Describes challenges to cross-ethnic and cross-cultural interviewing and suggests effective ways to use interpreters when working with ethnic minority children and their parents. Among the difficulties facing ethnic minority groups are discrimination; poverty; conflicts associated with acculturation; problems dealing with medical, educational, social, and law enforcement agencies; and inadequate mastery of standard English. Ethnic minority groups may also differ from the majority culture in their value orientations about human nature, the relationship between person and nature, time, and social relations. Intercultural communication can be hindered by heightened sensitivity to ethnic differences, resulting in distortions, perceived evasiveness, and guardedness on the part of interviewees and failure to probe and defensiveness on the part of interviewers. The drawbacks of using an interpreter include failure to reveal problems because of taboos, use of unequivalent concepts or colloquialisms, or the practice of giving unsolicited advice to interviewees. Suggestions for working successfully with an interpreter involve (1) selecting one who is familiar with both the interviewee’s language and linguistic variations, (2) briefing the interpreter on any sensitive topics, (3) discussing technical terms that may pose a problem for translation, and (4) using the same interpreter in future sessions with the interviewee.
