Two Dominant Social Constructions of Deafness by Lane

Subject: Sociology
Pages: 2
Words: 306
Reading time:
< 1 min

There are two dominant social constructions of deafness. They are disability construction and linguistic minority construction. People with hearing disabilities come under the deaf community. The linguistic minority consists of a very small group of people with separate manual language, associations, and culture. They differ from the other deaf people in these aspects. Different approaches are taken for both disability and linguistic minority constructions.

One of the approaches for the social construction of deaf children is made by establishing separate schools for such children. This will help the children mingle with similar children. The parents of deaf children should understand what type of social construction their children need. Selection of the right approach will help in the proper development of their children.

In the disability construction, medication and labeling of deafness clinics take place in the clinic. In this construction, the parents of the children think about how the disability of their children can be lessened. Disability construction has helped in a magnificent change of the disabled people in society. In the linguistic minority construction, deafness is considered as social diversity, and labeling of it in the peer group is done.

In this, the parents are assured that their children can have their own languages through which they can communicate. They motivate the children by showing some of the great people in their community whom they can consider as their role models.

Some non-deaf people who know the languages and culture of these people provide service to such children. They can interpret the languages of these people. Even though the methods are different from each other, the aim of both the constructions is the same, i.e., to make the children fit to live in the world.