EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETING AS A SPECIALIZED TYPE OF PUBLIC SERVICE INTERPRETING L.Yu. <...> The article also considers criteria of effectiveness of interpreting in educational settings. <...> Key words: Public Service Interpreting, educational interpreting, deaf or hard of hearing students, sign language, BSL /ASL, minority community. <...> Educational interpreting is a specialized type of interpreting activity which aims at facilitation of communication in educational setting for deaf or hard of hearing persons. <...> The growth of educational interpreting as a professional field corresponds with the increased number of deaf or hard of hearing students who have to receive an education in public schools. <...> However, for a long time the status of the interpreter in educational setting has been uncertain, they were not treated as part of educational team, the interpretation was mostly undertaken by non-professionals who knew a little of signing and virtually nothing about methods and strategies of effective interpretation, and, of course, the payment left much to be desired. <...> Educational interpreting for deaf or hard of hearing students is characterized by a number of specific features distinguishing this type of Public Service Interpreting from others, like medical or legal. <...> Educational interpreter is normally expected to be a part of education team, to be an active participant of deaf students’ education process, to provide social support for deaf students, to assist the administration and teachers with behavior management, to rearrange the classroom to accommodate deaf students, and even to teach age-appropriate concepts. <...> According to some scholars, community of death people can be regarded as a specific collective community distinguished by a high context culture. <...> To some extent, deaf community may be viewed as an immigrant community, whose members are of nonEnglish speaking origin; it is on this ground we regard Educational Interpreting as a specific type of Public Service interpreting. <...> As researches point out, “much of interpreting and translation in deaf community has been done by non-professionals language mediators from the community who were either deaf themselves, but very fluent in sign language and English, or the hearing children who were born to deaf parents, but grew up fluent in sign language as their home language and English through environmental exposure and schooling” [7]. <...> According to B. Bahan, the frames of reference <...>