This text presents an overview of deafness and education. It aims to present the education for the deaf from historical aspects and legal texts, to the current scenario of bilingual education, anchored in Cultural Studies and Deaf Studies. It is an exploratory and bibliographic study, based on theoretical sources such as books, articles and legal texts that are relevant to the subject matter. The results point to the countless challenges of education in Brazil, such as sparse professional qualification of teachers, low salaries, high rates of grade retention and evasion in schools, among others. The education of the deaf seems to suffer from those same influences, in addition to the constructed beliefs and the social imagery, focusing on the disabilities of deaf people, a fact perceived even through legal texts.