CEJEM WORKING PAPER NÚM. 2:

Intercultural mediation in Italy

Massimiliano Fiorucci

Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione

CREIFOS – Centro di Ricerca sull’Educazione Interculturale e sulla Formazione allo Sviluppo

(Research Centre for Intercultural Tutoring and Development Training)

1. Levels of cultural mediation

I believe we can speak of cultural mediation as having different levels.

1.1 The political and provisional level

In this sense, spaces dedicated to mediation in Italy are scarce. Besides its inhumane features which are offensive for any individual’s dignity[i], the immigration law in force (the Bossi-Fini Act of July 30th 2002, n. 189) comprises three main aspects:

  1. Endorsement of discrimination (a foreign immigrant is automatically a criminal);
  2. Endorsement of precariousness; with this law, the risk of becoming a clandestine and illegal immigrant are extremely high. This seems to be functional to a certain kind of exploitation based on the possibility to blackmail the individual in an “irregular” situation. Black economy, based on off-the-books labour, accumulates wealth “using” people that can’t claim their rights and can’t rebel to living and working conditions that are hard, hazardous and unbearable for any modern democratic society. The current situation of migrants in our country is similar to the one that Paul Ginsborg described for Italian domestic migrations. He wrote “A Fascist law of 1939, passed expressly to prevent domestic migration and urbanization, trapped possible emigrants in a contradictory situation: to be able to change residence, the migrants had to prove to have a job in the new place of choice, but to get such job they needed a new residence certificate first. This absurd law was abolished only in 1961; […] but had nonetheless caused anxiety to thousands of emigrants, had weakened their position with employers and landlords, and had placed them in an unjustified condition of illegality” [ii];
  3. the individual considered only as labourer; linking the residency permit to a working contract (“residency contract”) denies the human being as a whole. The immigrant is not seen as a person, but simply as a non-EU worker, thus forgetting all about integration and only replying to a parameter of profit and occupational convenience.

The places to meet, dialogue, exchange, and mediate don’t exist naturally, but have to be conquered, created, instituted, protected, used and managed. These are paths that must be willingly and intentionally created. It’s the political dimension of cultural mediation.

The previous by-laws on immigration, law n. 40 of March 6th, 1998 (better known as the Turco-Napolitano Act), though it had limits and some controversial aspects, introduced some significant innovations, starting from its title “Disciplina dell’immigrazione e norme sulla condizione dello straniero” (On the subject of immigration and rules for the condition of the foreigner). The innovations were:

- it no longer mentioned, as did all previous laws, the “urgency” for rules on immigration, as if to acknowledge for good that immigration in our country was no longer a transitional occurrence;

- it didn’t refer exclusively to the working aspect of the immigrant, talking for the first time of the “condition of the foreigner”, underlining the fact that the presence of immigrants within our society is something to be faced, connected to a series of interlinked aspects ranging from the urgency of a home and a job to health assistance, the chance to gain access to services, within a route that should lead to the acquisition of full citizenship;

- one of its articles (n. 36, Istruzione degli stranieri. Educazione interculturale – Education for foreigners. Intercultural tutoring) was the first ever where a state law introduced the concept of intercultural tutoring, and mentioned cultural mediators twice (in art. 36 and art. 40 Misure di integrazione sociale – Social integration measures) though it never mentioned their training and qualification.

1.2 The cultural communication level

A second level is that of mediation in its widest form, which is sometimes unintentional, but occurs nevertheless. This stage could be defined as the level of cultural communication. Just think of the role played in this case by the media, politics, political parties, the Church, the family, Trade Unions, institutional policies, associations, artistic expression (music, literature, cinema, figurative arts). Take for example the artistic vanguards of the early 20th Century (think of Picasso and his relationship with what was then called “negro” art, or the relationship Gauguin had with Polynesia, etc.), or jazz, the intercultural music genre par excellence. They are all fields, spaces, areas, where a sort of communication, contact, mediation occurs. The issue is to use these vast territories in an intercultural sense. Take cinema and television. It’s not just any example. According to data presented at the last edition of Turin’s Salone Internazionale del Libro, Italy is the European country that has the lowest levels of reading: 6 Italians out of 10 don’t read books, 61% of the population spends a whole year without having read a single book[iii]. But this part of the population shapes its opinions on a daily process of “ongoing natural permanent education” [iv]. This expression, devised by Filippo Maria De Sanctis and Francesco Susi, wants to indicate that the “social contexts” of life and work, the places where living takes place, the neighbourhoods and the roads one inhabits, people we see, all continuously shape our being, in that they persuade us to certain values, induce us to certain behaviours[v]. So this important and significant part of the Italian population moulds itself “mostly on entertainment programmes (films, soap operas, quiz shows and the like). Television plays a substantial pedagogic action, mostly through escapist programmes that funnel the masses into values, behaviour models and interpretative paradigms of reality” [vi]. This kind of learning happens “naturally”, without the subject having the tools that would enable him to decode cinema and television language. The syllabi of Italian elementary schools include an analysis of image representations, though, except for rare workshops, next to nothing is done to make people literate in cinema and television language. This kind of literacy would enable people to read, interpret, disassemble and reassemble the language and the messages that educate, persuade and shape us daily.

The relationship between immigration and the media needs to be analysed separately. The image given of immigrants by the mass media is that of a battalion of thugs. Non-EU people are always depicted by the media as criminals, and they are always linked to some tragedy. A passage from the novel The Sacred Night by Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun is very striking: “The press often talked of that tragedy choosing unfortunate words. It mixed up everything: Islam, the father’s folly, the uncle’s crime, Algeria, immigration, delinquency, the tolerance threshold and much more besides. My father was right when he pointed out that people only spoke about us when there were tragedies. There has to be a racist crime, a brawl in a café between rival gangs made up by pure-breed French and North Africans alike. There has to be a tragedy like the suicide of a young girl or the death of a girl from Mali following her excision; there has to be a robbery at a petrol station or the random checking of documents that ends up with a bullet in an Arab’s back, for us to become interesting, worth of the attention of TV and media. A quiet life, the happiness of life, its peace, aren’t a story. There’s no need to marshal television troops around just to proclaim to the whole country that the Bleaìds are fine, the father works normally, the mother takes perfect care of the children, drugs cross the road when they meet this family, the girls are emancipated, the boys go to school and everything, meaning everything, is fine” [vii].

To confirm the above, be it sufficient to remember the Novi Ligure tragedy: the newspapers and TV immediately pointed to a gang of Eastern Europeans as the perpetrators of the massacre, but were soon proved wrong[viii].

Literature is an extraordinary area of cultural and intercultural communication. Contaminations, exchanges, loans, make up its deepest essence. The stimuli towards mediation are endless. We can take, just to make some examples, Tahar Ben Jelloun, and re-read some of his novels in this key[ix] (The Sacred Night and With Downcast Eyes), or do the opposite and start from Italian literature. The examples on offer, even by very famous authors, are many: Edmondo De Amicis, known chiefly for his novel Cuore, in his novel Sull’oceano (1889) talks about Italian emigration to Argentina in the 1880s; in a chapter of Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli (1945), Carlo Levi describes the emigration to the United States of people from the region of Basilicata during the Fascist regime; in two of his short novels[x], Leonardo Sciascia deals with Sicilian emigration to Switzerland and Germany (L’esame) and to the United States (Il lungo viaggio).

Still in the literary field, mention must be made of that extraordinary area made up of scholars of “Italian migration literature” [xi], a range of texts published directly in Italian by foreign writers that have been living in Italy for a significant number of years. It now boasts a wide list of titles, and it is moving from diaries, testimonies and life stories to effective “literature”. In the works of these writers, the theme of duplicity, of being caught in the middle, of “mediation”, is very strong, taking both implicit and more explicit forms, and is enriching, rather than a loss. In his poem Prison, Cameroonian poet Ndjock Ngana, known in Italy as Teodoro, well expresses the need to be open to dialogue, in order to avoid being imprisoned into a frozen identity[xii].

1.3 The educational and intercultural mediation level

A third level is that of intercultural mediation. In this case, the spaces to intervene are even wider, in the sense that it’s possible to intervene more directly and quickly in the reality where the encounter and the communication are taking place. The greatest efforts, in terms of investments in training, should be made in this area. Every person working in social services, health services in social and educational institutes, in jails, in police stations etc., should be given intercultural training and be endowed with intercultural awareness.

Even in the history of Italy there are many examples of this kind of intercultural mediation. In drawing from our migratory past, we can cite the work psychiatrists Michele Risso and Wolfgang Böker carried out with Italian emigrants to Switzerland. The two psychiatrists were working in Bern during the ‘60s, and in the first stages of their work, found it difficult to give coherent answers to patients coming from Southern Italy who asked them for help. The uneasiness of Italian emigrants, their “illness”, was basically cultural (the “leap” to Switzerland from the regions of Suthern Italy may have been too great). Finding themselves unable to solve problems and discomforts of Italian workers in Switzerland using traditional psychiatric tools, Risso and Böker studied the works of Ernesto De Martino (Il mondo magico, Sud e magia) to try and penetrate the cultural universe their patients referred to and had in their heads. This way their work proved efficient and positive, and allowed them to obtain good therapeutic results. Their experience is told in the book Sortilegio e delirio. Psicopatologia delle migrazioni in prospettiva transculturale[xiii] (published in Switzerland in 1964 and only translated into Italian in 1992), which is one of the first works of ethnopsychiatry. The two psychiatrists clearly carried out a “mediation”, which should be the main feature of all inhabitants of modern multicultural societies, in whatever scope of action anyone operates.

Where school is concerned, teachers are already mediators between knowledge and students, but they need to be made aware of this. It is an educational and pedagogic mediation that occurs even through the school syllabi, the school text books. In this instance, the school has a key role, in that it is forced to question itself, and rethink its fundamentally ethnocentric cognitive axis. The whole school should be a place of cultural mediation (teachers, parents, pupils, territory) through its places (the classrooms, the gym, the canteen, the library, etc.) and its times (time management, lesson hours, open staffroom hours, etc.).

All this implies:

- reshaping traditional knowledge taught by the school using an intercultural key, meaning going from subjects’ intercultural pedagogy to their intercultural didactics: a review of teaching programmes (eg. teaching the discovery/conquest of America, the Crusades seen by Amin Maalouf’s Arabs, teaching geography using Peters world map, etc.); didactics is an intercultural mediation place of infinite potential. Just think of the space offered to “mediation” by fields like language and literature (migrations in literature; the input, the loans and the influences of other cultures on the Italian one; the representation of the “other” in literature, etc.), history (the discovery/conquest of America, and therefore of the “other”; the Crusades seen by the Arabs[xiv]), geography (Arno Peters map gives a representation of the world that is very different from the traditional one), art (as a territory where to meet and make exchanges), music (which is a natural field for intercultural communication: jazz, blues, world music), religion (in a perspetive of interreligious dialogue), mathematical and medical knowledge, linguistic loans, the transmission and preservation of Greek philosophy by Arab intellectuals;

- a critical analysis of school text books, which are often full of stereotypes and endorse a Euro- and ethnocentric vision (an interesting but dated example of this is Interculturalismo e immagine del mondo non occidentale nei libri di testo della scuola dell’obbligo, a book coordinated by Paola Falteri on behalf of the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Education and published by BDP in 1994; on the same lines is the work carried out more recently by Agostino Portera: A. Portera, L’educazione interculturale nella teoria e nella pratica. Stereotipi, pregiudizi e pedagogia interculturale nei libri di testo della scuola elementare, CEDAM, Padua 2000);

- strong investments in teachers’ intercultural training, to give them the ability and, most of all, those notions (anthropologic, pedagogic, linguistic, psychologic, etc.) which today can’t be done without. It’s sad to say, but we know very little of great and thousand-year-old cultures like the Indian or the Chinese one, like we know very little of important religions like the Muslim one or the Hebrew one, even though the Hebrew community of Rome is thousands of years old.

1.4 The cultural-linguistic mediation level

A fourth level of mediation is represented by cultural-linguistic mediation as such[xv]. Discussion on this subject is wide and complex. Obviously, cultural-linguistic mediation represents something quite different from translation and interpreting.

It’s important to remind and underline how, at least in this moment in time in our country, cultural-linguistic mediators must be mostly, though not exclusively, foreign. Having lived themselves the experience of migration, they can better carry out their job. However, being foreign can be a necessary but insufficient condition to be a cultural mediator: there must have been specific professional training. This position, though, if carried to its extreme, could run the risk of making the cultural-linguistic mediator a sort of ethnic profession.

Another risk, which in some cases has already appeared, is that of making mediators become technicians of interculture, devolving them the “foreigners issue”, and depriving of responsibility Italian workers and institutions that should represent the party in the ralationship on which it is necessary to make the greatest investments, creating and activating “intercultural skills” for all.

However, there are other risks, like that of relegating the mediator to a role of executive interpreter of technical tasks and orders of scarce importance and value. In this case, the mediator’s huge potential would be inhibited.

Nevertheless, there is one consideration that regards the pivot of the mediator’s work. The mediator, as an individual that carries out a task centered on a human relationship, should become aware that he is somehow a pedagogic operator. So he should acquire pedagogic skills, good communicative skills, excellent abilities in creating and managing relationships.

Furthermore, being a cultural mediator should mean carrying out an intellectual/cultural profession, and a mediator should therefore possess considerable knowledge on what goes under the heading of “human sciences” (anthropology, sociology, pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, etc.).

There is a raging debate on training schools. Should a mediator’s training be at university level, below university level, regional, or what? All these options have pros and cons. The best training career could be that of IFTS (Formazione Integrata Superiore – Secondary Integrated Training) because this option would allow to capitalize on the experience of training schools that have been working in this field for years, without giving up the university part of the education.

However, in whichever form or shape, training for mediators should focus mainly on giving them, besides the necessary technical and specific skills, those skills that have come to be known as cross-skills (independence, responsibility, creativity, management of communication and relationships), all typical things in the tasks of cultural mediation.

1.4.1 The place of the mediator in schools

What is the mediator’s place in schools?

Several researches carried out in schools allow us to outline roles and functions of mediation inside schools.

According to Graziella Favaro, the act of mediation occupies different levels.

The mediator:

- first of all «welcomes, “tutors” and facilitates children and new arrivals. He reassures them, he makes their emotions, fears and moods surface; he guides them inside the school and this new environment with its explicit and implicit rules; he eases the stages of a first introduction;

- he is a mediator between the child and the teachers; he supplies the latter with information on the school in the country of origin, on the skills, the educational and personal history of each child; he retraces linguistic biographies; he brings to light possible problems between Italian and foreign children;

- he mediates, interprets and translates (notices, messages, oral and written documents) for the families and, where necessary, is present during talks between teachers and foreign parents;

- he cooperates in projects of intercultural education carried out in various classrooms, that entail getting to know and enhancing various countries, cultures and languages;

- in some cases, if he has specific teaching skills and has been a teacher in his own country, the mediator can run learning workshop for the oral and written language of origin (L1), for children and young people that apply for it during additional courses outside school hours»[xvi].

In short, cultural mediators are not “experts or technicians of intercultural education” to whom one can devolve issues on interculture and integration of foreign children, just as intercultural education, as stated by Francesco Susi, is not a new subject to be taught in schools, but an «intentional educational project that touches all subjects being taught in schools, and that wants to change the perceptions and the cognitive robes that generally depict both foreigners and the new world of interdependence»[xvii].

A mediator can’t be expected to fulfill all those tasks that mediation would ask of him. Everyone, in school, must take up their own share of mediation. All parties involved in the educational process have a duty to be mediators themselves, just as the notions that schools convey and are expressed through the school rules, its syllabi, its notices and, most importantly, education funds, must be tools of mediation.

In the case of school, mediation is a task it has to be in charge of, since it must consciously and intentionally become a place of cultural mediation, involving all its components in the process. The whole of the school staff, teachers first, Italian and foreign students, Italian and foreign parents and the “territory” where the school resides, must all actively become participants in the relationship between the differences at play. In this sense, school must be thought of as a “place of mediation”, where “mediators” are not only professionals singled out by laws on immigration. Teachers, students and parents are natural mediators for their mutual actions/interactions, and the cultural mediator is a simple additional resource to handle intercultural relations in the best possible way. Without active involvement of the whole school, and without the support of the territory, the role of cultural mediator lacks any sense, and integration of foreign students risks being a failure.

2. Mediation and mediators in Italy: a national research on cultural mediation[xviii]

The survey Mediazione e mediatori in Italia (mediation and mediators in Italy) was conducted by CREIFOS (Centro di ricerca sull’Educazione Interculturale e sulla Formazione allo Sviluppo) of the Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione, Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione of the Università degli Studi Roma Tre and promoted by CIES (Centro Informazione e Educazione allo Sviluppo) and was carried out between the years 2004-2006 with the direct involvement of mediators, giving a description of the cultural-linguistic mediators’ profession, role, functions, features and needs.

2.1. A quantitative survey

A quantitative survey has enabled us to collect a great nuber of cognitive elements (covering over 200 variables) on a possible sample of cultural-linguistic mediators.

It was a complex and laborious research both for the quantity of parties interviewed and for the number of variables taken into account. It wanted to give a help define some of the fields of cultural-linguistic mediation that have not yet been sufficiently studied.

The information gathered wanted to give researchers, scholars, operators and political decision-makers the chance to:

- retrace the mediators’ migratory path and the features of social integration, their expectations and projects of life;

- describe the mediators’ role, the activities carried out in mediation and their training experience both in the country of origin and in Italy;

- gain useful information to define the various and complex training needs of cultural mediators.

Using a protocol shared with the partners of the Equal project, an express survey tool was used for the field survey.

This structured questionnaire (with 66 questions and 209 variables) is based on closed questions, which involve optional answers, hierarchic arrangements and multiple choice, and on open questions, to allow for greater freedom in expressing evaluations and opinions.

The questionnaire was given to a sample of 249 cultural-linguistic mediators, chosen by random criteria of statistical representation, according to a sample grid that took into account a preliminary estimate of numeric solidity and the socio-personal data features of cultural mediators in Italy.

2.2 The qualitative survey

The qualitative approach – specially techniques like a semi-structured interview and focus groups – was chosen because it was impossible not to refer to the life and working experience of the cultural-linguistic mediators.

Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were carried out to make an in-depth study of problem issues, to observe the training activities during courses for monitored cultural mediators and pinpoint the elements on which to structure future training courses.

Fig. 1. Mediators interviewed in relation to the stages of the training career

Through the qualitative survey, that was carried out before the quantitative one, it was possible to identify the interviewees’ problem situations and significant experiences.

In most cases, the information collected through interviews was confirmed by the results obtained by a sampling survey. In any case, it contributed to a more exact formulation of the questions on the questionnaire and helped to direct the interpretation of the quantitative data.

In total 56 people were interviewed: besides the mediators involved in the observed training path and their tutors, there were also Italian mediators, school and penitentiary operators, representatives of institutions, and managers and partners of the Equal project.

2.3. The survey’s main findings

The survey has highlighted some aspects of the cultural-linguistic mediators’ universe that are still little known, for example the fact that they are mainly women (74%), they have university education (42%) and past experiences in services (92%), mainly in education (41% of services).

Qualifications Recurrence Percentage Applicable percentage
Infant school 1 ,4 ,4
Junior school 3 1,2 1,2
Secondary school (specialist schools) 12 4,8 4,9
Secondary school (BTEC) 12 4,8 4,9
Sixth form 51 20,5 20,7
Non-university higher education 29 11,6 11,8
University degree 103 41,4 41,9
Post-graduate degree 33 13,3 13,4
Unable to be compared to an Italian certificate 2 ,8 ,8
Total 246 98,8 100,0
Lost 3 1,2
Totale 249 100,0

Table 1. Qualifications obtained by mediators

It is also to be highlighted that the main activity in the field of mediation is educational (in 49% of cases) and that this profession is unstable (in 89% of cases), since it is slotted into short-term services.

The mediation work you carry out is Recurrence Percentage Applicable percentage
Permanent 26 10,4 11,2
Short-term / project-based / sent for expressly 207 83,1 88,8
Total 233 93,6 100,0
Lost 16 6,4
Total 249 100,0

Table 2. Type of work

The qualitative survey in particular makes two things stand out: on one hand the precariousness of this profession, and the resulting difficulty in carrying out the job of mediator as a main source of livelihood, and on the other the scarce acknowledgement of the role of the mediator, specially on the part of Italian operators.

Education is the main field of mediation activity (with 49% of cases), and it is interesting to note that other two main fields stand out with a negligible difference in percentage; 45% of mediators interviewed work in health, whilst 40% work in social services.

Mediation fields Percentage on
Recurrence Answers Cases
Health (hospitals, surgeries, consultino centres, etc.) 112 16,5 45,3
Social services 100 14,7 40,5
Education (school, etc.) 122 18 49,4
Public administration (offices) 83 12,2 33,6
First reception 67 9,9 27,1
Law enforcement (police stations, etc.) 66 9,7 26,7
Court 43 6,3 17,4
Penitentiary (jail) 28 4,1 11,3
Organization of cultural events and intercultural activities 45 6,6 18,2
Corporate 9 1,3 3,6
Other 3 0,4 1,2
Total 678 100 274,5
2 lost cases; 247 applicable cases

Table 3. Fields of mediation services

Most interviewees stated that the chance to work in their particular field of mediation arose after taking a training course (44%). In choosing between the various possible fields of activity, over 18% of mediators referred to their previously acquired skills/notions, that were thus enhanced and capitalized on. When asked why they chose their field of mediation, 13% of interviewees answered that they had personal reasons to work in that specific field. For a significant percentage of interviewees, the choice to operate in a specific mediation field was due to accidental factors: 22% of mediators stated that their choice was independent from influencing elements.

The choice of the professional field of mediation Recurrence Percentage Applicable percentage
was accidental 55 22,1 22,5
occurred after taking a training course 110 44,2 45,1
was linked to previously acquired skills/notions 45 18,1 18,4
was influenced by personal reasons to work in that field 33 13,3 13,5
Other 1 ,4 ,4
Total 244 98,0 100,0
Lost 5 2,0
Total 249 100,0

Table 4. Professional choice of the field of mediation

In 89% of cases, the mediator is a precarious professional role, a co-worker in the various forms of the so-called “free lance” work. The percentage of employed and self-employed workers are both around 5%.

Mediator types of employment Recurrence Percentage Applicable percentage
Employed (with a salary) 12 4,8 5,2
Co-worker (renewable contract, project, self-employed) 207 83,1 88,8
Self-employed professional (having VAT) 11 4,4 4,7
Other 3 1,2 1,3
Total 233 93,6 100,0
Lost 16 6,4
Total 249 100,0

Table 5. Types of employment of mediators

The research has then enabled us to investigate two specific fields of cultural-linguistic mediation: the social educational field and the penitentiary one. They both highlighted features, critical aspects and possible innovations for this profession.

The survey has shown that the cultural-linguistic mediation service is, in many schools, a tool to promote and encourage a project of intercultural education.

In this sense, the action of the cultural-linguistic mediator accompanies that of teachers within an intentional project, with the objective to help the relationship between the school and its foreign students, promote educational actions to get to know and come into contact with other cultures.

The research has shown that the actions of mediators must be accompanied by the teachers’: that is because the mediation demand is not generic, but connected to precise needs and spcific contexts of school life. The actions must therefore be customized and must entail a very close cooperation between mediators and teachers.

Compared to other sectors, the work of the mediator within the school seems to be characterized by the many roles he has to cover (school staff training, school staff support, technical support, students’ language tutoring, interecultural didactics, help in finding a way around the territory) and an extreme diversity of recepients (Italian and foreign students, Italian and foreign parents, teachers and other school staff).

From the interviews there emerged some problems relating to the scarcity of financial resources to allocate to these activities, which translates in the impossibility to carry out appropriate educational projects.

Mediation in schools should be seen as a tool of pedagogic innovation, given an intercultural outlook, since – as the research has shown – it triggers several change processes within the school.

The research has also described some specific aspects of the mediation service inside prisons. In these last years, penitentiaries have activated various initiatives and strategies to acknowledge the specific condition and issues of foreign convicts. Specific training courses, activated also for penitentiary police living in close contact with the convicts on themes of intercultural education and cultural-linguistic mediation, and participation to EU projects on the integration of foreign citizens, signal an opening towards a reality that poses specific issues and problems.

However, mediation isnt’t always characterized by systematic and methodical actions.

In many occasions a regulation of the role of mediator has been called for, but in the penitentiary field there still isn’t a mediation model shared and taken as legitimate for every instance. Nonetheless, experimentation of mediation services in various penitentiaries has made it possible to define some tendencies: a double model, traced horizontally for all that concerns the course the convict completes within a penitentiary, and traced vertically for the various fields and sectors where the convict is detained during his detention.

The action of mediation inside a penitentiary is connected to a series of problems that are specific to the double condition of migrant and convict of detained foreigners.

The difficulties are mainly due to the particular features of foreign individuals, that are more vulnerable compared to other detainees. Not speaking Italian, not being able to communicate and not understanding the penitentiary’s rules, increases their isolation.

Cultural-linguistic mediation would therefore be a useful tool to simplify the relationship between convicts and staff, or amongst convicts, an efficient strategy to get to know the needs of individuals coming from different backgrounds, the chance for foreign convicts to navigate a place that has rules and rights.

2.4. The training of cultural mediators

The problem of how to train adults, which devices to use in order to meet the implicit and explicit needs of individuals with a specific cultural and formative story made of educational experiences and learning acquired through life and work, must contemplate the meaning of an intentional formative career of education for adults. Furthermore, the cultural-linguistic mediators that would go into training are mostly immigrant adults rich in past experience and high education levels that no training offer can ignore, or worse still, mortify.

“Experience is a lamp we keep behind us”, states a Chinese proverb on learning through experience: a lamp that accompanies us, gives us light, but keeps us within its dead zone.

If we agree that people learn (or are taught) continuously throughout their lives, this obviously happens not only in school or other formative institutes, but also (and we could argue, most of all) through “life”, meaning the experiences that come before, during and after school. To think of education and upbringing only in terms of school is limiting. In this case there is a merely school-centric approach to the formation of the indvidual. The same could happen for continuous or permanent training, which today seems a priority (though sometimes only on paper) for all policies dealing with development and change. Permanent training including only the creation and activation of “courses” doesn’t make a lot of sense. The difference lies in acknowledging the existance of “paths” that include a variety of learning occasions, with the subsequent enhancement of the experience previously made by the individual.

Notions, skills, abilities and talents can be learnt both through intentional training and “natural training” (informal and non formal training: life experiences, working experiences, etc.)[xix].

Amongst others, the research also wanted to investigate the issue of training of cultural mediators. How should the training of cultural mediators be organized? Which are the best contents and didactics?

Many interviewees have expressed the need to give the mediator general, solid and wide-ranging training in human sciences (sociology, psychology, pedagogy, anthropology, etc.), even though the mediator is often asked to achieve the impossible, both in terms of roles and in terms of skills. However, human sciences are considered an essential part of a mediator’s knowledge. Nearly all interviewees (trainees and professionals, social workers, teachers and school managers, mediation agencies’ managers) agree on this.

To work as a mediator entails reviewing critically one’s own knowledge, and to undergo a true “intercultural revision”. It’s not only about being familiar with human sciences, but also being individually ready to question one’s own vision of the world, without giving up one’s essence.

Working mediators who have taken part in various formative paths have given interesting suggestions when thinking about their experience. Some express the need for general or mainly theoretical training, whilst some feel the need for more accurate and contextualized training. The need for theory actually seems to express a deeply felt need to find protocols and paradigms to better “place” one’s job and to be “thoughful professionals”[xx].

The issue of skills is another important line of thought in planning training paths for cultural mediators. Many stress the need to acquire basic skills, technial and professinal skills and cross-skills[xxi].

Have you attended a training course for mediators? Recurrence Percentage Applicable percentage
No 32 12,9 13,0
Si 104 41,8 42,3
Yes, more than one 110 44,2 44,7
Total 246 98,8 100,0
Lost 3 1,2
Total 249 100,0

Table 6. Attendance of courses for mediators

After basic training, common to all mediators, it would seem important to set out specialized training courses. Working in health is not the same as working in education. Specific knowledge for that particular context must be acquired.

The results of the quantitative survey show that the notions mediators appreciate most and deem most useful for their profession are psychological-relational and juridical-prescriptive. In giving an evaluation of the most useful contents for their mediation activity on the basis of their professional experience, mediators that have previously had training give great importance to those notions relating to psychological-relational subjects (46% of cases), communicative-linguistic subjects (40% of cases) and juridical-prescriptive subjects (39% of cases). A quarter of trained mediators considers social-anthropologic contents useful, as those connected to administrative-procedural aspects of services. Pedagogy, medical-clinical subjects and historical-economic subjects are on markedly lower figures, being deemd less essential.

Contents useful to mediation Percentage of
Recurrence Answers Cases
Social-anthropological 50 11,8 23,5
Psycohologic-relational 98 23,2 46
Administrative-procedural for services 48 11,3 22,5
Comunicative-linguistic 86 20,3 40,4
Pedagogic-educational 30 7,1 14,1
Historical-economic 9 2,1 4,2
Juridical-prescriptive 83 19,6 39
Medical-clinical 17 4 8
Other 2 0,5 0,9
Total answers 423 100 198,6
36 lost cases; 213 applicable cases

Table 7. Contents useful to mediation

However, such a sensitive profession, like all educational and social professions, needs field training (traineeships, internships, team training). A job is learnt by doing it, through experience. However, experience in itself is not always formative. There is the question of the “quality of experience”[xxii], meaning the ability to think about what one is doing.

A formative method that should be instated in all formative paths for cultural mediators is that on the job. Team training should involve the presence on the same job for a certain period of time of two people, one expert and the other in training. This method would have the advantage of being in context, hinged on real and daily working problems.

The comprehensive analysis of the answers given to the questionnaire on the usefulness of the training course previously taken shows that traineeships (60% of cases), theory (42% of cases) and meetings with other mediators (39% of cases) are considered the best and most efficient methods of mediator training. Learning deemed most useful, therefore, is based on actual experience integrated by theoretical-conceptual notions that considered essential for the mediating activity, reached and shared through exchange of experience and considerations made together with experts and professionals.

Usefulness of the course attended Percentage of
Recurrence Answers Cases
Theory 89 21,1 41,8
Traineeships 127 30,2 59,6
Supervision 24 5,7 11,3
Meeting with other mediators 84 20 39,4
Reading texts on the subject of mediation 27 6,4 12,7
Practical exercises (role playng, etc.) 58 13,8 27,2
Translation techniques 10 2,4 4,7
Other 2 0,5 0,9
Total answers 421 100 197,7
36 lost cases; 213 applicable cases

Table 8. Usefulness of the course attended

A very important issue is who should be training mediators, whether universities, regions, professional training schools, associations, NGOs, etc. Many think that mediators should have a higher education qualification, but this would pose the problem of the possibility how foreigners could access this profession (through possession of admission certificates).

From the results of the survey by questionnaire, it emerged that in three quarter of cases, training of mediators had been organized by bodies, associations and NGOs dealing with immigration. In 20% of cases, the organizers were Townships and Provinces (12%) and Regions (8%). Only a very small percentage (4% of cases) of courses for mediators was organized by universities and/or IFTS (Istruzione Formazione Tecnica Superiore – a council for technical qualifications).

The most significant cultural-linguistic mediation training experience was organized by Frequenza Percentuale Percentuale valida
Associations, bodies and NGOs dealing with immigration 157 63,1 75,1
Townships and Provinces 26 10,4 12,4
Regions 17 6,8 8,1
Universities 6 2,4 2,9
ifts (istruzione formazione tecnica superiore) 3 1,2 1,4
Total 209 83,9 100,0
Lost 40 16,1
Total 249 100,0

Table 9. Organizaton of courses for mediators

Mediators were asked which bodies should be organizing training courses for them. According to 29% of interviewees their training should be organized by bodies, associations and NGOs dealing with immigration. This datum expresses an acknowledgement of the formative skills of those parties that, dealing directly with immigration, have reached important considerations, anchored to in-depth knowledge of the migratory phenomenon and operative and management skills thanks to their involvement in direct actions adressed to migrants. However, a higher education qualification from a university is preferred in 26% of cases; because of a greater enphasis on theory and cultural learning of mediation, the training imparted by universities is seen as being more prestigious and highly thought-of. Finally, 20% of the mediators interviewed would prefer a regional training that could provide more professionality.

The ways in which training is provided are also very important because the mediators in training are first of all adults.

The results of the survey by questionnaire show that, for mediators, team work is the aspect of didactics and method that is considered most important when training specifically in mediation (98%), whilst ex cathedra teaching (90%) and self-learning (81%) get a lower rating. Preference for learning experiences within a real context is shown by a 97% rating registered by traineeships and internships and 91% rating for learning from activites of planning actions or services. In planning and setting up future formative activities, interviewees deem vital for training to be centred on the user, in that they involve specific guidance activities (95%), an evaluation of the course by the users (93%) and follow-up activities (91%).

However, initial training is thought insufficient. Besides a substantial initial training investment, it would be necessary to go back into training. Continuous training enables to think over what one is doing, how one is working, and it makes it possible to “think while acting”[xxiii].

The findings of the survey by questionnaire clearly state that, in case of possible refresher courses, the contents thought most interesting veer on subjects connected to legislation (very interesting 44%; quite interesting 46%), networking (very interesting 44%; quite interesting 43%) and update of skills and specific professional contents (very interesting 39%; quite interesting 46%). If we consider the ratings expressed for the contents of a possible training course, we could outline three main subject areas: management techniques; techniques of linguistic communication, interpreting and use of IT; and techniques of organization, evaluation and communication with the public.

The issue of the mediator’s code of conduct is an important element of the training process. The mediator must be neutral, must keep confidentiality, and translate most accurately without omissions nor additions. He has a very sensitive role to play. His training should therefore insist on these aspects.

The findings of the survey by questionnaire give useful information to identify the problems and the limits of the mediators’ training experiences that have taken place in Italy up to today. According to the interviewees that have taken part in training activities for mediation, the most critical aspects revolve mainly around three closely linked problem aspects.

One area concerns the absence of relevance between training contents and professional contents (lack of relevance between training and real-life problems at work: 54%, and lack of continuity between theory and practice: 47%); in short, training doesn’t address the real needs of the mediator when faced with real problems on the job.

Lack of continuity between theory and practice is also confirmed in another area, that seems linked to the excessive importance given to acquisition of theoretical-conceptual notions compared to practical and functional skills. Training is seen as being too theoretical, too distant from real-life situations at work and in life (scarcity of practical activities: 47% and too many hours of theory: 31%).

A third problem area directly concerns the organization method of training activities for mediators, and is lack of attention to the training expectations of students (36% of cases). It is a criticism “typical” for any training activity that, though addressed to adults, neglects their needs, their requests and peculiarities.

On the basis of the findings of the research, and following our considerations, it would be useful to outline some guide-lines for any possible future training of cultural mediators.

Pedagogy by objectives should be adopted when training adults. This method has the advantage of making the objectives clear to the students, who can then truly assess whether these are being reached throughout the course, and can continuously remind them to their trainers.

In pedagogy by objectives, social and emotional objectives are important, not only cognitive ones. Great attention has to be given to the relational aspects of group life. Adults often show a strong commitment to study not just because of personal determination, but also because of their relationship to the group. The objective of actual acquisition of notions and that of a satisfying experience of relationships go together.

In this light, the objective of autonomy is essential. That is why pedagogy by choice and by contract are adopted. They guarantee training starting from an objective and a programme jointly agreed upon by students and trainers. This has various consequences:

a) the starting point is the problems experienced by the mediators in life and at work, in the environment they live and work in, as they perceive them. This avoids exclusions and drop-outs, and guarantees sufficient motiviation;

b) pedagogy by contract resembles the method of research. The students try, in a group, to define the object of their training (what they want to study), while the trainers suggest analysis techniques and methods. Just as in a research, to define the formative plan one must start from one’s problems, give voice to one’s worries and opinions, compare situations; one must identify deficiencies and incompetences, make hypothesis, arrange means, plan work (time and resources). Like in research, the definition of the objective is progressive (but the effort in shaping this definition is in itself a learning programme). In practice, one acquires the attitude of a researcher: problems are not “natural”, nor fatal; they can be studied and controlled;

c) a contract freely entered into binds all, and gives each one (trainers and students) fixed roles which are functional to the common project, and thus accepted and “called for”;

d) that the objectives chosen by the group are a support to the acquisition of basic notions and skills:

  • the skill to express oneself, understand others and act alone (means to autonomy);
  • the skill to find one’s place inside the group;
  • the skill to be able to relate dynamically with the sorrounding environment.

This allows individuals to develop further individual training processes on the basis of the development of their ability of expression, thought, systematic analysis, knowledge of the environment and factors that could have an influence on personal problems and problems in the place of work.

In conclusion, the research highlights the relevance of cultural-linguistic mediation as a means to promote rights and as a stimulus to reorganize and renew services. To avoid a double-speed society, with two types of citizens, a higher and a lower one, we must find efficient strategies to fight social exclusion. In this sense, cultural mediation seems an essential tool to turn rights into reality.


Massimiliano Fiorucci is an Associate Professor at the Dipartimento di Studi dei Processi Formativi, Culturali e Interculturali nella Società Contemporanea, Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione dell’Università degli Studi Roma Tre where he teaches Social and intercultural pedagogy and where he cooperates to educational and research activities by CREIFOS (Centro di Ricerca sull’Educazione Interculturale e sulla Formazione allo Sviluppo). At the same University he is the coordinator of the Pedagogy section of the post-graduate institute for “Pedagogy and Social Services”. He is Secretary of the Società Italiana di Pedagogia (SIPED) since 2006. His interest in research focuses mainly on intercultural pedagogy, specially for the subject of cultural mediation, even referring to migrant literature. He also deals in education and training of adults, training needs analysis, training quality, and training for organizations. He has written many essays, articles and books, such as: La mediazione culturale. Strategie per l’incontro, Armando, Rome 2000; (edited by), Incontri. Spazi e luoghi della mediazione interculturale, Armando, Rome 2004; with F. Susi (edited by), Mediazione e mediatori in Italia. La mediazione linguistico-culturale per l’inserimento socio-lavorativo dei migranti, Anicia, Rome 2004; with S. Bonetti (edited by), Uomini senza qualità. La formazione dei lavoratori immigrati dalla negazione al riconoscimento, Guerini, Milan 2006; (edited by), Dossier La mediazione interculturale e le sue forme: contesti, esperienze e proposte, in “Studi Emigrazione”, quarterly magazine of the Centro Studi Emigrazione di Roma, n. 165, year XLIV, March 2007, pp. 61-168; with W. Bonapace (edited by), Immigrazione: dinamiche di integrazione e percorsi di inserimento in Valle d’Aosta, Istituto Regionale di Ricerca della Valle d’Aosta, Aosta 2007; (edited by), Una scuola per tutti. Idee e proposte per una didattica interculturale delle discipline, Franco Angeli, Milan 2008; wih M. Catarci and D. Santarone, Per una didattica interculturale, Università degli Studi Roma Tre – Anicia, Rome 2009; with M. Catarci and D. Santarone (edited by), In forma mediata. Saggi sulla mediazione interculturale, Unicopli, Milan 2009; with F. Abbate and M. Catarci (edited by), Rifugiati. Oltre l’accoglienza, Editori Riuniti University Press, Rome 2010.

[i] Just as an example, take the issues of fingerprints and the conditions of the Italian Temporary Permanence Centres (Cpt). Cpts, created by the Turco-Napolitano Act and kept alive and strengthened in their repressive function by the Bossi-Fini Act, are de facto “concentration camps” where all rights are put on hold. On the subject see Medici Senza Frontiere, Rapporto sui Centri di permanenza temporanea e Assistenza, Rome 2004 and the report by Gatti F., Io clandestino a Lampedusa, in “L’Espresso”, n. 40, year LI, 13 October 2005, pp. 36-50.

[ii] P. Ginsborg, Storia d’Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi. Società e politica 1943-1988. II. Dal «miracolo economico» agli anni ’80, Einaudi, Turin 1989, p. 295.

[iii] This datum should be read together with those given by ISTAT (the National Institute of Statistics) on the Italians level of schooling. This data shows that 60% of the population between 25 and 64 only has a “licenza media inferiore” [roughly corresponding to British GCSEs, but taken at 13]. (ISTAT, Università e lavoro. Statistiche per orientarsi, ciclostilato, dicembre 2001, p. 4). One could talk of “modern illiteracy”.

[iv] The notion of “ongoing natural permanent education” was devised by F.M. De Sanctis. On the subject see F.M. De Sanctis, Educazione in età adulta, La Nuova Italia, Florence 1975; L’educazione degli adulti in Italia. 1848-1976, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1975 and., L’educazione permanente, La Nuova Italia, Florence 1979.

[v] The notion of “natural shaping” was studied and used by Francesco Susi. See. F. Susi, L’interculturalità possibile. L’inserimento scolastico degli stranieri, Anicia, Rome 1995, p. 29. See also F. Susi, S. Meghnagi, L’educazione permanente, Guaraldi, Florence-Rimini 1977 and F. Susi, La formazione nell’organizzazione, Anicia, Rome 1994.

[vi] R. Parascandolo, La televisione oltre la televisione, Editori Riuniti, Rome 2000, p. 130.

[vii] Unpublished translation – T. Ben Jelloun, Nadia, Bompiani, Milan 1996, pp. 62-63.

[viii] On the subject, see L. Bernardi, A sangue caldo. Criminalità, mass media e politica in Italia, DeriveApprodi, Rome 2001. The first chapter is all about the Novi Ligure case (pages 17-54). The Dutch scholar T.A. Van Dijk has turned his attention to the existence of stereotypes and prejudice in daily conversations in his book Il discorso razzista. La riproduzione del pregiudizio nei discorsi quotidiani (Rubbettino, Cosenza 1994). The author starts by acknowledging that our society has components and mechanisms that mirror and generate racism. He analyzes and highlights the many ways in which racism is reproduced in our daily conversations.

[ix] Tahar Ben Jelloun’s works are many. However, his novels The Sacred Night and With Downcast Eyes are two interesting examples because they deal with women’s migration and the problems of a relationship between natives and immigrants, which are the grounds where the “mediation area” is played.

[x] L’esame e Il lungo viaggio are in the selection Il mare colore del vino, Einaudi, Turin 1973.

[xi] See A. Gnisci, G. De Martino, L. Menna, G. Perrozzi, La letteratura italiana della migrazione: aspetti teorici e percorsi di lettura, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome 1998. See also A. Portelli, Le origini della letteratura afroitaliana e l’esempio afroamericano, in AA.VV., Globalizzazione e identità, “L’ospite ingrato”, Annuario del Centro Studi Franco Fortini, III, 2000, Quodlibet, Macerata 2001, pp. 69-86. Armando Gnisci has been amongst the first in Italy to work in this field and on the subject has published several books, amongst which are: Creoli meticci migranti clandestini e ribelli, Meltemi, Rome 1998; Creolizzare l’Europa. Letteratura e migrazione, Meltemi, Rome 2003; Via della Decolonizzazione europea, Cosmo Iannone, Isernia 2004. Reviews on “migrant literature” in Italy are scarce. However, see D. Bregola, Da qui verso casa, Edizioni Interculturali, Rome 2002; D. Bregola, Il catalogo delle voci. Colloqui con poeti migranti, Cosmo Iannone, Isernia 2005. For educational use of migrant literature, see: R. Alunni, P. De Andrea, P.P. Eramo, Scritture e linguaggi del mondo. Narrativa per l’educazione interculturale, La Nuova Italia, Florence 2001 and D. Rigallo, D. Sasso, Parole di Babele. Percorsi didattici sulla letteratura dell’immigrazione, Loescher, Turin 2002. On the other hand, literary output these last few years has grown, and can’t possibly be condensed here. However, I would like to point out a very recent anthology chosen by Italo-Somali writer Igiaba Scego titled Italiani per vocazione, Cadmo, Fiesole 2005, which includes works by Masturah Alatas, Ubax Cristina Ali Farah, Jorgi Caniga Alves, Sabatino Annecchiarico, Juan Carlos Calderòn, Bambolo Hirst, Irgy Mublay Kakese, Kossi Komla-Ebri, Jadelin Maiala Gangbo, Barbara Serdakowski, Yousef Wakkas.

[xii] «To live a single life / in a single city / in a single country / in a single universe / to live in a single world / is a prison. To love a single friend / a single father / a single mother / a single family / to love a single person / is a prison. To know a single language / a single job / a single tradition / a single civilization / to know a single logic / is a prison. To have a single body / a single thought / a single wisdom / a single essence / to have a single being / is a prison». This poem can be found in the anthology Nhindô Nero, Anterem, Rome 1994.

[xiii] The book was published in German in 1962 and was translated into Italian for the first time by the publisher Liguori of Naples.

[xiv] Amin Maalouf, a Lebanese writer migrated to France, published the book Le crociate viste dagli arabi, SEI, Turin 1989.

[xv] On the subject see cfr. M. Fiorucci, La mediazione culturale. Strategie per l’incontro, Armando, Rome 2000; G. Favaro, I mediatori linguistici e culturali nella scuola, EMI, Bologna 2001; A. Belpiede (edited by), Mediazione culturale. Esperienze e percorsi formativi, Utet, Turin 2002; M. Andolfi (edited by), La mediazione culturale. Tra l’estraneo e il familiare, FrancoAngeli, Milan 2003; G. Ceccatelli Guerrieri, Mediare culture. Nuove professioni tra comunicazione e intervento, Carocci, Rome 2003.

[xvi] G. Favaro, I mediatori linguistici e culturali nella scuola, EMI, Bologna 2001, p. 21.

[xvii] F. Susi, Prospettive interculturali, in SUSI F. (edited by), Come si è stretto il mondo, metioned above, p. 11.

[xviii] The research was conducted by Francesco Susi, coordinated by Massimiliano Fiorucci and carried out by a team made up of Anna Aluffi Pentini, Marco Catarci, Vincenzo Carbone, Massimiliano Fiorucci, Alessandra Rossi, Donatello Santarone, Maurizia Russo Spena. It was part of the project Equal “La mediazione linguistico-culturale per l’inserimento socio-lavorativo dei migranti”, IT MDL S 251, funded by the European Social Fund, and carried out by the following partnership: CIES (leading partner), CREIFOS (Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione, Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione, Università degli Studi Roma Tre), Ministry of Justice, Almaterra, Kantara, Progetto Integrazione, UCODEP, ALFOR, ACLI.

[xix] “Natural training” is what the individual acquires under forms of implicit curriculum (without anyone intentionally dealing with it or being specifically invested with the task). On the contrary, we can talk of “intentional training” every time specific means are used intentionally to achieve a teaching-learing end. See F. Susi, La formazione nell’organizzazione, Anicia, Rome 1994, pp. 52-73.

[xx] See Schön D., Il professionista riflessivo. Per una epistemologia della pratica professionale, Dedalo, Bari 1993.

[xxi] The debate on skills is complex. On the subject see Selvatici A., D’Angelo M.G. (edited by), Il bilancio di competenze, FrancoAngeli, Milan 1999; Spencer L.M., Spencer S.M., Competenza nel lavoro. Modelli per una performance superiore, FrancoAngeli, Milan 1995; ISFOL, Comportamento organizzativo e abilità trasversali, FrancoAngeli, Milan 1994; Meghnagi S., Conoscenza e competenza, Loescher, Turin 1992. Here we refer to the “classic” division, devised by ISFOL, into “basic skills”, “technical-professional skills” and “cross-skills” (independence, creativity, problem solving skills, decision taking skills, the ability to work in a team, the ability to communicate and manage relationships).

[xxii] See Dewey J., Esperienza e educazione, La Nuova Italia, Florence 1996, pp. 17-36.

[xxiii] See Schön D., above.