Intercultural mediation in school. The Spanish education system and growing cultural diversity

ABSTRACT

In Spain intercultural mediation developed within the framework of interculturality fostered by the European Union and stimulated by the arrival of foreign-origin populations. This has meant rethinking the policies and actions implemented to incorporate this new population. The schools, which reflect the social reality, have gradually responded to the needs that have been detected. Thus, within inclusiveness, interculturality and intercultural education, it was believed that the intercultural mediator was a figure (whether professional or natural) whose work could improve intercultural relations. From a survey of representatives of management teams (from 1,730 Spanish primary schools), the extent to which intercultural mediation are used and the functions attributed. The results indicate that intercultural mediation has not been consolidated, but competes with other professional profiles for its own field of intervention. Furthermore, although the mediators are positively valued, their action is mainly focused on conflict resolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural mediation
• interpreting
• foreign-origin pupils
• primary education
• Spain

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the R+D+i projects “Research Challenges” corresponding to the State Program for R+D+i Oriented to the Challenges of Society, within the framework of the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2017-2020 (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, resolution CSO2017-84872-R).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See: http://www.empleo.gob.es/es/estadisticas/Inmigracion_emigracion/index.htm.

2. https://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/servicios-al-ciudadano/estadisticas/indicadores/cifras-educacion-espana.html

3. https://www.boe.es/buscar/pdf/2005/BOE-A-2005–19785-consolidado.pdf

4. In Spain, resources for interpreting and/or intercultural mediation are used in different contexts: actions are detected especially on the educational level, as dealt with in this text, on the health level (Antonin 2013; Nierkens et al. 2002) or on a more general level regarding the process of integrating foreigners into the host society (Llevot and Garreta 2013; Marques, Ana, and Vieira 2019).

5. It is interesting to note that the study has always taken into account other variables which, a priori, could be considered relevant. However, the analyses carried out show that the most relevant variable is the greater or lesser presence of pupils of foreign origin. However, a relationship is also observed with such other variables as the ownership of the school (public or private) in the sense that it is in public schools where challenges and conflicts appear more frequently. This higher incidence is due to the fact that public schools are those with the highest number of enrolments of foreign origin. Thus, for example, 81.5% of these situations of challenges or conflicts occurred in public schools, 16.9% in private schools that had an agreement with the administration and 1.6% in private schools (without an agreement). The variable greater presence or absence of Roma pupils was also taken into account and, although it is true that the greater the number of Roma pupils in the school, the more challenges and conflicts appear, it is also true that the profile of mediation and its relationship with interpretation (which is where we will focus) is different as it is not carried out in the same way given that these pupils and their families dominate the language of communication with the professionals. Furthermore, the use of mediation was much lower (only 8.7% of the centres used it). Therefore, the analysis of the text focuses on the greater or lesser presence of pupils of foreign origin in the school.

6. This average was obtained by converting the responses into numerical values, so that the response that indicates that it was taken “very” much into account was given a value of 4; “quite”, 3; “little”, 2 and “nothing”, the value of 1.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the R+D+i projects: “Research Challenges” (2017-2020) of Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (resolution, CSO2017-84872-R) and State Program to Promote Scientific-Technical Research and its Transfer, of the State Plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research (2021-2023) (resolution, PID2021-124334NB-I00).

Notes on contributors

Núria Llevot-Calvet

Jordi Garreta-Bochaca Graduate and Doctor in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Researcher and professor in Educational Sociology and Sociology of Migrations at the University of Lleida since 1992, currently attached to the Deparment of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work. He has been a visiting researcher in Canada, France (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, CADIS, and the Centre de Recherches Tsiganes in the René Descartes-La Sorbonne universities) and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Jordi Garreta-Bochaca

Núria Llevot-Calvet With a degree in Education from the University of Barcelona, she has a doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Lleida. Lecturer and researcher in the area of the Theory and History of Education in the Department of Sciences of Education in the Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work. She is currently a lecturer and member of the Centre d’Estudis Jurídics Europeus i de Mediació (CEJEM). She has undertaken research stays abroad (Quebec, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Senegal and Italy, among others) to collaborate on various projects in her research lines: intercultural mediation, ethnic minorities, social cohesion and educational institutions and, more recently, inter-university cooperation Europe-Africa.