Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals develop their identities within environments that convey and reinforce
preconceived assumptions of disability and of deafness, thereby encouraging particular ways of accommodating individuals'
hearing status. These assumptions ultimately influence the evolution of their identities and in turn their psychological
well-being. This notion is particularly important within societies that frame deaf or hard-of-hearing persons as
living in a "prison of silence" (a metaphor the media uses frequently when extolling the virtues of cochlear
implants) or which view them in one-dimensional perspectives-- rather than recognizing that there are many ways
to be deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Many factors, some ever-present and some that have emerged in recent years, impact the unique identities of deaf
and hard-of-hearing individuals today. These factors, which are explored in A Lens on Deaf Identities, include
explanatory paradigms that frame how deaf and hard-of-hearing people are understood within the context of disability
and sociolinguistics; the relatively recent formal recognition of a Deaf culture and the emergence of bicultural
frames of reference; the appearance of deaf identity theories in the psychological literature; the influence of
families and schools, historical and social contexts; the acknowledgement of diversity in this population; and
the technology that affects the identity of deaf people in potentially unexpected ways (e.g., cochlear implants
as bionic ears, telecommunications that bring deaf people together with each other as well as with hearing people,
and advances in genetics with implications for parental decision-making about hearing status and the acceptability
of hearing differences). This book uses personal experiences, theoretical formulations, and research data to examine
interfaces within and between each of these areas and how the tensions emerging at these junctures influence deaf
and hard-of-hearing identity formation in complex, multifaceted ways that defy pervasive stereotypes of deaf and
hard-of-hearing persons. A Lens on Deaf Identities will appeal to students and professional researchers in deaf
studies and deaf education, as well as those interested in identity formation in the presence of "disability".