Introduction

Elizabeth A. Winston and Stephen B. Fitzmaurice

We are grateful to the researchers, authors, editors, and reviewers who have shared their wisdom, knowledge, and insights during the preparation of this volume! The support of so many people has encouraged us to share these topics. It has been inspiring to find experienced and new researchers and practitioners who continue the quest to improve the outcomes of interpreting in educational settings. Collaborating with these contributors to prepare this volume, we see that we have indeed learned much, and each chapter shares perspectives on both existing and new insights.

The first volume, Educational Interpreting: How It Can Succeed (Winston, 2004) brought to the forefront important issues surrounding an interpreted, or mediated, education, and primarily focused on K–12 settings. In the 15+ years since its publication, much has changed, and much has not. Our goal has been to gather new research, more evidence-based research, and to look both forward and back. One major expansion in this volume is the inclusion of interpreting in postsecondary settings, mostly in signed/spoken language interactions. Some may wonder why we have not separated our volume more traditionally by setting and age of Deaf students. As we considered this expansion and reviewed our experiences and those of our contributors, we found that these two settings, traditionally delineated primarily by age and placement of the Deaf student, were indeed in many ways less different than similar. The bottom line is that challenges faced by K–12 interpreters are faced by postsecondary interpreters as well. Interpreted education is not somehow magically different because a student graduates from high school and enters college. Administrators do not better understand the mediation of educational delivery and settings in one context or the other. Students may or may not be more proficient in the interpreted languages in each setting. Interpreters may or may not be more skilled and/or professionally qualified; expectations may or may not be the same for students whose language is the same as the teachers, as for those whose languages are different from those of the teachers and must therefore be accessed, at least in part, via a third party. The introduction to the first volume ends with this observation and lingering questions:

The questions raised throughout the book return us again and again to two simple questions. Why does this practice of interpreted education continue with so little research and information, so few standards and requirements, and so little interest in the final outcomes of the practice? And, when will this research begin? (p. 6)

By following the structure of the first volume, we continue to focus on the impacts on and interactions of the participants, regardless of the setting.

Since Educational Interpreting: How It Can Succeed we still lack a centralized repository for national and international research related to educational interpreting. One of our unachieved goals for this volume was to prepare and present a comprehensive literature review of research about educational interpreting. We offer our findings and progress here in the hopes that someone, some institution, will be able to continue and build upon it and sustain it for future learning. This type of resource is critical to understand current effective evidence and also education mediated by interpreting and interpreters. If thorough, the results of such a repository can (and should) be used to inform decision-making and policy development about how, when, and why interpreted educations can and should be chosen. Such a review needs to find, and summarize, evidence that can guide and support decisions. Since Winston (2004), we have located more than 350 research items published between 2004 and 2019. While we found some international references, the vast majority are from North America.

Due to limited resources, we were restricted to the scope of only print publications by using 37 different keywords or keyword strings related to educational interpreting. These strings were reviewed by several professional colleagues and reduced from a massive 70 searchable keywords. These included strings such as education*, interpret*, American Sign Language (ASL), and Deaf (for a complete listing of search strings, see the Appendix). Using Clemson University library credentials, Education Research Complete, Academic Search Complete, Academic One File, and Education Resources Information Center, academic databases were searched using a combination of the 37 search strings with the containment of post-2004. We also cross-listed references from some recent publications (either texts or dissertations) related to educational interpreting, and siphoned references in those publications that were not found in any of the other searches. These publications included Fitzmaurice (2018), Seiberlich (2013), Smith (2010), and Marschark and Spencer (2009).

The gross number of references remotely related to our search terms was 3,608. Again, the search string was broadly cast, and many citations were duplicates across database platforms, or related to Deaf education in general and not educational interpreting. All references were reviewed and further reduced to 360 references that were remotely related to educational interpreting. All references and publications were uploaded to RefWorks to begin building a repository.

Overall, we were saddened to learn that after 35+ years, public schools and education in general still have little understanding of the tasks and responsibilities that fall onto interpreters’ shoulders or the levels of qualifications they do and do not possess for effectively meeting those responsibilities. And we are dismayed to find that, despite ongoing research in various areas, the silos remain—with research in interpreting, Deaf education, and education seemingly untouched by the learnings of the others. And even more so, the research remains almost untouched by the experiences of educational interpreters in English-as-a-second-language settings. An exploration such as ours could and should lead to a more comprehensive review, along the lines of the Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews. To paraphrase Cochrane (1979 as cited in Adams & Soares, 1997), an early proponent of systematic reviews, “It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organized a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant [studies, qualitative and quantitative]” that might impact the educational outcomes for Deaf students. Such reviews evaluate the findings from relevant studies, the quality of the research approaches, and the clarity and transparency of the procedures implemented (Campbell Collaboration, 2020). Unfortunately, our field lacks such reviews, and we lacked the resources to follow through on such a comprehensive review. Still, we were able to compile a list of literature and identified some challenges and needs for improving the knowledge base of and for interpreted education. This preliminary repository is available on the Gallaudet University Press website for this volume.

What we noted, and would strongly encourage further explorations of, was the lack of coordinated research about how interpreted education impacts Deaf students’ academic and social development. We found research about direct teaching, about what interpreters do, and about inclusion practices. We also found that the lack of coordination led to a lack of informed, coordinated decision-making in administration, implementation, and evaluation of the effectiveness of placing students in physically inclusive educational settings, without necessarily providing the emotional, cultural, and linguistic environmental factors that most of the other students have, as a given, at hand.

We fundamentally struggled with accessing research from other countries, especially outside of North America. This research does not seem to appear often in the various databases we searched. Further, the multitude of keywords and search terms used throughout the world stymied our searches. For example, what we in the United States might call “educational interpreters,” those in the United Kingdom might label “communication support workers.”

We make no claim that our search is entirely comprehensive. It is rather more designed to provide us a sense of why does this practice of interpreted education continue with so little research and information? In reviewing the literature, we were distressed that we do not have more insights about the outcomes and impacts on Deaf students living with and through an interpreter-mediated education. We also found that without a central international repository of research to inform practice, we are lost in a desert pecking at different specks of sand. We hope that institutions such as federal and state departments of education can begin to find support for such research. We still have much to learn.

Moving to the second dominant question from Winston (2004), when will such research begin, we are excited to be able to share new research in this volume, with the field of educational interpreting and hope it goes beyond—to Deaf education, “mainstream” education, teachers, parents, administrators, and interpreter education. Advances in Educational Interpreting updates the current state of the field by bringing together experts and evidence that includes working educational interpreters both Deaf and hearing, interpreter researchers and educators, and Deaf consumers of educational interpreting services. As this volume is introduced, we should also note that it went to the publisher just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic fundamentally altered education in the United States. Research about educational interpreting at a distance, via virtual attendance, did not yet exist. There are myriad questions about the efficacy of distance interpreting and the use of multiple channels for learning, for example: hard of hearing students or those with cochlear implants who rely in part on speechreading and sound, cannot see through most masks, or cannot hear as well via internet audio; Deaf students who rely on sign language interpreters to access a classroom; hearing instructors who may be even less aware of the presence of, let alone the needs of, Deaf students and interpreters for their lessons and classroom interactions; and Deaf students whose only signing exposure is from the interpreter, who is no longer “there” except during specific class times. These profound challenges await future research, although the students cannot.

Part One: Outcomes and Impacts on Deaf Students in Mediated Education

Part One shares research that is focused on the impacts and outcomes of interpreted, mediated education on students. The four chapters examine, through various lenses, the continued challenges that students encounter in “inclusive” classrooms where third parties mediate their access to education, and where they experience “access via mediated interactional communication spaces—MICS” (Lee, personal communication, 2020). Given that this is the experience of anyone interacting, learning, and socializing via interpreters, additional factors also impact the outcomes for Deaf students. Language competence, attitudes of others, and regulatory restrictions are part of the equation. The product of educational interpreting and the ultimate winners or losers are the Deaf students in the educational system. Recognizing that Deaf students, and indeed any students in mediated educational settings, are not a singular entity, but are rather a vastly diverse community, is the first step. Acknowledging that this must inform the multiple roles that an educational interpreter is currently expected, by default, to enact in order to achieve even minimal access, let alone successful outcomes, for any Deaf student is of critical importance. Here, we hope to provide readers with an overview of the content and goals of the chapters in this volume. The four chapters in Part One explore the impacts and potential outcomes for students in mediated educations and address the topics of interpreter skills, deaf interpreters, cultural needs, and emergent signers.

The Impact of Sign Language Interpreter Skill on Education Outcomes in K–12 Settings

Cates and Delkamiller explore educational outcomes of students who are deaf when they have access to educational content through different delivery methods, ranging from direct access via ASL to Simultaneous Communication to interpretations from English to ASL from interpreters at various achievement levels on the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA). The chapter addresses the assumption that a better skilled educational interpreter automatically translates into better outcomes for deaf students. Cates and Delkamiller address the lack of data on the efficacy of Deaf students’ learning through interpreters at varying skill levels by way of a quasi-experimental design to test the comprehension outcomes for a group of Deaf students. Several lectures were interpreted by educational interpreters who have scored at different levels on the EIPA. The comprehension of the material by Deaf students was elicited using standardized test questions from the same grade level. These findings have significant implications for how the educational interpreters’ qualifications impact a Deaf student’s ability to learn through an educational interpreter, for school districts and educational agencies who hire educational interpreters, and for states who set the requirements for educational interpreter skill levels.

A Native-User Approach: The Value of Certified Deaf Interpreters in K–12 Settings

Thibodeau describes the access that can be possible when Deaf interpreters and Deaf–hearing interpreting teams work together with the entire team to provide effective and broader access for Deaf students. Thibodeau continues this chapter by identifying the benefits of using a certified Deaf interpreter in public school settings to share a similar worldview, promote language development, and serve as a role model. This chapter strongly argues the trend of using Deaf interpreters as a natural resource from which anyone involved in an interpreted interaction can benefit. Deaf interpreters in the classroom can bring with them a native-user approach and are a naturally occurring language model in the schools. Thibodeau argues such language models are an important asset, and Deaf interpreters in the educational setting augment the educational team’s effort for both interpreting the academic content and modeling academic language that is pragmatically comprehensible. Using testimonies from such cases across the United States, Thibodeau provides a guide to making Deaf interpreters part of an equitable approach to addressing language diversity in Deaf students, and to ensure the students are able to access the content at the highest level of academic proficiency.

Interpreting and Language Access: Spoken Language Interpreters in U.S. Educational Contexts

Mellinger’s chapter shares invaluable insights into a broader context of educational interpreting by highlighting the linguistic, cultural, and social challenges for any student, be they Deaf or hearing users of languages other than English who are also experiencing mediated educations. Drawing on literature from bilingual education, language brokering, and interpreting studies, this chapter details the range and scope of spoken language mediation and interpreting in the U.S. educational system. How these services are provided and by whom is, in large part, shaped by the legal and regulatory framework of English language learning and bilingual education. Therefore, the chapter first reviews the macrolevel, sociopolitical context in order to situate spoken language interpreting in educational contexts. The author then examines several typical points of contact, namely parent–teacher conferences, individualized education program (IEP) meetings, and interactions within the classroom, to describe common language brokering and interpreting practices. To conclude, the case is made for enhancing the access to education by any nondominant language user by ensuring the provision of professional spoken language interpreting services at multiple points of contact while recognizing how these professionals can work alongside bilingual staff.

Interpreting for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Emergent Signers in Academia

Miner highlights another unique group of Deaf students, emergent signers, attempting to access education, and examines factors of challenging access for emergent signers. Such students often use interpreters during their acquisition of ASL, and Miner provides some recommendations for educational interpreters working with these students. Miner’s chapter also raises awareness of Deaf students having significant formative gaps in their language development, particularly in ASL. As such, Deaf students are frequently assigned an educational interpreter while they are still in the process of learning ASL. Such emergent signers are learning ASL through an educational interpreter while also trying to learn the content material in an academic setting. These factors are troubling for educational interpreters who struggle to interpret effectively in settings where Deaf students with emergent language skills are placed. Miner examines such emergent signers’ comprehension and preferences when working with educational interpreters, and provides some recommendations for educational interpreters and interpreter educators.

Completing Part One, readers can see that access for Deaf students, and indeed for any student placed in an educational setting where educational access must be accomplished via mediators, raises unique challenges. This mélange calls us to examine how mediated educations might most effectively make use of educational interpreters who are or might be working in the classroom. Compared with the other sections, readers can also see that research into the outcomes of interpreted educations is still greatly needed. In the next section, the research focuses on interpreters’ preparation for classroom interpreting, decisions and strategies within and during classroom interpreting, and avenues for ongoing development and enrichment of their interpreting abilities.

Part Two: Educational Interpreters—Strategies and Repertoires for the Classroom

Part Two addresses educational interpreters from the lens of specific strategies and repertoires for educational interpreters in the classroom. It offers insights into various approaches and options educational interpreters implement to collaborate, prepare, manage negative thought processes, and engage in professional development. Part Two also highlights that although no two interpretations are the same, educational interpreters are addressing numerous cases of deaf refugees and immigrants.

The Sociological Organization of K–12 Educational Interpreting by the Individualized Educational Program

Educational interpreting is a designation in the United States for the interpreting work that occurs within the primary and secondary education system, although it can include tertiary education. In this chapter, Brunson and Stone focus on decisions that interpreters make at various junctions based on the IEP. Interpreters are present to provide Deaf and hard of hearing students with access to classroom instruction and socialization. The interpreter is embedded in far-reaching social relations. These social relations appear in the form of discourses—medical, psychological, and child development—and come to bear on the work and lives of sign language interpreters through texts that coordinate their work, and through adopting the discourses present in the text to reproduce the life history of the Deaf student, who is the object of the text, as other.

This chapter employs an institutional ethnography lens (Smith, 1996) to explore how these social relations appear in the classroom. Throughout this chapter, the authors examine the IEP. Although not intended to be a guide for the interpreter per se, the IEP is central to the organization of this type of work as the interpreters discussed here reference it as guidance for doing their job. Once read, the IEP cannot be unread, and undoubtedly shapes how the interpreter perceives the student, who is often constructed not as a person who is Deaf but as the focus of multiple assessments and outcomes. The authors focus on the decisions that interpreters make at various junctions, or forks in the road, in relation to the IEP and the work that is coordinated by it.

Communication Considerations and Relational Dialectical Tensions Experienced by Educational Interpreters

Underwood investigates the student–educational interpreter relationship through the lens of relational dialectics. She identifies considerations and tensions educational interpreters experience and factors of power dynamics they should consider. This chapter addresses the unique relationship between educational interpreters and Deaf students. It is common for this relationship to become friend-like, yet the professional dimensions of the relationship are paramount, particularly for the educational interpreter. The numerous considerations the educational interpreter must be aware of are also affected by relational dialectics. Relational dialectics theory is guided by the premise that interpersonal relationships are characterized by different forms of tension between people, and the opposing forces at play must be managed and negotiated for the relationship to progress. By employing relational dialectics theory, this chapter explores the myriad of communication considerations experienced by educational interpreters, and confronts the power dynamics present in the classroom.

Preparation Strategies Used by Interpreters in Educational Settings: An Intervention Study

Russell, Williamson, Hayes, and Nelson-Julander share the findings from their international study on the need for preparing classroom material for interpretation. They offer numerous useful preparation strategies for educational interpreters. Their chapter examines educational interpreters’ experiences of preparing classroom interpretation services for Deaf children, and describes the major preparation strategies that were perceived to be most and least useful in the classroom by educational interpreters, as well as descriptions of how the strategies impacted the quality of interpretation offered and the level of engagement of the Deaf student. The authors also describe the need for preparation time and support with classroom teachers to build positive relationships, and the types of interpretation strategies used in some community settings that may fall outside of educational interpreting. The authors also find that the specialized work of classroom interpreting is not well addressed in the interpreter education programs that are generalist in nature. They invite us to consider how best to provide additional education to support effective classroom interpretation that focuses on educational content and interaction among all classroom participants. Finally, recommendations are offered for further advanced research and evolving professional practices within the field of interpreter education and interpreting in educational settings.

No Two Interpretations Are Alike: A Study of Constructed Meaning in English to American Sign Language Interpretations in Education

In this chapter, K. Kurz follows a cognitive linguistic approach and analyzes educational interpreters using Langacker’s construal model and one of its four subclasses, “perspective”—how one views a scene while delivering the information in a language (Langacker, 2008). This chapter describes the interpretations using Langacker’s definition of construal, highlights relevant findings, discusses implications for ASL in academic settings, and makes some recommendations for future studies. With a better understanding of how we can use Langacker’s model of construal for reconstructing information in ASL, the researcher proposes a call for discussion related to implications for ASL interpretation and translation in educational settings for Deaf students. This will support educational interpreters’ work in academic content areas, thus improving access to mediated information so that Deaf students can more effectively access content knowledge from a cognitive linguistics framework.

The Effects of Negative Thought Patterns on Sign Language Interpreters and Their Work

Hoekman examines the impact of negative thought patterns of educational interpreters related to moods, sense of self, and behavior. She offers several strategies educational interpreters can employ to compensate for negative thought patterns. Adding to the work of Maddux and Nicodemus (2016), this chapter examines the thought patterns, self-talk, and cognitive distortions that negatively affect an educational interpreter’s mood, sense of self, and physical state. Many interpreters use negative self-talk as a motivational tool. Training about self-talk has been shown to help advance mental and physical performance and enhance psychological well-being. As interpreting in educational settings is such a demanding mental, physical, and emotional context, Hoekman reports on mixed-methods research with postsecondary educational interpreters. This chapter notes a lack of conversation or education about how educational interpreters approach their work and manage stress, and finds the prevalence of negative thought patterns is not based on experience or years in the field. Hoekman also addresses how more seasoned educational interpreters manage negative thought patterns to their benefit.

K–12 Educational Interpreters’ Strategies to Support Deaf Refugee and Immigrant Students

Fischbeck’s research explores educational interpreters’ efforts to support deaf refugee and immigrant students in K–12 mainstream settings. Many educational interpreters work in mainstream settings with these students, despite a lack of training on effectively supporting them (Johnson et al., 2014). Deaf refugee and immigrant students have unique linguistic and life experiences and may require different support than other deaf students (Akamatsu & Cole, 2000a, 2000b; Guardino & Cannon, 2016; Pizzo, 2016; Willoughby, 2012). Although educational interpreting requires that the interpreter engage in critical thinking and significant decision-making (Colonomos, 2015; Dean & Pollard, 2013; Gile, 2009; Leeson, 2005; Llewellyn-Jones & Lee, 2013; Seal, 2004; Smith, 2013), the strategies used by interpreters working with deaf refugee and immigrant students and the decision-making factors that underlie them are little researched. This chapter explores the strategies four educational interpreters used to support deaf refugee and immigrant students and the decision-making factors underlying their use of these strategies. Interpreters modified their expressive language use by increasing the visual and gestural nature of their language, using visual aids to support their communication, and contextualizing information. They also supported the students’ acclimation to the school environment and to the United States more generally. Two prevalent factors influenced interpreters’ use of these strategies: the interpreters’ perceptions of the students’ language needs and abilities, and their perceptions of the students’ background experiences and world knowledge. A critical need remains for further research into interpreters’ work with deaf refugee and immigrant students, including the strategies interpreters use, the factors that lead interpreters to use those strategies, and ultimately the effectiveness of those strategies.

Interpreters in the Postsecondary Setting: Online Professional Development

Monikowski’s chapter explores strategies for improving educational interpreting skills, knowledge, and competence, describing how educational interpreters have continuously expanded their repertoires through the study and application of role-space theory (Llewellyn-Jones & Lee, 2014). Monikowski advocates for an effective way for educational interpreters to obtain meaningful professional development through online venues. The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Department of Access Services (DAS) is the largest employer of educational interpreters globally, employing approximately 150 full-time interpreters. DAS offers numerous professional development opportunities every semester. In 2015, a review and application of the concepts from Llewellyn-Jones and Lee (2014) shaped the first online opportunity. This chapter explains the required participation and project, including the interpreters’ reflections of what they learned and how the experience impacted their work.

In closing Part Two, the results of several new evidence-based strategies are presented. These expand our understanding of the immediate work of educational interpreters in the classroom, and broaden the specific strategies available for educational interpreters in terms of working with the IEP, preparation for classroom work, constructing meaning for both native and nonnative signers, combating negative thought patterns, and addressing power dynamics. Each strategy, and the underlying knowledge of them, is of crucial importance for educational interpreters. In the next part, we reenvision educational interpreters’ work and how it can be infused into an academic environment.

Part Three: A Paradigm Shift—Reenvisioning the Roles, Responsibilities, and Qualifications of “Educational Interpreters”

It warrants taking inventory of the work educational interpreters actually perform with regard to role space, tasks, integration, and collaboration. Part Three looks beyond the consumer of educational interpreting and the strategies employed by educational interpreters. Through this lens, we can better envision a path to make an interpreted education more effective. The first three chapters offer evidence of the work educational interpreters perform beyond interpreting. The latter three chapters share visions of a long-needed paradigm shift, where some of the systemic changes essential for improving an interpreted education are considered.

Educational Interpreters: Facilitating Communication or Facilitating Education?

Lawson documents the actual amount of interpreting versus other tasks that interpreters actually perform. This research examines the multitude of roles or tasks an educational interpreter engages in their daily work, and investigates the impact of these shifting roles on Deaf students’ access to the classroom discourse. Lawson discusses the results of a mixed-methods naturalistic study of an educational interpreter’s work in a high school, and notes the educational interpreter only assumes an interpreter’s role for 41% of the time intervals analyzed. She also finds 40% of the teachers’ discourse is not interpreted because the educational interpreter spends considerable time engaged in direct instruction. The impact of an educational interpreter filling multiple roles in the classroom is discussed in terms of the effect on social and cognitive development and placement of Deaf students.

Interpreters Collaborating in K–12 Education

Next, Brimm details how educational interpreters navigate the educational system, and offers recommendations on how educational interpreters can engage in collaborative practice by including other educational professionals’ perspectives. Educational interpreters work with and among numerous other education professionals, including general education teachers, teachers of the Deaf, special education teachers, and speech-language pathologists. This chapter expands on the findings of Langer (2004). It examines how educational interpreters struggle to successfully navigate the educational setting without any strategies for how to collaborate with other education professionals. Brimm details the perceptions of the interpreter’s role and identity versus the characterization of the educational interpreters’ role, and how communication breakdowns occur between educational interpreters and teachers instead of rapport building and dispute resolution. This chapter also addresses the control of bodies and spaces in the educational setting as opposed to space-sharing and professional relationships. Brimm summarizes some of the overarching similarities and differences between these findings to provide comprehensive guidance reinforcing Langer’s (2004) call for educational interpreters to engage in collaboration with fellow educational professionals, and reframes collaboration as on ongoing process and partnership which allows and supports continuity of practice.

The Realistic Role Metaphor for Educational Interpreters

Fitzmaurice provides insight from the literature into the misapplication of role metaphors for educational interpreters, and notes significant conflicts between the expected behavior and educational interpreters’ actual behavior. This chapter notes that the educational interpreter’s role is often determined by administrators and teachers’ expectations within that system and is often defined by what is convenient instead of what is needed. Educational interpreters often enact their own role moment to moment with no guidance from the educational system. This chapter calls for shifting role metaphors away from the setting and instead focusing on realistic and cognizant factors such as the age of the child, the sociocultural development of the student, and on the literacy development of Deaf children. Fitzmaurice calls for and offers a cohesive, empirically derived actual description of the educational interpreter’s role. This chapter proposes the wide adoption of Partners in Education—a realistic role metaphor for educational interpreters to make educational interpreting more effective.

Debunking the Myths of American Sign Language in Academic Settings

C. Kurz and K. Kurz argue that strategic uses of ASL will promote academic content knowledge among students who are Deaf. Although the use of ASL as the primary language of instruction is not a new concept, it has waned with the expansion of interpreted educations. The goals of mediated classrooms are most often focused on students’ English skills for achievement tests, reading, and so forth. Students rarely have the opportunity to first learn through and with ASL before grappling with English. This chapter details the unique linguistic features used in ASL and how educational interpreters can apply those features to various academic content areas. Kurz and Kurz address many of the common misconceptions about ASL in the academic context. These authors address the implications of some advanced linguistic features of ASL in terms of Deaf students’ content knowledge development, and call for the development of more resources related to ASL to help educational interpreters use ASL in their work, ultimately improving opportunities for Deaf students to master content area knowledge.

There Is No I(nterpreter) in Your Team

In this chapter, Fitzmaurice reminds readers that the role of educational interpreters has been misunderstood for more than 35 years, and educational interpreters are also frequently not included on the IEP team. Deaf students do not have sufficient support, and to compensate, educational interpreters often adopt multiple roles. This chapter uses the lens of role theory to examine administrators’ and teachers’ perceptions about an educational interpreter’s status, and perceptions of who is responsible for the education of Deaf students. Fitzmaurice finds there is a significant lack of agreement on the educational interpreters’ status, which creates a negative role conflict for educational interpreters. In addition, the role ambiguity for educational interpreters and who is responsible for the education of the Deaf student also creates a role conflict for educational interpreters. This chapter notes that role ambiguity and role conflict make many role expectations for educational interpreters that exceed their capacity to enact. Fitzmaurice encourages readers to stop thinking of educational interpreters as a means of providing a free appropriate public education. Instead, we should recognize the vital role educational interpreters play beyond merely meeting the essential communication needs of the Deaf student, and therefore need to be included on the IEP team.

Signed Language Interpreters in Education: Perspectives on Their Role in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students’ Educational Placement

K. Kurz and Metzger detail the statutory impetus behind mainstreaming, and highlight that the system often fails students who are Deaf. To address this, they argue for a standardized assessment for educational placement of students who are Deaf to ensure they can benefit from an interpreted education. The chapter details the six principles underlying the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and how the concept of least restrictive environment has been interpreted. Kurz and Metzger echo Cochrane’s (1989) lament, arguing that the mainstreamed education of Deaf students is an experiment without sufficient evidence on whether educational interpreting is effective. The authors report on data regarding to whom the educational interpreters report and their perspectives regarding a Deaf child’s educational progress. To ensure that Deaf students are able to learn through an interpreted education, Kurz and Metzger also propose a consistent and standardized practice related to the Deaf educational placement process, and challenge IDEA’s categorization of placing educational interpreters in the “related service” category, which does not require educational interpreters to serve on IEP teams. The authors conclude that more research is needed in this area.

In closing Part Three, we see the repeated theme that interpreters, and interpreted education, remain poorly understood and ineffectively integrated into mainstream education. The impact on the social, cultural, and academic outcomes for Deaf students remains largely undocumented and is rarely, if ever, taken into account. Educational interpreters’ work within the larger education system, and the impact of their work on Deaf students’ lives, and on the goals of education itself, need much more in-depth research.

However, it seems clear, from both Educational Interpreting: How It Can Succeed and this volume, that for interpreted educations to be more effective, individuals must enact the small changes they are able to do. We acknowledge massive systemic change is needed, and the education system must reenvision what an interpreted education must look like. We must also recognize big change happens with the small changes (based on evidence) we are able to enact individually. Although some small changes have happened since the first volume, many more need to be made. We hope this volume begins to identify those remaining massive systemic changes, and also inspires readers to make changes and adjustments based on the research and information presented.

The first question that ended the introduction to the first volume remains, 15+ years later, largely unanswered. So, we ask again: “Why does this practice of interpreted education continue with so little research and information, so few standards and requirements, and so little interest in the final outcomes of the practice?” As for the second question, “And, when will this research begin?” (p. 6), we have seen more research within the fields of education, Deaf education, and interpreting. Many of the chapters in this volume, like the first, include calls to immediate action that we must heed. These are great strides; however, we have still only scratched the surface, and have yet to collaborate, unify, and combine our separate understandings into practices of mediated education that are founded on and guided by evidence that truly supports positive and effective outcomes for Deaf students.

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Pizzo, L., & Chilvers, A. (2016). Assessment and d/Deaf and hard of hearing multilingual learners: Considerations and promising practices. American Annals of the Deaf, 161(1), 17–32. https://doi.org/10.1353/aad.2016.0011

Seiberlich, A. (2013). Annotated bibliography interpreting in the K–12 setting. University of Northern Colorado. https://www.unco.edu/cebs/asl-interpreting/pdf/osep-project/annotated_bibliography_final.pdf

Smith, D. E. (1996). The relations of ruling: A feminist inquiry. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 2(2), 171–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/10245289608523475

Smith, M. B. (2010). More than meets the eye: Revealing the complexities of K–12 interpreting (Order no. 3404359) [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Winston, E. A. (Ed.). (2004). Educational interpreting: How it can succeed. Gallaudet University Press.

Winston, E. A. (2015). Educational interpreting. In F. Pöchhacker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of interpreting studies. Taylor & Francis Group.

Appendix

Literature Exploration

The purpose of the literature exploration was to provide a meta-analysis of the research related to educational interpreting since the first volume was published in 2004. We located over 350 research items published between 2004–2019 with a scope of only print publications. While there are some international references, the vast majority are from North America. We identified 70 different keywords or keyword strings related to educational interpreting. This listing was reviewed by several professional colleagues and reduced to 37 searchable keywords.

These include:

Using Clemson University library credentials, Education Research Complete, Academic Search Complete, Academic One File, and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) academic databases were searched using a combination of the 37 search strings with containment of post-2004.

We also cross-listed references from some recent publications (either texts or dissertations) related to educational interpreting, and siphoned references in those publications that were not found in any of the other searches.

1. Marschark and Spencer (2009).

2. Fitzmaurice (2018).

3. Smith (2010).

4. Seiberlich (2013).

The gross number of references remotely related to our search terms 3,608. Again, the search string was broadly cast, and many citations were duplicates across database platforms, or related to Deaf education broadly and not educational interpreting.

All references were reviewed and further reduced to 360 references that were remotely related to educational interpreting. All references and publications were uploaded to RefWorks, and abstracts were reviewed.