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. An educational interpreter’s aim is to provide deaf and hard of hearing students with access to classroom instruction and socialization. This interpreter is embedded in far-reaching social relations, which appear in the form of discourses: medical, psychological, and child development. These social relations come to bear on the work and lives of sign language interpreters through texts that coordinate their work, and through 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. The text that is examined throughout this chapter is the Individualized Educational Program (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 because the interpreters discussed here reference it to guide their work.

Once read, the IEP cannot be unread and will undoubtedly shape 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. We focus on the decisions that interpreters make at various junctions, or forks in the road, in relation to the IEP and the work that it coordinates.

Educational Interpreting

Interpreters who work in educational settings are participating in institutional relations that move beyond the deaf student, the classroom, and the school. These social relations influence the work of sign language interpreters and, therefore, the deaf students’ educational experience. Here, we explore the institutional relations from the standpoint (Hartsock, 1997; Smith, 1996) of sign language interpreters who work in the educational setting, and how their work is shaped by IEPs.

Interpreters who work in K–12 educational settings are often in an unenviable position, irrespective of their title, because the role of the educational interpreter is multifaceted.¹ Furthermore, the students with whom they work may not always agree on the interpreter’s role and function (Kurz & Langer, 2004), and neither does the education system (Fitzmaurice, 2017; Chapters 14 and 16).

Estimates suggest that most interpreters in public schools in the United States do not have a national certification (i.e., institutionalized full professional status), which suggests they lack the entry-level skills to interpret effectively in any situation (Monikowski, 2004). Jones (1993) also found that interpreters working in K–12 settings felt unprepared for the work they were doing. Furthermore, Russell and Macleod (2009) suggest that deaf students are more likely to report social isolation, nonparticipation, and academic exclusion, and, hence, educational interpreters provide only the “illusion of inclusion” (p. 130).

In parts of the United States, interpreters who work in K–12 settings are not required to hold a national certification, but can instead have an Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) rating. Designed specifically for interpreters who work with children in K–12 settings (Schick et al., 1999), the EIPA offers diagnostics on interpreters’ skills. Interpreters are given a rating of 1–5 on their suitability for this particular type of assignment. Currently, states vary on the required EIPA rating between 3.5 and 4. Considering that the 3.5 rating indicates that the interpreter will be able to convey approximately 75% of the message (Witter-Merithew & Johnson, 2004), some have suggested this is not sufficient, and that a minimum rating for interpreters in this setting should be 4.0, if not higher.

One feature of K–12 interpreting is that K–12 interpreters often operate in a contested space; as in, for those who see residential deaf schools as a beneficial and necessary venue for cultural transmission (Parasnis, 1996), mainstream programs are often not welcoming, and the K–12 interpreter becomes the face of forced assimilation. This has been analyzed through a postcolonial lens (Ladd, 2003), and much of the resistance discourse surrounding mainstreaming stems from an identity discourse rather than an educational access discourse.

Those who subscribe to the resistance discourse have argued for a focus on identity development—deaf children should be around other deaf people and instructed in their natural language, a signed language, rather than mainstreaming them where they are likely to be isolated and constructed as ‘other,’ and where they will have their lessons and their educational experience interpreted to them (see also De Meulder & Haualand, 2019 regarding congregated education).

Although all interpreting is embedded in politics (Brunson, 2018), the political milieu in which K–12 interpreters find themselves is different in that by their mere presence in a setting they are seen as having taken a side in the mainstream–residential school debate. These politics, however, are not the focus of this chapter; instead, it closely examines the organization and coordination of the interpreter’s work by the IEP.

Interpreting as a System

The traditional gaze of research into the work of interpreters begins and remains fixed on the individuals during interpreter-mediated interaction, and does not situate actions within systems (see Chapters 14 and 16). These systems, which are often situated extralocally, have an effect on the immediate setting (see Brunson [2011] for an analysis of this within VRS settings and Shaffer [2018, 2020] for an analysis in medical settings). By looking beyond the immediate interpreted event, we can begin to identify which social structures are activated and organize the immediate interpreted event extralocally; when activated, these structures activate other structures (see Figure 1). These structures are connected through various texts creating extralocal interaction and coordinate action sequences.

Figure 1. A systemic view of interpreting.

As part of what we would call the language work of interpreting, interpreters are often in a position to depict the deaf person in a way that has long-lasting systemic effects that contribute significantly to the ways that the deaf person is seen or characterized by the system. Often, however, interpreters focus solely on the immediate exchange. This, in and of itself, is not surprising because within interpreter education, testing systems, and codes of ethics, much of the focus on ensuring quality relies on (the nebulous) notions of linguistic and cultural equivalence, and fidelity in the moment.

We, however, want to center the sociological aspects of interpreted interactions. We are not arguing for a decentering of a discussion and analyses of the language work or, more broadly, the communication work. Indeed, we believe our discussion must include this aspect of our work. Our aim here is to understand how particular actions are produced from afar, and how the IEP influences the behaviors of those found in these interactions, which includes the language work of the interpreters.

We seek to explore the action sequences of interpreters’ decisions at a systemic level, as they are coordinated by the IEP. These often lead to complications for deaf people gaining accommodations (e.g., interpreting, additional time, and English support). The complications shape people’s perception of the deaf student. Someone who may need only linguistic access in order to navigate the complex bureaucracy known as the American educational system must now rely on a cadre of additional services.

By judging these moments as times to “perform” language work rather than systemic-level “forks in the road,” interpreters may bring about a sequence of actions that are counterproductive to the needs or wants of deaf people. We must remember that these systems are established for (hearing) users of official regional or national languages. The assumption is that those navigating the system do not require systemic intervention; that is, they have the expected cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) of those engaged by or using these systems to gain public services or education.

An Institutional Ethnography of Educational Interpreting

We are interested in starting from a particular standpoint (i.e., sign language interpreters) that is “situated in the matrix of the everyday/every night world to explore and display the relations, powers, and forces that organize and shape it” (Smith, 1999, p. 46). In this way, we are exploring how educational interpreters’ experiences are systemically shaped by the IEP. Taking this approach allows for the social structures, rather than the interpreter, to become the focal point of analysis.

The analysis set forth here is based on the work of Smith (1987; 1990a; 1990b; 1999) and others who have developed a way of understanding the everyday/every night by exploring the ruling relations, texts, and coordinated action sequences that organize it. Institutional ethnography (IE) starts not with theoretical paradigms to explain generalizable patterns, but rather with people in their everyday lives to explore the generalizing effect of power dynamics that shape their experiences (Smith, 2005).

Those who have taken up IE do so with the idea of challenging accepted ways of knowing. IE therefore moves into exploring social relations to determine how things occur as they do. By talking with people about what they do when nursing (Rankin & Campbell, 2009), helping people gain employment (Ridzi, 2009), or processing calls for video relay service (Brunson, 2011), we are able to discover the myriad social relations in which they are embedded and how these form ruling relations.

The ruling relations are “the complex of objectified social relations that organize and regulate our lives in contemporary society” (Smith, 1999, p. 73). They are the ever-present, unseen extralocal apparatus that is created and maintained by systems and are “collaborative social relations and forms of consciousness that have taken on the characters of existing both inside and outside individuals; they are relations that arise through ideological mechanisms” (Carpenter & Mojab, 2017, p. 101). This systemic level of thinking is often not considered by interpreters who are, of course, embedded in systems.

Slade (2010) reminds us that “the institution analyzed in IE is not one organization but rather the work of several seemingly disconnected organizations that through their coordinated work form the ruling relations” (p. 2). Here, the institution we are analyzing is the IEP, which is a text that is the confluence of several social institutions (teaching, parenthood, education, law). And which coordinates the work of those found in the system (teachers, parents, teaching assistants, interpreters, etc.).

The Role of Texts in Institutional Ethnography

The ruling relations “form a complex field of coordinated activities, based in technologies of print, and increasingly in computer technologies” (Smith, 1999, p. 79). We know this in the twenty-first century with the proverbial phrase “the computer says no!” The forms that we must fill in, the questions we must answer, all rule us (even having to specify a gender can coordinate the activity we then engage in—do we put M/F, or not part take in the process if we do not agree with this binary). These social relations that organize people’s lives are always present in the various texts people encounter every day.

These texts are “to be seen as organizing a course of concerted social action” (Smith, 1990a, p. 121). The ruling relations are not merely the government or “administration”; rather, the term refers to the “total complex of activities, differentiated into many spheres, by which our kind of society is ruled, managed, and administered” (Smith, 1990b, p. 14). From our data this appears to include the entextualization of a life history that can obfuscate seeing the student; the IEP text-complex governs interaction with the student in a top-down rather than bottom-up process.

Conceptualizing the ruling relations in this way expands analysis beyond particular borders and offices, focusing our gaze not on a single moment but on multiple moments in multiple locations. This is a problem recognized by interpreting scholars either sociologically (Brunson, 2011; Roy et al., 2018) or interactionally (Llewelyn-Jones & Lee, 2014). Moreover, we can begin to see the outcome as the result of concerted institutional practices, rather than happenstance. The texts are replicable, that is, they can be reprinted, re-sent, quoted and requoted, and so on, and it is this that maintains and coordinates the institutional praxis.

Within K–12, our gaze falls on the IEP (a constellation of diverse texts that are written, spoken, in hard copy, e-copy, video, or sound files) and the way this text-complex provides a way for influence to be exerted over interpreters’ everyday and take various forms. However, the “text” is not our unit of analysis; rather, we examine it as an artefact. It has no clear beginning or ending; the end of the page/video/conversation does not confine the constellation of relations of which the text is a part. For us, even when the original form of the text is not captured (i.e., is signed or unwritten), it can be relevant (Johnstone, 2002, p. 19).

The ways in which the text is taken up and “activated” grabs our attention. When texts are activated, they point to the various efforts that are embedded within them. In this way, just as the interpreter is a participant in interpreter-mediated discourse, so is the text a participant in the interaction in which it is now being activated.

Take, for example, an interpreter credential. Irrespective of which granting body issues the credential, it is a text. It is activated when we copy it, present it, or list it as a representation of our skill. In doing so, this moment of interaction is connected to interpreting colleagues, ethical ideals, a moment in time (i.e., when we took the assessment that led to this credential), adopted and recognized standards, and ideologies, to name but a few.

The Individual Educational Programs as Text

In 1975, the U.S. Congress enacted PL 94-942. The act requires public educational entities receiving federal funding to provide equal access to education, one free meal a day, and create an educational plan for children with disabilities (the IEP). Congress tied adherence to the act to funding (see Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 311 1988). This brought about the IEP as a socially organizing and coordinating text.

The individualized education program document requires a great deal of paperwork, i.e., action sequences to be coordinated. The IEP is required by the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and it must be reauthorized every 5 years (thus activating this law as a text that coordinates “accessible” education).

It is recognized that an IEP text is not the product of a single author. Beyond the multitude of people whose labor produces the actual paper being activated (writers, printers, proofreaders, etc.), the text is also the product of multiple people, in multiple locations and times. In accepting this premise, we subscribe to the notion that texts can show, through analysis, the relationality, interconnectedness, and interdependence of social relations that have produced it and that organize the reader/hearing of the text.

In the United States, the IEP is a legal document and lays out which services (e.g., notetaker, interpreter, additional time) a student is to receive and how those services are to be provided (e.g., American Sign Language, Manually Coded English). In these ways, the IEP is an organizing text of interpreters’, teachers’, and administrators’ work. It is also the “factual” account of a student’s abilities and limitations, all of which are endorsed by the IEP team.

One must remember, however, that the interpreter may not be part of the IEP team. They might be present in team meetings but in the role of the interpreter as language worker. It is very likely that the team, without input from the frontline worker, will make decisions that directly affect the interpreter’s job.

The overall aim of the IEP process is to determine and document (or entextualize) where a student currently is (i.e., present level of performance; define what services are necessary, such as interpreting or extended test-taking time; and provide a rubric for measuring progress; Gartin & Murdick, 2005). The IEP text lays out the various aspects of the student’s life seen as relevant by the “team” of professionals who puts it together (see Figure 2), thus constructing a life history text.

Figure 2. IEP excerpt.

The team consists of the Local Education Agency (LEA) representative, who is usually someone from the school district. This person is responsible for making sure those items requested in the IEP text are available within the district. For example, if the IEP team were to include 1-on-1 instruction in the IEP text, the district’s representative would be available to authorize it or to explain why this was not available.

The team also includes the special education teacher, regular education teacher, parent(s) and student. In some cases, other services providers, such as sign language interpreters, can be involved with the team, although it is not assumed that they will be. American Sign Language specialist is not mentioned among the IEP team participants (see Figure 2), and neither is sign language interpreter. As such, these roles may or may not be present and may or may not be visible at a systemic level.

Each professional member of the team reproduces a particular discourse (which is a social institution in itself) in the IEP text. That is, the LEA uses the discourses of the school district; the special education teacher uses the discourse of services for students with disabilities, and the “regular education teacher” uses pedagogical discourse. And if the interpreter is participating, she will use the discourse of linguistic access, although interpreters might also appropriate other professional discourses, reproducing the entextualized life history of the student as other, as mentioned previously.

Our aim is to make visible the ways in which this text-complex connects the interpreter and her labor to extralocal apparatuses, i.e., education, disability law, labor law, school policy, psychology, and so on that perform ruling over the interpreter and her everyday work. We see that “as practitioners engage with texts in work settings, researchers can gain insights into how it is that texts work within organizations” (Eastwood, 2014, p. 65). Consequently, the analysis we put forth is not about why interpreters working in the K–12 setting do what they do, but rather how it is that it happens as it does. This is a subtle yet important distinction (see Winston, 2015 for an overview).

The Forks in the Road in an Interpreter-Mediated Educational Milieu

To some extent, interpreting within an educational context, i.e., the provision of mainstream education to deaf people by a mainstream teacher mediated by an interpreter in the classroom, is somewhat unique to deaf communities. However, at a systemic level there are several considerations, some of which are general to the education system and some of which are specific to deaf students, i.e., the presence of the other, within the education system.

We can ask questions such as, did education occur? Did the deaf students perform on a par with their hearing peers? And then questions specific to these deaf students and their otherness could be: What accommodations (this term itself activates IDEA) were provided for these deaf students? Are educational interpreters used in lieu of bilingual teachers? Does the system expect the interpreter to be a coteacher (again, Winston, 2015 provides an overview)?

Further questions that one can consider to be the systemic expectation of interested parties (i.e., teachers, students, interpreters, parents, administrators, school boards) are, what roles do individuals undertake in the system? Who is responsible for educational outcomes? How are these outcomes measured?

This leads us to the identification of the text-complex that coordinates both the posing and the answering of the subset of questions the system requires to accommodate otherness in its provision of access to education. All of these moments are forks in the road, that is, they require a decision to be made and an action to take place that changes how the student is characterized and/or how the student’s success is characterized in this system.

Data Collection

The data discussed here were collected through interviews with seven (7) sign language interpreters who work in K–12 settings (i.e., working with children and young people aged 4–18 in an educational setting) in the southwest and northeast regions of the United States. Some of the interpreters held staff positions, whereas others provided contingent interpreting throughout the school year but were titled freelancers.

The interpreters were not certified by the Registry of the Interpreters for the Deaf (RID), the most widely accepted benchmark for “safe to practice” interpreting, and had varied interpreter education prior to working. Five (5) of the participants held an EIPA of at least a 3.5. The EIPA is widely accepted as the standard in the United States for interpreters working in K–12 settings. None of the participants held a Board of Evaluators for Interpreters certification. Only one of the participants held a four-year degree (in business); the others held a two-year degree in interpreting.

One of the researchers, Brunson, reached out to interpreters he had worked with at various times and asked them to refer people for participation. These gatekeepers (Creswell, 2014; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998; Vanderstoep & Johnson, 2009) vouched for the project. Each interpreter was asked to talk about their workdays, for example, “Please tell me what you do when you arrive at the school.” This type of prompt would lead interpreter–participants to describe the various activities they participated in.

The interviews lasted between 1 and 1.5 hours. Occasionally, there were follow-up interviews to clarify information gathered during previous interviews. The interviews were video recorded and transcribed and then examined for moments when texts appeared (i.e., were mentioned in the interview with a description of the coordinating function of the text). For example, a common statement from interpreter–participants was “when I looked at the IEP…” or “I was given the IEP.” These are moments when the text appeared, the reading was its activation, and the result was the coordination of an action sequence.

Any identifying information about the participants (e.g., where they work or for whom they interpret) has been altered to protect their confidentiality but maintains the integrity of their comments. Additionally, each participant was provided with a pseudonym, Crelee.

Data Analysis

The examination of the data focused on moments when reasons for doing a particular behavior were exposed. Our aim here is to understand the generalizing effect of the organization of interpreters’ work. Particular attention was paid to work processes. For example, we asked the interpreter to explain their day to us. How did they get to work? What did they do first when they arrived at the school? How do they prepare to interpret for the day? The week? The school year? We probed for more details and explored moments in their stories that connected these interpreters to others in the system, either immediately or remotely located.

We did not set out to examine the role of the IEP but were interested in learning about the work of K–12 interpreters. During the interviews, each of the interpreters talked about the IEP as a reason for doing something a particular way. It was referred to, without prompting, as a form that was consulted before working with a student. Once mentioned by the participant, the interviewer would follow up on the importance of this particular text for this particular interpreter. We discovered from the interviews that interpreters are often faced with choices of actions, or forks in the road. To know how to handle these choices, the interpreter will consult the IEP (i.e., it coordinates those action sequences).

The Work of the Educational Interpreter

We see that the IEP text-complex organizes the interpreters’ work thus:

•Producing a text version of the student

Reproducing entextualized life histories

•Demarcating staff and freelance interpreters

•Detailing work—forks in the road:

preparation work

language work

educational work

Now let us see what Barbara, Belinda, Christy, Tamara, Catherine, Penny, and Margaret have to say about their work and the role of the IEP.

Interpreters Reproducing Entextualized Life Histories

The IEP produces the student to those who read it. Barbara, a sign language interpreter who is not RID certified but is hoping to take the test in the next 3 years, states:

Every student in a K–12 is able to be on a[n] IEP or a like a behavioral … like plan. ‘Cuz some kids are very intelligent, but they’re just angry. So, it would be like a behavioral as in making sure that they respond correctly. If they have like Asperger’s or anything like that.

As can be seen, IEPs cover all aspects of otherness framed within disability and educational discourses. We also want to note here that Barbara has adopted a particular discourse into her talk. Rather than talking about a student engaging in a particular activity, Barbara reproduces the language of psychology and counseling and refers to “behaviors” or diagnoses such as Asperger’s.

In this way, the IEP has begun to organize not only Barbara’s everyday work but also her thinking and talking about the everyday as well, even though she does not have any formal education or qualifications in this field.

Belinda, a staff interpreter, tells us the IEP team is comprised of the teachers. The aim is to produce measurable goals and a means by which the student can achieve them. Belinda said:

So, my client, Daniel, had an OT class. So, she wrote out her goals and what … what she was doing and how many minutes a week she was working with him. PT. What the goals were and how they were going to work that out. OT. PT. There’s a speech and language woman that worked with him for a while, um, which the goal was to get more vocabulary and it was signed. So, that was good. Um, at Brook School, he had, um, a therapist. And, y’know, talked about emotional goals and how to communicate emotional feelings appropriately. And that’s what the IEP would be like.

Through the creation of the IEP text, a life history from the perspectives of the “professionals” who work with the student is created. A “large folder” that explains Daniel is passed from one person to another in the hopes of providing some information about Daniel that could not be gained otherwise. This text then coordinates the actions of the teachers for the period of the IEP and frames the work of Barbara within the system.

When an interpreter reads the IEP, she must familiarize herself with the various discourses being used and seemingly begins to reproduce them for systemic credibility. For an interpreter, this reproduction of the discourses of other professionals could strive to achieve “in-group” status for the interpreter. However, a result of the “in-group” status is the “out-group.” In this case, it is the deaf student whose otherness is reinforced. The student is the object of discussion, and the interpreter is participating in that objectification.²

Another way in which discourse, or entextualized life history, is reproduced is in the language of interpreters when they justify doing something in a particular way, such as “bear hugging” a child who is “animalistic” (see below). Christy, who works as a staff interpreter, also explains how it is she came to be “given” information about the student for whom she was about to interpret:

Like the day I showed up, they handed me his IEP and I read it. And I learned a lot. I went to Barnes & Nobles and bought books about, y’know, emotional disabilities and, y’know, what to do. …

She then uses various diagnostic terms to justify her interaction with the student:

So, but Miranda was just more … almost animalistic. Because she couldn’t … and OCD. Completely obsessive-compulsive. Um, the last year that I was with her at school, I could see that she was starting to get agitated and frustrated. And, I would bear hug her. And I would sit on the floor, and now, she’s as tall as I am. Skinny, lanky girl. And I would just bear hug her, and she would sit on my lap. Until she cried. And then she would say “yeah, I’m sorry.” Like “I don’t know why, but I just needed that. How’d you know? How’d you know I needed a hug?” And … that’s how we got through it.

Christy informs us that the work brought her to tears. She does not, however, tell us what systems were in place to support her through this trauma, or whether this support was defined in the IEP. In this way, her professional work is being organized or coordinated by the IEP in accordance with its discourse and entextualized life history but without any attention to the needs she might have to effectively deliver the goals of the IEP. This could, of course, include specialized training for undertaking educational interpreting but is a moot point with respect to the IEP as an organizing text.

Christy also informs us that Miranda has a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and that she is “almost animalistic”—again reproducing clinical discourse. Given these characteristics, at least one of them beyond Christy’s training as an interpreter—a psychological diagnosis—she feels justified “bear hugging” Miranda. What Christy does not relay during the interview is whether the IEP text permits or even instructs interpreters on this course of action, but it is clear that bear hugging was “how we got through.”

The production of the student in the IEP guides Christy’s behavior toward Miranda, how she talks about those behaviors and in some ways appears to sanction her actions; in this way, the IEP coordinates her actions. However, it is not clear what training Christy has in restraining young people, or what clinical supervision might be put in place for Christy to debrief about emotionally fraught encounters. In this way, the IEP coordinates the action sequences of the interpreter’s work but does not put systems in place for effective professional working.

Demarcating Staff and Freelance Interpreters

In our data, the IEP text plays a coordinating role for both those interpreters labeled staff and freelance. This is the discourse of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), yet another social relation ruling this moment. Although it does not appear in the IEP, it does exert influence over the interpreter.

The designation of freelance interpreter changes the level of access the interpreter has to documents deemed necessary to do their job, for example, reading the IEP in full, reading a summary prepared for them, or not being able to read anything. For staff interpreter Tamara, the IEP coordinates several aspects of her work. Firstly, when starting at the school the IEP coordinated how she prepared to work with the student:

I’m allowed access in to reading what their IEP is because for the majority of the time for a deaf student, it is—how am I … how much am I allowed to interpret on tests. Um … or if I’m allowed to do that at all. If the student is given the availability to go into a resource room or be removed into the library … somewhere more … less distracting, I should say. And, um, like my student in particular is also focused on a health issue because of getting seizures.

Tamara as a staff interpreter uses terms such as “if I’m allowed to do. …” The IEP text-complex thus defines in some ways the terms and conditions of her engagement and where she can do her job. It also defines when she can do her job and in so doing takes away her professional decision to interpret tests should she judge it to be necessary.

As an adult in the secondary-level education system, she is informed of the health of her student, and this may place a duty of care on her as an educational agent toward the well-being of the student, whom she identifies as “my student in particular.” This identification of “my student” is also situated within an educational discourse, which might mean this is “misread” by teaching professionals who have a systemic responsibility for educational attainment.

Tamara continues with the benefits of reading the IEP:

It gives me a lot of information on how I need to interpret for that student. And the majority of the time it’s … where you need to do a lot of this … And the only way you know you need to do that, is from a previous interpreter who’s been in on the IEP.

Again, we see that the IEP defines the language work that Tamara engages in, partly informed by interpreter colleagues who previously contributed to the IEP. Tamara then sees her student at least partially produced by the text. Similarly, as can be noted from this comment, not only was the IEP read by the staff interpreter (it can be signed out from the office but not taken from the building, thus coordinating where reading can occur), but in reading the document clear avenues of work were defined.

Detailing Work: Forks in the Road

Here (see Figure 3) we describe multilayered decisions that represent forks in the road, with each path representing a different reality as the interpreter makes different decisions. For example, an interpreter can read the IEP but might not have the systemic knowledge to know that this is expected of them. If she reads the IEP (first fork), does she read one section, perhaps the section related to communication needs, or many sections (second fork), such as those related to health and educational goals. Does the interpreter understand the systemic expectations of them reading the IEP, and does she meaningfully interact with the team to understand where responsibility lies for each goal?

As can be seen in Figure 4, the reading of the IEP (or summary of it) also coordinates the work the interpreter does in relation to maintaining the continued relevance of the IEP goals and accommodations. The interpreter can then undertake further work to understand each section (third fork) or sections they have read; the interpreter can note improvements in the child in relation to the goals established in the IEP and bring these to the next IEP review meeting (fourth fork), and so on.

Figure 3. Forks in the road.

Preparation Work

Here we see that the otherness of the student is produced through the IEP life history rather than face-to-face interaction. Identified needs within the IEP then determine the scope of preparation work that the interpreter needs to undertake so as not to “shoot in the dark.” Barbara explains some of the information she gets from the IEP:

Interviewer: Um. …so does the IEP tell you how to sign?

Barbara: Mm sometimes it will … it will like mention, um, like an IQ level. They don’t really like specifically say: “you need to expand.” It will be like: “here is the IQ level, or the comprehension level, the reading level.” And then you can kind of like, adjust? How much you have to go into detail or expand information. And also, like how … how you choose to deliver it too. Because you have some students, like, that you can just be straight-faced and here’s the information, they get it. But then you can’t do that with a student who has like a comprehension of a, like an 8th grader. You know what I mean? High School … 8th grade … it’s starting. …

We see a discussion of the notion of IQ stated in the IEP by professionals trained to understand what that means within an educational context. Part of the interpreter’s scope of work (preparation work) is ensuring that the specialist knowledge contribution by other professionals (trained teachers, counselors, psychologists, occupational therapists [OTs], physical therapists [PTs], etc.) is understood. Barbara has not received education or training in understanding the educational use of IQ and its systemic impact. She does, however, reproduce the discourse and through experience may well have generated an experientially driven “lay” understanding of this term.

There is scope for Barbara to exercise her judgment in regard to tailoring the message to the deaf student, but this is couched within the discourse of educational psychology while Barbara couches the explanation of her work within a linguistic access or language work discourse. This disparity is not something that appears to be identified in the system.

Barbara, a staff interpreter in the K–12 setting, also relies on the IEP for direction on how to interact and come to “know” the student with whom she is working. She reads the IEP text-complex before working with a student. When one social institution and text, i.e. an IQ score, is presented in the IEP it becomes a “fact” the interpreter (and others) reading the IEP text can/should now understand in application.

As a tool of organization, the IQ score and the IEP text represent yet other forks for the interpreter. Catherine discusses how she goes about understanding the meaning of a particular IQ score:

I’ll just [look] on-line. Or like I’ll ask around … ‘cuz like it’s like the teachers … they’re the ones that like encounter it the most. A lot of times you can be just like “Hey what does like a 96 IQ means?”. And they’ll be like “Oh, it means they’re right about here … mentally … age-wise.” And it kinda just … I dunno … it helps a little bit more. But then it also really depends on the student, because there are some students that have a higher IQ and might act extremely immature. So it’s really like … let’s just eh … you. How do I fit you?

The IEP organizes Catherine’s work by using terms that she identifies as needing to understand. This then leads to her asking educational professionals what these terms mean. Still, as with Barbara (above) these action sequences do not appear to be something that is entextualized in the system; no note of potential training needs of the interpreters is made, and yet they are required to enable the IEP to be implemented.

Christy (who “bear hugged” a student) and Catherine both demonstrate the systemic expectations of both reading the IEP text and understanding, or discovering, the meaning behind a particular meme—IQ. Asking the teacher or seeking further knowledge online are further forks in the road. The reading of the IEP text coordinates the actions of the interpreter and their interactions with other professionals and service users, within the mainstream educational setting.

As an aside, if we consider the interconnectedness of different texts in relation to the hiring and employment of interpreters, we can identify that even though the texts used to hire the interpreter (i.e., their job description and job interview rubric) do not specify the need to understand the specialist knowledge in IEP texts, perhaps it should. The IEP coordinates expectations on the educational interpreter to be able to provide the systemically required support defined within it. To implement this, the interpreter needs to undertake further preparation work to be able to meet this systemic requirement.

Language Work

There is a specific section for the interpreters in some IEPs. Barbara says this is so that “you can meet their [the student’s] sign needs.” An example of this section can be seen in Figure 4. This section of the IEP is directly related to the performance of language work, i.e., the aspect of interpreting that we feel education and certification focuses on and so is something that many interpreters will identify as being pertinent to them and their role.

Figure 4. IEP excerpt of student’s communication needs.

However, terms such as “typically” (line one), “peers” (line 2), and “generally” (line 4), which appear in Figure 4, refer us back to a discourse of normalcy as the measuring stick and thus the deaf student as other. This puts the burden on the deaf student to normalize and not on the system charged with providing her or him with access to accept otherness.

Remembering that the team does not require an American Sign Language specialist, the question of the accuracy of the statement “expressive language with utterances of 4–8 words …” (lines 2–3) is called into question. American Sign Language is not a visual representation of spoken English; a single sign, with accompanying nonmanual markers, is not necessarily the same as a single word when considering mean length of utterance (Ramírez et al., 2012). Much like the analysis provided by Smith (1990b) of how “K” is constructed as mentally ill, this section of the IEP text-complex requires the interpreters (and other readers of the IEP) to accept that those involved with its development are experts.

In many states, students must be at least 14 years of age before they can provide comments. Although they can attend the IEP meeting, and may even be asked for input, it is not typically documented at least until the child turns 14. Since we do not get to hear from the student, presumably because of the child’s age, we have access only to other people’s account of the student’s ability.

Educational Work

The IEP-complex also requires some educational agent work too. Penny, a freelance interpreter says, “We all have welcome folders. [We] can’t ask for the IEP as it is confidential to staff only.”

From Penny’s experience, freelance interpreters are not allowed to sign out the IEP text, so a welcome folder needs to be generated by someone summarizing the relevant information from the IEP text. The IEP text-complex coordinates this action sequence while not detailing it.

It would appear that the welcome folder contains a narrower focus than the complete IEP text (otherwise, why would the freelance interpreter not be allowed to read it), although it is broader than the performance of language work. Penny tells us that the welcome folders speak to “health needs” and communication needs, which could include when “they [the student] can wear them [cochlear implants] as the IEP can require them to wear them.” And this appears to be educational agent work too rather than strictly engaging in language or communication work.

Barbara, a staff interpreter who creates the “welcome folders” for freelance interpreters, tells us how she activates parts of the text in making “welcome folders” for the contract interpreters:

At the school district now, with [the coordinator], um, we all have welcome folders? And they [freelance interpreters] can’t ask for the IEP because they’re not part of the team. It is confidential information. So, we have what … we all made welcome folders, and basically my … I just updated mine today for the semester. It’s just “Hello. This is the student’s name.” and I just mention in there, like, my … the health concerns that you need to keep an eye out for. And, that you need to slow down on fingerspelling, and expand concepts, and you’ll see the deaf nod oft … often … and, the deal with the cochlear, and when they can and can’t wear them. Just to kind of give them, like, a short paragraph summary of what to expect with my student for the day.

Barbara’s comments indicate that school policies are also at play in constructing freelance interpreters as other. And although the freelance interpreters are not considered part of the team, the IEP text still coordinates work for them; the coordinator has “welcome folders” created, which are also then updated. However, in situations where this is the case the forks in the road begin at a level below the IEP (as seen in Figure 3).

Both staff and freelance interpreters note that “as the year progresses the IEP gets dated.” Margaret, a staff interpreter, says that she takes “notes of the changes as it happens” and then “bring[s] those to the IEP meeting.” Here it is clear that the text is coordinating the actions of all those involved, including all the interpreters. The IEP text-complex (“a living document”; see Figure 2) bestows a duty to report student progress as measured against the IEP targets rather than in any other sense giving the interpreter progress report work to do as an educational agent.

It is not, however, clear whether the updates in the welcome folders are incorporated into the IEP text at some point, and if so by whom. What is clear is that having direct engagement with the IEP text is not a prerequisite for the coordination to happen. Even though removed from the process, by policy, freelance interpreters are made to engage with the IEP text-complex through these “welcome folders.” Freelance interpreters can then read or not read, and so on.

Incidentally, it is contradictory that if an interpreter is labeled staff, then they are allowed access to the IEP text, but if they are labeled freelance there is another policy (a text presumably) that prevents them from reading the IEP text. The interpreters are expected to ensure that the deaf student is provided with accessible education irrespective of this label. It is unclear how this access can be provided consistently if the interpreters are not aware of the full requirements documented in the IEP text because it reduces the level at which this then coordinates their work and reduces the level of activation of the IDEA.

Conclusions

The IEP, mentioned by all the interviewees, coordinates the action sequences of interpreters within mainstream educational settings. Initially, the IDEA is activated by the IEP meeting, which requires both paid and unpaid labor from teachers, educational professionals, parents, and the student. This IEP team generates the IEP text that entextualizes a life history of the deaf student.

This life history produces the deaf student to the educational interpreters. It often includes discourses from medical, psychological, and educational professional domains (that are largely from nondeaf paradigms). These discourses are reproduced by the educational interpreters even though there is no evidence that they have the domain-specific education to use these in authentic ways.

There seems to be a barrier to access to the IEP. Although the teacher, IEP team, and interpreter see this as an important text to have, interpreters who are demarcated as freelance, for IRS purposes, are barred from getting this document directly. Presumably, this adversely affects their ability to provide the access, outlined by the IEP, to the student.

The IEP begins to coordinate the preparation, language, and educational work that the educational interpreters engage in. Terms from the text are used to ascertain more information to prepare for the job. Descriptions of communication in the text inform the interpreter how to render their message, the speed of delivery, and other strategies that they can deploy. Requirements for the text to be current coordinates the interpreters as educational agents, making note of progress, monitoring health concerns, and ensuring that audiological technology works.

Implications

From the interviews with our participants who work as educational interpreters, we have shown that the actions they undertake are coordinated by an IEP text-complex, which brings together different social relations (e.g., professional discourses, IDEA, employment status) and texts (e.g., school policies). The classroom and the interpretation that occurs there is the product of these ruling relations with assumptions around the institution of educational interpreting and their commensurate knowledge.

It is not our intent to criticize the use of the IEP by interpreters who work in the K–12 setting. Nor is it our goal to examine what interpreters in this setting do, or why. Rather, we have set out to explore how this work gets organized. In doing so, we have demonstrated that the IEP is a text-complex that exerts a great deal of influence over interpreters in this setting.

Engaging with these texts must be done judicially for appropriate, fully accessible education to occur. They are designed to produce the student in a particular way and were not intended to be read by interpreters. Yet as they coordinate the actions of interpreters, this brings to light the educational needs of the interpreters themselves.

Even the most skeptical reader will be influenced by the discursive production of the person described in the IEP. This top-down introduction to a student, rather than a bottom-up socialization, coordinates the subsequent actions of the interpreters. And all of these factors lead to the interpreter being faced with a sequence of decisions, or forks in the road.

Notes

1.We focus on K–12 interpreters here, but the analysis we provide could also apply to those interpreters working in postsecondary educational institutions.

2.See Gordon (2014) for a study of work processes when the student is a “consumer.”

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In addition to our colleagues who shared their stories with us, we would like to thank Dr. Laurie Shaffer and Ms. Annie Marks, both of whom helped gather data and transcribe data for this project while they were graduate students.