use of sign language, and their views on their child's education and future. My aims were to obtain as full a picture as possible of parents' experiences with their deaf children and, even more important, of how they interpreted those experiences and understood the implications of having a son or daughter who was deaf. All these factors—the parents' experience, their attitudes toward their child's deafness, and their resultant behavior—would strongly influence the development of the deaf child and affect his or her future, particularly through the parents' choice of educational options.
In preparing for the interviews with parents, I was particularly careful to ensure that the issues covered were actually relevant to their situation. It would be pointless to ask a set of questions developed with Western families in mind, as I might miss areas that were crucial to Chinese parents; an inappropriate framework of assumptions and values could easily lead to misunderstanding. A failure to appreciate the surrounding context would not only affect the nature of the information I obtained but would also make it difficult for me to interpret it accurately and sensitively. It therefore seemed essential to gain a detailed understanding of the social, political, and cultural factors affecting Chinese families with deaf children: I wanted as far as possible to understand the key issues as respondents themselves perceived and expressed them (in anthropological terms, an "emic" perspective), rather than as they were shaped by the emphases and biases of my own culture (an "etic" perspective).