Education, Visual Impairment and Visual Culture: Psychobiographical Case Studies

By Simon Hayhoe

This book presents an empirically grounded study of how teachers with visual impairments learn, understand and teach visual culture across schools, museums and universities. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, it challenges long standing assumptions that people with visual impairments (PVI) are excluded from, or incapable of engaging with, visual artefacts, visual literacy and the broader scopic regimes that shape Western education.

Using a grounded methodological approach informed by critical rationalism, the book traces the life course experiences of teachers with visual impairments, from eighteenth century mathematicians to twenty first century museum educators, and examines how their biographies, early sensory experiences, cultural contexts and educational histories shape their teaching practice. Through detailed analysis, it shows how teachers conceptualise visual and non visual culture, how they develop pedagogical strategies that draw on tactile, verbal and multisensory forms of representation, and how they acquire and mobilise inclusive capital as a foundation for teaching visual culture. The book also interrogates the evolution of special education for PVI, revealing how historical models of separate schooling, non visual literacy and exclusionary practices emerged. An essential read for scholars and practitioners in education, disability studies, psychology and visual culture, this short monograph provides a foundation for rethinking teacher education, curriculum design and the inclusion of PVI in mainstream cultural institutions.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3032395356
• ISBN13: 9783032395351
• Release Date: November 2026
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 147 Pages