The purpose of this book is to challenge people (service providers, people with a hearing disability and those who advocate for them) to reconsider the way western society thinks about hearing disability and the way it seeks to 'include them’. It highlights the concern that the design of hearing services is so historically marinated in ableist culture that service users often do not realise they may be participating in their own oppression within a phono-centric society.

With stigma and marginalisation being the two most critical issues impacting on people with hearing disability, Hogan and Phillips document both the collective and personal impacts of such marginality. In so doing, the book brings forward an argument for a paradigm shift in hearing services. Drawing upon the latest research and policy work, the book opens up a conceptual framework for a new approach to hearing services and looks at the kinds of personal and systemic changes a paradigm shift would entail.

Anthony Hogan

Books