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Refugees’ access to psychotherapeutic care is insufficient in Germany. One factor particularly contributing to hindering their access to adequate therapeutic care is a lack of provision of language mediation. This paper aims to explore the institutional system in which the financing of language mediation in the context of the medical treatment of asylum seekers in Germany is located. It examines why the language barrier problem resulting from a lack of financing is not being solved, even though it has been well known for years as a structural problem of day-patient health care to refugees and migrants in Germany.

The financing of language mediation is analysed against the background of theories of the so-called “shunting yard”, in which public responsibilities for the assumption of costs are shifted from one level and actor to the other, thus preventing sustainable solutions being achieved. A mix of qualitative methods including the evaluation of official documents, reports and secondary literature, and of 23 expert interviews was used.

The financing of language mediation is a perfect example of the “shunting yard” phenomenon, with responsibilities being shifted between federal government, health insurance bodies and the municipalities in Germany. This paper argues that the specific financing structure in the German federal system can be viewed as a reason for the non-solution of the language barrier that hinders refugees’ access to health care.

The problem of the financing of language mediation in the context of health care has been rarely treated from a social sciences perspective. This paper contributes to addressing this gap.

The paper first, indicates the references made by Greek legal order to different kind of cultural experts. Adopting a broader sociolegal definition of cultural expertise, it also refers to “cultural mediator,” a notion which has been introduced by the European Fund for the Integration of third-country nationals which launched the first educational programs for their training in Greece. The so-called cultural mediators should facilitate communication between third-country nationals and Greek Administration, the respect of their rights and thus in long term their integration. Secondly, the chapter exposes the experiences made by Asylum Service employees and lawyers of NGOs involved in the granting or refusing asylum proceedings. It will try to show how cultural mediation for asylum seekers works in action by exploring how do lawyers and officers involved in the process of asylum granting describe it. They also give their opinion about the training prerequisites for someone to work as a mediator and they refer to some common topics why cultural experts are mostly needed. Thirdly, the chapter presents the joint arguments of Greek anthropological theory and the political theory about EU regarding the importance of the effort to understand, to respect, and to integrate the culturally and politically different refugees. Cultural expertise may help Greek State and Society in learning how to respect the principle of equality and difference. At the same time, it may serve as a venue to solidify EU as a multiethnic political community and a cosmopolitan legal order.

Arguably the most distinguishing characteristic of the current rise of foresight for dealing with the long term is the explicit mention and involvement of actors and actor networks, i.e. participation. In general, this participation dimension is considered a valuable contribution to better anticipation and anticipatory behavior. However, participation should not be seen as the solution for the conceptual and practical difficulties of anticipation. This paper seeks to argue that, although participation is a necessary requirement for foresight, it contributes a number of new problems, which one prefers to see as dilemmas (since there is no solution to these “problems”). Understanding these “ten insolvable dilemmas of participation” is the main objective of this contribution.

This article employs theories and practice dealing with participatory approaches.

Although an important dimension of foresight, participation is often trivialized. However, using participation means also having to address new challenges for which no default design answer is possible.

Futures practitioners will be aware of the consequences of incorporating a participatory dimension into a foresight exercise.

Although participation has become a key feature of many contemporary foresight activities, generic design questions are either ignored or dealt with on a case‐to‐case basis. This paper is an attempt to employ the body of theories on participation and participatory approaches in order to frame the participatory dimension in foresight.

This study aims to highlight how easy it is for immigrants to break Italian law because of the country’s inadequate cultural and linguistic mediation service. Insufficiencies in this service also have a negative impact on both the psychological and physical health of migrant prisoners. Furthermore, Italian is used in legal disputes and prison, and reference is made to Italian culture, preventing migrants from understanding their position regarding the law.

This report concerns the psychological discomfort of migrant incarcerated individuals within Italian prisons due to national laws in force. Consideration is also given to the negative impact on the physical health of incarcerated migrants.

Best practice should include adequate space for linguistic and cultural mediation in reception centres and prisons. It is considered suitable to combat social exclusion, even in prison.

The report is not research on prisoners, but it focuses on making visible the condition of migrant individuals incarcerated in Italy.

Enforced isolation does not allow immigrants to become a community resource but has negative repercussions in terms of financial, social and well-being costs.

This paper is one of few in limited, national or otherwise scientific output, to contribute to migrant inmate visibility in Italy. Taking action for the well-being of migrant prisoners will not only have a positive impact on a social level but should also help reintegrate these individuals after serving their sentence.

This paper assesses the degree to which established practices in terminology can provide the translation industry with the lexical means to support mediation of information between languages, especially where such mediation involves modification. The effects of term variation, collocation and sublanguage phraseology present problems of term choice to the translator. Current term resources cannot help much with these problems; however, tools and techniques are discussed which, in the near future, will offer translators the means to make appropriate choices of terminology.

While social cohesion is important for the promotion of immigrant health, language is a core component through which immigrant groups establish social connections. Since language is a vehicle through which immigrant groups establish social linkages and that English language proficiency has been established as a virtual requirement for full participation in US society, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of language in establishing social cohesion affecting immigrant health.

Using the 2012 California Health Interview Survey, the authors investigated the role of language efficacy in the relationship between social cohesion and utilization of healthcare among immigrant groups with good and poor health statuses (n=11,134). Mediation analyses were conducted using PROCESS Macro.

The direct effect of social cohesion on healthcare utilization and the effect of English language efficacy on healthcare utilization were significant for both groups. English language efficacy was a significant mediator between social cohesion and healthcare utilization among immigrants with good health statuses.

Limitations include generalizability issues across immigrant sub-populations, limited measures in terms of English language efficacy and limitations with measures variables such as length of stay.

This study highlights that language is the channel that plays a crucial role not only to establish and maintain social cohesion for positive health outcomes, but also the ripple effects of promoting trust, belonging, opportunity of upward mobility and inclusion.

The findings of the study add value to other pertinent issues of linguistic diversity, positive social relationships and well-being of diverse communities.

This chapter presents the results of the collective experience of two professors and three students in implementing WebQuests in a preservice English education component. The first part of the chapter provided a definition of WebQuests, situating this particular proposal within the literature on second language education and the Colombian and Latin American contexts. The authors found that the paucity of studies on designing WebQuests, specifically in Latin America, became one of the strengths of their work. The next section situated how implementing WebQuests in this preservice program enabled an expansion of the actual conceptual framework that is currently in place for WebQuests by adding ideas about competences and socio-cultural and critical thinking theories. However, there is an explanation about how WebQuests became a very feasible alternative to respond to the curricular demands of their institution. Next, the authors shared a multi-vocal account, from every author's vantage point, of how they carried out their work with WebQuests. This implementation process generated a series of changes in the way students saw themselves as learners and future teachers, gaining more ownership of the idea of WebQuests beyond a semester assignment. The instructors, as the result of their work, are now thinking of better ways to redefine how they use WebQuests and how they will get their other cohorts involved in collaborative academic efforts. This chapter is, then, not only an account of an experience, but an invitation to think about how to expand the boundaries of preservice teacher education through technological mediation.

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of rural superintendent’s talk on the perceived outcomes of principal communication competence and organizational communication satisfaction. More specifically, this study explored whether the source credibility dimensions of goodwill, competency and trustworthiness had a greater impact on the perceived outcomes when mediated by motivating language (ML) than not.

Direct and indirect paths between superintendent and principal communication were modeled, analyzed and evaluated using descriptive and inferential methods, including R version 3.6.1 with the lavaan package and the Sobel mediation test.

Research findings indicated the importance of superintendent talk and motivating language theory (MLT) that, when combined, constitute the medium of superintendent practice and enable a superintendent to execute their roles and duties. Additionally, the authors found the dimensions of goodwill and competency had the most significant impact on the two outcomes mediated by ML. This finding indicates that principals are calling for a more empathetic and interactive form of credibility than the long-established form of credibility based on expertise and stewardship. Finally, as the authors call for an expanded role from the community in research, scholarship and implementation of MLT, they suggest due to the lack of significance in trustworthiness mediated by ML, future research into trustworthiness and trust.

This study’s value is to increase understanding of educational administration scholars of MLT and its power to influence employee and organizational outcomes and highlight a reframing of superintendent credibility away from say and do agreement and expertise and stewardship.

The current research presents a 14-week experience of developing socially orientated narratives in a digital mode, which involved 60 female Saudi English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Initially working together, they were later divided into groups of approximately eight members each. The purpose of this research is to determine the benefits and challenges facing EFL leaners who are engaged with socially orientated digital-storytelling tasks. It also explores the nature of creating language-related socially orientated digital-storytelling projects and the main features associated with such projects. This practice targets the use of a new form of educational technologies that promotes educators’ pedagogical strategies, as well as their social needs, by sharing learners’ personal thoughts with others and cooperating and coordinating with other team members.

The current research has been designed in line with qualitative analysis. A qualitative analysis approach was chosen as the study seeks to gain further understanding about the issue of socially orientated digital storytelling among EFL learners in Saudi Arabia. The two main research methods used for conducting this research were semi-structured interviews and analysis of the content produced by the participants. Both methods were selected to enable the participants to express their personal thoughts and feedback directly to the researcher.

The findings have shown several benefits of this method, as well as highlighted the challenges regarding the application of such a practice in English language classes at university. The findings have indicated that such a novel educational atmosphere would result in the role of social orientation as a culture for enhancing learners’ competence and willingness to share a co-learning experience being regarded more highly. In addition, the results have revealed how such group work can be constructed and the main aspects of content that exist in the digital stories produced.

One limitation of the current research is that it only included a group of female EFL students. Therefore, it is recommended that the same research be conducted on male EFL students in Saudi Arabia so that a comparative analysis can be made regarding the effects of socially orientated digital storytelling on both genders. In addition, it is recommended that the research be carried out among more classes containing female and male EFL students to be able to analyse the data quantitatively. Lastly, there remains the issue of convincing administrators, parents and instructors opposed to these ideas to implement this kind of project in formal language education, which is often independently orientated.

The effect of such a practice is the improvements made to learners’ academic and digital literacies. Specifically, students’ academic-writing skills and abilities to tell stories are essential parts of this process that can be improved by learners during the online storytelling process.

The research presents an application of a promising pedagogy that integrates digital technologies into different learning settings, including the context of learning English as a foreign language.