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.

Simon Hayhoe is Associate Professor of Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusion at the University of Exeter, UK, and Associate of the Scottish Sensory Centre, University of Edinburgh, UK. His work focuses on sensory impairment, ageing and cultural inclusion, inclusion in the arts, accessible and inclusive technologies, philosophies of sensory impairment and inclusion, and social science research methodology.