Mediated interactions between teachers and immigrant parents

Since the end of the 90s, Public Service Interpreting (PSI) has been analysed as an interactional achievement (Wadensjö 1998). While the analysis of interpreter-mediated interactions has been conducted in settings as diverse as medical services, courts, and interviews between immigration officers and refugees, very few studies have focused on interpreter-mediated interactions in educational institutions. This chapter concerns interpreting in Italian “multicultural schools”, in which intercultural mediators are employed with the explicit task of integrating management of intercultural communication with interpreting. In particular, it focuses on mediated interactions between teachers and immigrant students’ parents regarding their children’s performance in school and home activities. The chapter aims to shed new light on this issue, drawing on four audio-recorded interpreter-mediated interactions between Italian teachers and Arabic-speaking parents. The opening section immediately below, includes a general introduction to studies in interpreter-mediated interactions. It is followed by a more focused review of studies based on the analysis of interpreter-mediated interactions in Italian schools. The two subsequent sections concern respectively data and methodology description and data analysis. In the final section, conclusions are drawn about interpreter-mediated interactions in schools.