To Örebro University

This article presents results from a study based on archival data from periodicals published by three Swedish non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the field of deafness and hard of hearing. A sociohistorical analysis of the material, which covers more than a century, from 1890 to 2010, highlights that technologies have specifically impacted issues concerned with communication and identity. The article presents key topics that have been identified, as well as similarities and differences between the NGOs with regard to their views on and interest in visually oriented and audiologically oriented technologies and methods of communication. In addition, the analysis shows how deafness, based on different perspectives, can be understood as both identity and disability and how technologies and methods of communication impact identification processes.

The number of pupils with cochlear implant (CI) has seen a sharp increase in public schools in Sweden. This study focuses on communicative strategies in inclusive classrooms where pupils with CI are members. The empirical ethnographic data comes from two mainstream classrooms in Sweden where pupils and adults use a range of technologies, and strategies, (co)creating opportunities for communication and learning in everyday classroom life. The analyses indicate that pupils with CIs are responsible for their own communicative participation in mainstream classrooms (when they can't make sense of or don't hear oral talk), while their right to choose or regulate communication channels are not uncommonly curtailed by the adults. Different technologies play an important role in inclusive classrooms where pupils with CIs are members but these at the same time sometimes create barriers for participation. They cannot therefore be seen as a panacea for pupils with CI in inclusive educational settings.

Different technologies are commonly used in mainstream classrooms to teach pupils who wear surgically implanted cochlear hearing aids. We focus on these technologies, their application, how pupils react to them, and how they affect mainstream classrooms in Sweden. Our findings indicate that language ideologies play out in specific ways in such technified environments. The hegemonic position wielded by adults with regard to the use of technology usage has specific implications for pupils with cochlear implants.