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Deaf Culture: Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States
A contemporary and vibrant Deaf culture is found within Deaf communities, including Deaf Persons of Color and those who are DeafDisabled and DeafBlind. Taking a more people-centered view, the second edition of Deaf Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States critically examines how Deaf culture fits into education, psychology, cultural studies, technology, and the arts. With the acknowledgment of signed languages all over the world as bona fide languages, the perception of Deaf people has evolved into the recognition and acceptance of a vibrant Deaf culture centered around the use of signed languages and the communities of Deaf peoples. Written by Deaf and hearing authors with extensive teaching experience and immersion in Deaf cultures and signed languages, Deaf Culture fills a niche as an introductory textbook that is more inclusive, accessible, and straightforward for those beginning their studies of the Deaf-World. o A new co-author, Topher González Ávila, MA
o Two new chapters!
o Chapter 7 Deaf Communities within the Deaf Community highlights the complex variations within this community
o Chapter 10 Deaf People and the Legal Education, Employment, and Criminal Justice underscores linguistic and access rights
o The remaining chapters have been significantly updated to reflect current trends and new information, such
o Advances in technology created by Deaf people that influence and enhance their lives within various national and international societies
o Greater emphasis on different perspectives within Deaf culture
o Information about legal issues and recent political action by Deaf people
o New information on how Deaf people are making breakthroughs in the entertainment industry
o Addition of new vignettes, examples, pictures, and perspectives to enhance content interest for readers and facilitate instructor teaching.
o Introduction of theories explained in a practical and reader-friendly manner to ensure understanding.
o An updated introduction to potential opportunities for professional and informal involvement in ASL/Deaf culture with children, youth, and adults o Strong focus on including different communities within Deaf cultures
o Thought-provoking questions, illustrative vignettes, and examples
o Theories introduced and explained in a practical and reader-friendly manner
o PluralPlus companion website with a test bank and digital slides/presentations for instructors This book comes with supplementary content on a PluralPlus companion website. If you purchase or rent a used copy of the printed book, the code to access the website printed inside the book may have been previously redeemed/used or be incorrect and you will not be able to use it. To guarantee access to the website, it is recommended you purchase a new copy of this book.
o Two new chapters!
o Chapter 7 Deaf Communities within the Deaf Community highlights the complex variations within this community
o Chapter 10 Deaf People and the Legal Education, Employment, and Criminal Justice underscores linguistic and access rights
o The remaining chapters have been significantly updated to reflect current trends and new information, such
o Advances in technology created by Deaf people that influence and enhance their lives within various national and international societies
o Greater emphasis on different perspectives within Deaf culture
o Information about legal issues and recent political action by Deaf people
o New information on how Deaf people are making breakthroughs in the entertainment industry
o Addition of new vignettes, examples, pictures, and perspectives to enhance content interest for readers and facilitate instructor teaching.
o Introduction of theories explained in a practical and reader-friendly manner to ensure understanding.
o An updated introduction to potential opportunities for professional and informal involvement in ASL/Deaf culture with children, youth, and adults o Strong focus on including different communities within Deaf cultures
o Thought-provoking questions, illustrative vignettes, and examples
o Theories introduced and explained in a practical and reader-friendly manner
o PluralPlus companion website with a test bank and digital slides/presentations for instructors This book comes with supplementary content on a PluralPlus companion website. If you purchase or rent a used copy of the printed book, the code to access the website printed inside the book may have been previously redeemed/used or be incorrect and you will not be able to use it. To guarantee access to the website, it is recommended you purchase a new copy of this book.
384 pages, Paperback
Published November 18, 2020
20 people are currently reading
273 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
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July 17, 2020For May’s book club, I decided to read Deaf Culture: Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States by Irene W Leigh, Jean F Andrews, and Raychelle L Harris. This book gives a relatively dense, thorough overview of the history and current narrative surrounding Deaf Culture in the US; including different kinds of deafness, an explanation of what deafness means in its literal and cultural context, and in-depth thoughts and research into different controversies about and within deaf culture. Some of these conversations about this include debates over whether to use cochlear implants, using ASL versus English/lipreading, advantages and disadvantages of bilingual deaf education, types of technology and their implications, as well as the future of art and careers within the context of deafness as the US knows it today. Each of these areas holds a lot of historical oppression, cultural pride, and community values that make this book comprehensive and useful for gaining more insight into the Deaf community in the US. As someone who is Hard of Hearing, but has never been a part of the Deaf community as it is described in this book, I found this read to be engaging and relevant to me. I felt like I learned a lot, especially about the history of Deaf people in the US.
As it relates to CTEP, there is an entire section of the book discussing Technology and Accessibility. It gives a strong overview of what technology for Deaf communities has looked like in the past, and how it’s being utilized now. They discuss options such as closed captions for movies, something that I use a lot even though I’m not deaf. There are also personal devices that can be used at movie theaters to caption lines, music, and noise instead of putting them up on the full screen. With the advent of iPhones and their video calling features, phone calls have become infinitely easier for ASL-speaking people to carry their conversations long-distance, but even before this there were increasing opportunities with amplified telephones and video interpreters. There are also many other types of technology: light-up doorbells, light-up fire alarms/smoke detectors, bed-shaking alarms instead of noise alarms, light-up baby monitors. There are even ASL keyboards where messages can be sent in sign! Each technological adaptation can be helpful, but is still imperfect because our world is built around a hearing-dominant society. This means that in most places, hearing people will have an easier time than Hard-of-Hearing or Deaf people in places like restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores, school and other social settings. There are many expectations, misunderstandings, or unintentional structures that our society operates on that can make it hard for Deaf people to communicate. For example, Deaf people who use ASL would have an easier time in well-lit, open spaces, and sometimes restaurants have dim lighting or narrow tables instead of circular tables where everyone can see one another. It also means that taking cultural context into consideration is imperative for the well-being of Deaf people. For example, this might mean having a native-speaking ASL individual translate and be the voice of the Deaf speaker, or increasing translator’s ASL capacity requirements to ensure adequate representation, instead of a new-to-ASL translator who may not understand the language’s nuance. Overall, this book helped me be more aware of the ways hearing people are advantaged, how I am advantaged by somewhat straddling both worlds, how Deaf people are capable and advantaged with ASL, and how to better practically construct environments that are inclusive of Deaf people.
As it relates to CTEP, there is an entire section of the book discussing Technology and Accessibility. It gives a strong overview of what technology for Deaf communities has looked like in the past, and how it’s being utilized now. They discuss options such as closed captions for movies, something that I use a lot even though I’m not deaf. There are also personal devices that can be used at movie theaters to caption lines, music, and noise instead of putting them up on the full screen. With the advent of iPhones and their video calling features, phone calls have become infinitely easier for ASL-speaking people to carry their conversations long-distance, but even before this there were increasing opportunities with amplified telephones and video interpreters. There are also many other types of technology: light-up doorbells, light-up fire alarms/smoke detectors, bed-shaking alarms instead of noise alarms, light-up baby monitors. There are even ASL keyboards where messages can be sent in sign! Each technological adaptation can be helpful, but is still imperfect because our world is built around a hearing-dominant society. This means that in most places, hearing people will have an easier time than Hard-of-Hearing or Deaf people in places like restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores, school and other social settings. There are many expectations, misunderstandings, or unintentional structures that our society operates on that can make it hard for Deaf people to communicate. For example, Deaf people who use ASL would have an easier time in well-lit, open spaces, and sometimes restaurants have dim lighting or narrow tables instead of circular tables where everyone can see one another. It also means that taking cultural context into consideration is imperative for the well-being of Deaf people. For example, this might mean having a native-speaking ASL individual translate and be the voice of the Deaf speaker, or increasing translator’s ASL capacity requirements to ensure adequate representation, instead of a new-to-ASL translator who may not understand the language’s nuance. Overall, this book helped me be more aware of the ways hearing people are advantaged, how I am advantaged by somewhat straddling both worlds, how Deaf people are capable and advantaged with ASL, and how to better practically construct environments that are inclusive of Deaf people.
Read
December 6, 2022Far mire interesting than any other textbook I've had to read! I read it for my Deaf Culture class and got to learn all about the different cultures within the Deaf Community, the terrible ways in which the deaf were treated before given rights, and all the ins and outs of captioning, Deaf art, and education. I found myself listening out of a desire to hear more rather than a need to read for class.
February 23, 2021
Read for my Intro to the Deaf Community class. Some interesting info, but a lot of it was a repeat for me. The book is pretty dry, too, and really needed a better editor (lots of spelling/punctuation/grammar mistakes).
November 16, 2022
Read this for American Sign Language class! It was easy to read and very informative. I enjoyed learning more about deaf culture. There were so many new things I learned that I hadn't thought of before.
October 18, 2017
Thoroughly informative. An in-depth view of Deaf culture. Awesome read.
February 13, 2020
informative for my ASL-22 online class.
May 3, 2021
A great way to learn more about Deaf people, Deaf culture and take a look inside the Deaf world.
January 2, 2026
This explores many topics within the Deaf culture. I finished reading this in the summer of 2025. I had to read this for my class.
March 20, 2025
Read for a class, a good overview on Deaf culture within the United States. If you don't know much about Deaf people, Deaf culture, or intersectionality, a very good overview on these topics.
April 11, 2022
I read this as a textbook for my Deaf Culture class. It’s a very informative and easy read, detailing lots of the complexities of the Deaf community and its culture with occasional mentions of moments in Deaf history. The authors do a great job at including personal experiences and stories related to the topics to provide more than just facts and information, so the book doesn’t feel too dry or monotonous. This is an excellent book to learn more about American Sign Language and the Deaf community.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews