ABSTRACT
This chapter examines communication problems arising from intercultural interactions between teachers and parents of Asian backgrounds in Australian school contexts. Through the interpretive prism of parental anxiety and the phenomenon of ‘education cultures’ among Asian migrants in Australia, it explores how parental aspirations intersect with mainstream discourses of cultural stereotypes about ‘Asian tiger parents’ in interpreter-mediated teacher-parent communication settings. While the pursuit of educational goals for their children is often regarded as a continuation of cultural practices that stem from their countries of origin, the chapter highlights that passion for education among Asian migrant parents is, in no small part, influenced by an element of exclusion relating to a lack of linguistic and racial legitimacy. Teacher-parent meetings represent a key site to explore how the ethnocultural essentialisation of Asian parents plays out in intercultural communication, and how these stereotypes can impact the ways in which minority parents respond to schools as institutions. With a focus on communicative gaps between migrant parents and school teachers as seen through the prism of professional interpreters, the chapter explores the diverse ways in which individual interpreters manage the situational variables at play.
