Educational opportunities dependent on ...

The study presented here deals with the educational opportunities of hearing-impaired (hard of hearing and deaf) people in Austria. In the Austrian education system, hearing-impaired students nevertheless play a subordinaterole despite legal equality, the Anti-Discrimination Act and the recognition of Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) as an independent language. For example, teaching methods continue to be fundamentally oriented towards spoken language. In order for hearing-impaired students to have the same educational opportunities as hearing students - such as the chance to graduate from university - they must attend a "hearing" school and adapt to spoken language-oriented instruction there. This and the paucity of (sign language) training opportunities for teachers are just two reasons why hearing-impaired people still have more difficult access to education today. The self-determined life, the freedom ofchoice of the hearing-impaired people thus moves into the background. In order to be able to analyze the topics mentioned so far from the present situation, the following questions are examined: 
What are the experiences of hearing-impairedstudents in the Austrian educational system? 
From the results to this questionit will be elicited, which aspects from the point of view of hearing-impaired students would have to be considered in an educational concept, so that teaching can be designed barrier-free. 
For the investigation, interviews with hearing-impaired students in secondary education (in Austria) as well as participant observation in different lessons will be conducted. The results will show whether the educational opportunities for hearing-impaired students in Austria are sufficient and whether equal opportunities are given and achieved.