The purpose of this study was to delve into the social integration of hearing-impaired people. Existing studies have mostly dealt with the social integration of the disabled and made an academic contribution in one way or another. Yet few studies have ever centered around the social integration of hearing-impaired people, and this study made a new attempt to focus on it. Earlier studies on the disabled have primarily focused on labelling theory and the concepts of prejudice, discrimination, social isolation or estrangement in pursuit of the development of welfare policies and programs, and there is a tendency to overlook the hearing- impaired. In this study, the above-mentioned concepts and theory were applied, and \'the deaf culture\' of the hearing-impaired was discussed in a profound manner at the same time. The word social integration has long been used over the past five decades without facing any significant challenges in the sectors of welfare for the disabled and special education, but that has mainly been used in association with the phases of academic development. In modern society, there is a more extensive and deeper understanding of the relationship between the disabled and society, and that term should consequently be replaced with another concept of social inclusion. As a matter of fact, the former was used in this study without any modification to avoid any possible conceptual confusion, but the latter was virtually given more weight. Besides, this study argued that the social inclusion of hearing-impaired people wouldn\'t be complete without letting them enjoy \'their citizenship\' fully or almost fully in daily routine economic, social and cultural lives. That is the best explanation of the concept of social inclusion. After this argument was selected as the framework of the study, several subjective and objective hypotheses about the social integration of the hearing-impaired were formulated. It\'s attempted to analyze what factors affected the successful social integration of the hearing-impaired and their life satisfaction, and how the interaction of the factors impacted their social inclusion was investigated to make it possible to devise efficient strategies geared toward stepping up their social inclusion, to make a suggestion about policy setting regarding the enlargement of social-inclusion opportunities for the hearing-impaired, and to lay the foundation for the development of relevant programs. The subjects in this study were 300 people with hearing impairment who were at the age of 18 to 75 in Western age and selected from among congenitally and severely hearing-impaired people. They were surveyed at associations for the hearing-impaired and churches for the deaf and dumb across the nation, including Seoul and Gyeonggi province, for three months from late December 2006 through late March 2007. And the answer sheets from 248 people were analyzed. The findings of the study were as follows: First, as for general characteristics, those who were hearing-impaired due to disease made up the largest group that accounted for 63.2 percent. 71.7 percent didn\'t receive lip-reading education, whereas 82.9 percent received sign-language education, which showed that they universally relied more on sign language than on lip-leading for communication. Concerning the form of housing, the largest group that represented 55.5 percent resided in multifamily houses like apartment or row house, and their families were mostly nuclear families. Regarding occupation, 28.5 percent, the greatest percentage, were unemployed and homemakers. 43.7 percent, the largest group, cited their own financial state as the biggest difficulty they faced, which had something to do with their occupation. As to income distribution, more than half were in the low-income brackets by earning one million won or less. So unemployment, financial trouble and low income were found as the common economic phenomena among them. Second, whether their personal characteristics were linked to their social inclusion or not was investigated after social inclusion was divided into two: strong inclusion and weak inclusion. Involvement in local community and sustained employment were selected as the variables of the strong social inclusion, and satisfaction level with the quality of life was selected as a variable of the weak social inclusion. In regard to the influence of personal characteristics on their involvement in local community, activities of daily living, satisfaction with job and job stability made a statistically significant difference to that. As for what affected their sustained employment, the form of occupation made a statistically significant difference to that. In other words, what occupation they had exercised an influence on whether they currently worked or not. As a matter of fact, however, they weren\'t in the same situation, and it\'s not advisable to look at it as a decisive factor. It could just be interpreted that there was a close relationship between the two. Concerning the impact of the personal characteristics on life satisfaction level, only activities of daily living exerted an influence on it. Namely, activities of daily living was the only personal characteristic that affected the life satisfaction level. When only the personal characteristics were take into account, the strong social inclusion could be guaranteed by successful activities of daily living, strong job satisfaction and job stability, and their personal life satisfaction was under the influence of activities of daily living. Third, multiple regression analysis was conducted to find out about the relationship of socio-environmental characteristics to social integration, and that produced somewhat different results. As for the impact of socio-environmental characteristics on the strong inclusion(involvement in local community), that was statistically significantly different according to relationship with family, relationship with friends and accessibility to amenities. Specifically, the hearing-impaired people were more involved with local community when they were more supported by their families, when they were closer to friends, and when they found it more satisfactory to have access to amenities. However, the environmental characteristics were found not to have any statistically significant relationship to their sustained employment, which was the other variable of the strong social integration. In other words, whether they continued to work or not wasn\'t affected by relationship with family and friends, support from others or accessibility to amenities. But it\'s not the case for the influence of the socio-environmental characteristics on the weak social inclusion(satisfaction with the quality of life). The relationship with family and accessibility to amenities exerted a significant influence on that, though the variables didn\'t have a strong impact. Given the findings of the study, there is a suggestion about relevant policy setting. In a word, the social integration of the hearing-impaired is a very abstract task, and that it couldn\'t be achieved merely by improving their living standard or financial backing. This task requires differentiated policies and strategies, and a supply of universal service or support ordinarily given to the disabled cannot guarantee the accomplishment of the task. The ways to expedite successful social integration could be suggested as below: First, the hearing-impaired should be given more opportunities to receive education. Second, the hearing-impaired should be given more opportunities to be employed. Third, strategic support should be provided to social welfare agencies. Fourth, post-management policies should be formulated. Fifth, the way people look at the hearing-impaired should be changed, and there should be more dynamic communication between them. Sixth, the kinds of environments that stimulate deaf-and-dumb people to stand on their own feet should be created. Seventh, local community should join forces with organizations concerned in stepping up the social integration of the hearing-impaired. Eighth, the sorts of welfare services that address the needs of hearing-impaired women and back up their role performance at home and society should be provided.