This study offers a preliminary analysis of the municipal cultural mediation service targeting the Roma population of a city in North-East Spain. I seek to understand to what extent this intervention favours the school-to-work transition (STWT) of Spanish Roma youth. This paper draws on a broader two-year-long, cross-country project funded by the European Commission. Here, I seek answer to two interrelated questions: 1) What are the achievements and challenges of a Roma intercultural mediation project in a local context? 2) To what extent a Roma intercultural mediation can contribute to structural changes?

The Roma population represents the largest ethnic minority in Spain, which has historically been targeted by public policies, often motivated by racist stereotypes, repressive political interests and have had negative socio-economic and psycho-affective consequences, contributing to the reproduction of their marginalized social position (Laparra, 2009; San Román, 1994). The Spanish Roma population is a highly heterogenous one in all aspects (Carrasco & Poblet, 2019; López de la Nieta, 2011). Nevertheless, a large part is overrepresented in the most disadvantaged sectors in the domains of education, employment, health and housing, also taking into account the growing racism and discrimination against them (Felgueroso, 2018; FOESSA, 2014, p. 201).

Intercultural mediation programmes have been increasingly promoted to ensure equal access of young people to public services, but results have been varying, and they have drawn criticism  (Clark, 2017, p. 201; Kóczé, 2019; Kyuchukov, 2012) which can be summed up in the following: 1) they offer precarious labour conditions and inferior status of Roma mediators which imply their dependence on the organisation that runs the programme; 2) they are rarely involved in broader diagnosis, problem definition, planning, but rather are engaged in the daily management of scort-scale technical problems (conflicts, claims); 3) Their bi-cultural knowledge, and bi-cultural belonging is often instrumentalised by administrations or organisations in order to introduce changes in the community without substantial participation and negotiation processes; 4) Intercultural mediators are held accountable for the success/failure of interventions, avoiding an institutional/structural analysis of the causes (Helakorpi et al., 2019); 5) Their training focuses on the identification of individual or family level factors, and by their presence and intervention a “consensus narrative” is sought among the non-minority colleagues about the correct, mainstream meanings and action (Petraki, 2020). 6) The particular results of intercultural mediation do not justify it as a measure to apply for structural problems deriving from poverty, discrimination or social exclusion, which leads to the depoliticization of structural problems (Kóczé 2019).

Drawing on these critical insights, I analyse empirical data, relying on two main concepts: “neoliberal governmentality” (Foucault, 1988; Lemke, 2001; Miller & Rose, 1990; Pyysiäinen et al., 2017; Wacquant, 2012), and “activation” (Baar, 2012). In the observed city, programmes and services are available to improve the living conditions of Roma families, however, the Roma community tends access these services much less frequently than the rest of the population. Roma young people’s knowledge about programmes, services and other opportunities is scarce, biased and linked to people of reference such as teachers, monitors, social services technicians, or the intercultural mediator, among others, which creates reliance on parallel structures and preserve institutional/structural inequalities. 

This paper draws on the fieldwork of the EU-funded NGOST project. Data collection was conducted in a big city in Catalonia (Spain), with approximately 220,000 inhabitants. Interviews were conducted with 31 Roma young people and 20 professionals of main municipal public services and NGO organisations working with young people. Due to the fact that data collection was made during the COVID pandemic between July 2020 and February 2021, most interviews were conducted online (Zoom, Skype, Messenger, etc.). Both the interviews and the subsequent analysis were carried out by a non-Roma male researcher and two Roma female co-researchers. The co-researchers have several distant family members in the investigated city, which also helped achieve deeper information about the local Roma community, despite difficulties related to Covid-pandemic. The intercultural mediator played an important role in recruiting interviewees in her district, and to contextualise local dynamics of the community. We had repeated personal meetings with her, phone-calls, and WhatsApp chat conversations throughout the data collection period. The recorded conversations with her have a duration of 135 minutes. All interviewees’ oral informed consents were recorded at the beginning of the interview-conversations. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and the text was analysed through Atlas.ti 8.0 qualitative data analysis software. Data analysis began with a short preliminary code-list that was intuitively complemented through in-vivo coding, that is, codes derived from the data itself in an inductive manner. Several earlier versions of this text (translated into Spanish) have been discussed with Roma co-researchers, and their reflections have been incorporated in its present form. All the procedures followed the project’s ethical guideline approved by the hosting university’s Ethical Research Committee (ERC).

Intercultural mediation programmes in the context of school-to-work transition requires a critical examination. The programme under scrutiny aims to integrate a group in marginalised conditions into dominant societal norms, largely driven by neoliberal capitalist agendas. However, this approach often overlooks the structural inequalities faced by the given community, historically produced and reproduced in an impoverished and marginalised neighbourhood, with segregated schools and easy access to informal segments of the labour market. Neoliberal governance operates subtly, encouraging individuals to conform to societal expectations through self-regulation and self-improvement. Intercultural mediators, like the one in the case study, are portrayed as success stories, embodying the transition from traditional to modern values (Vincze, 2012). Yet, this narrative shifts responsibility from systemic and institutional issues to individual self-improvement. The mediation project serves a double role, subtly aligning public administration expectations with the goal of Roma social integration while promoting self-responsibility within the Roma community. However, this approach ultimately transfers the burden of addressing systemic inequalities onto the marginalized group. The impact of mediation is often measured quantitatively, focusing on actions taken (number of counselling, guidance meetings, clients attended, etc.) rather than evaluating its effectiveness. While mediation aims to mobilize and empower marginalized groups, it often neglects the structural origins of their challenges and fails to embed mediation within broader redistributive policies. Furthermore, mediation risks depoliticizing and disempowering its target group by framing success solely in terms of educational attainment and job placement without addressing deeper social hierarchies. The role of the mediator in any project is highly political (Bereményi & Girós-Calpe, 2021), since she may participate in the definition and framing of the problem, or at least in the legitimisation of it and its solution. Thus, intercultural mediators, as representatives of the project, inadvertently reinforce the neoliberal agenda by promoting individual adaptation over systemic change.

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