Promotion of participation and mediation in multicultural classrooms

This essay presents the theoretical framework and main results of a research on intercultural mediation which has been performed in eight multicultural classrooms of Italian secondary schools. Intercultural mediation is conceived as a form of dialogic communication which should empower empathic and equal relationships between the participants by changing the existent negative patterns (dialogic mediation). The empirical features of mediation have been investigated in the interactions between mediators and adolescents in the selected classrooms. The analysis demonstrated that some dialogic actions were effective in empowering students’ personal expressions, promoting effective reflections and new narratives about their relationships, and management of their conflicts. Two limitations of dialogic mediation emerged from the analysis: (1) dialogic actions were always effective in demonstrating mediators’ involvement and coordination with students, but they were only occasionally effective in promoting dialogue among students; (2) promotion of active participation was more frequently successful than coordination of reflection and conflict management.