Issues in deafness

Introduction and contents

Issues in deafness

About this course

Course materials

Block 1 Issues in deafness/ Being deaf

Block 2 Deaf people in a hearing world

Block 3 Constructing deafness

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Acknowledgements

Introduction and contents

The materials listed below are presented on the following pages of this unit in pdf format.

Block 1 Issues in deafness

 Unit 1 Perspectives on deafness: an introduction

 Unit 2 The deaf community

 Unit 3 British sign language, communication and deafness

 Unit 4 Being deaf

Block 2 Deaf people in a hearing world

 Unit 5 Education & deaf people: learning to communicate or communicating to learn?

 Unit 6 The manufacture of disadvantage

 Unit 7 Whose welfare?

Block 3 Constructing deafness

 Unit 8 The social construction of deafness

 Unit 9 Deaf people as a minority group: the political process

 Unit 10 Deaf futures revisited

Other materials (not included in LabSpace)

 Reader J.Bishop, G. Taylor (eds.) Being deaf: the Experience of Deafness ©OU 1991 0861871677/1766 Printer London

 Reader S. gregory, G. Hartley (eds.) Constructing Deafness © OU 1991 0861870573/10565 Printer London

 Study skill booklet

 Resource booklet

 Video handbook

 Legislation booklet

 Four video cassettes

Learning outcomes
  • This material is taken from a discontinued Open University course. It is intended for re-purposing and re-use by educators rather than for use directly by learners. Learning outcomes appropriate to the original course may be provided within the material, but it is intended that educators will construct new learning outcomes appropriate to the re-use they make of this material.

Issues in deafness

About this course

The course set out to question and explain commonly held conceptions about deafness and deaf people that define deaf people as victims and deafness as a problem that requires intervention by social agencies. It began by studying deaf people and their language and examining the characteristic coherence of the deaf community. The second part of the course considered the influence of the hearing world on the lives of deaf people, particularly through the institutions of education, social welfare and the law. Using both sociological and psychological approaches, the third part of the course analysed the construction of deafness as a social category and explored the different implications of considering deaf people as a linguistic minority or as a disabled group. The increasing demands of deaf people for recognition are compared with developments in other minority groups. This lead to a consideration of the implications and effects of equal opportunity policies.

The course attempted to:

  • examine the contrasting notions of deaf people as disabled and as constituting a linguistic and cultural minority group
  • consider the different implications of medical and cultural definitions of deafness
  • analyse the language of deaf people and the status of minority languages
  • explore notions of language and power
  • consider the different constructions of deafness and their implications
  • look at the relationship between the deaf and the hearing world and particularly at the role of hearing professionals in the lives of deaf people

Suggested study hours 200

Format pdf for 7 books

What is included?

The course consisted of an introduction and three blocks of work on Being deaf, Deaf people in hearing worlds and Constructing deafness.

There were also two readers. Being Deaf: The Experience of Deafness presents a varied selection of accounts by deaf people of aspects of their own lives, which illustrated issues discussed in the course and provide a counterpoint to stereotypical assumptions about deaf people. Constructing Deafness, a collection of academic writings and classic statements on deafness, offers a means of analysing the different ways in which deafness has been socially constructed. These are not presented here.

Each unit contains its own set of aims and learning outcomes.

Where is it from?

This is an undergraduate level 2 course from the Faculty of Social Sciences presented between 1991 and 1996. The materials accessible here are from 1995.

Course materials

Block 1 Issues in deafness/ Being deaf

Unit 1 Perspectives on deafness: an introduction

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Unit 2 The deaf community

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Unit 3 British sign language, communication and deafness

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Unit 4 The other deaf community

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Block 2 Deaf people in a hearing world

Unit 5 Education & deaf people: learning to communicate or communicating to learn?

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Unit 6 The manufacture of disadvantage

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Unit 7 Whose welfare?

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Block 3 Constructing deafness

Unit 8 The social construction of deafness

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Unit 9 Deaf people as a minority group: the political process

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Unit 10 Deaf futures revisited

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Acknowledgements

This material is taken from The Open University's OpenLearn website. OpenLearn provides free open educational resources for learners and educators around the world under a Creative Commons licence. Third party materials have been removed but for ease of use the original acknowledgements copy has been included. For the online version of this unit and for other free educational resources across a range of topics, please go to

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