HIGHER TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE BAMBILI

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

BY

DR NANTCHOUANG DANY

SOCIOLOGIST
Introduction

Education as a process and an idea exists within a societal context. Whether it is formal, non-
formal or informal, education is organized in the society by individuals who are members of
a particular group, community, states and nation. The aim of the sociology of Education is of
greater importance in the society in that it gives a critical view on the educational process.
The sociology of education provides insights to the ways in which school, family, and
religious groups…, affect individuals and groups. Education affects the way people think,
behave, live and work; their place in the society and their chance for success and failure. R.
Establet asserted that: “Sociology of education acquired an iconoclastic place in the public
debates on the school”. The problems arising within the educational system in this 21 st
century changed nature and dimension, and in addition, the field of sociology of education
opened and diversified. More than ever, the school is a fundamental field of research for
social sciences. Under these conditions, sociology has a considerable role to play in the
training of the teachers.
Sociology of education has produced many field work reports since about fifty years, which
brought about great knowledge on the school, education and their stakes. In particular, the
sociological approach largely renewed the comprehension of the phenomena related to the
"school difficulties", the social mobility, social stratification, inequalities…. Today, if the tools
and the methods of sociology are object of consensus, it remains significantly different in the
theoretical orientations, and this constitutes an additional richness of research in this
discipline.

Objectives of the course

This course is designed to:

- Initiate the students to the fundamental concepts , paradigms and issues in sociology
of education
- Give to the students a sociological prospect on topical issues related to education
- Develop students’ abilities to promote an interdisciplinary appraisal of Educational
issues.
 - Develop the student ability to think critically about the ways in which intellectuals
engage and affect change concerning education of citizens;

I: Definition and characterization of key concepts

1: Sociology

Sociology is known as a special science dedicated to unravel the fundamental laws governing
the societal phenomena and human social relationship with primary interest in analysing the
problems and societies of the modern world. It is a science of the society as the name
indicates. Sociology is the "science of the social facts", in Durkheim’s words. It has the role
of analysing human interactions and its operation, to explain, conceptualize and infer on
social realities and the social representations. The term “sociology” was first used in 1780 by
a French essayist named Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748 - 1836) in an unpublished
manuscript. In 1838, the word was used by a French thinker named Auguste Comte.
According to Giddens et al. (2007), sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses
systematic methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a
body of knowledge about human social structure and activities. Sociology comes from two
Latin words “Socius” which means “companion” and “Logos” which means “study”. The
literal definition that we can draw is the science which studies the companionship. Sociology
grew out of the social, political, economic, and technological revolutions of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. For example, the Industrial Revolution that took place from 1760
up to 1850 , had extremely changed old traditions and necessitated new ways of perceiving
and examining the social world, thus in the mid-1800s sociology emerged in Western Europe
as a distinct discipline. The founding fathers of the sociological discipline were anxious about
the political instability of their time and they tried to analyse objectively, the ways to
highlight the various strategies by which the social order could be restored. It was the
beginning of the study of sociology as a university discipline. Sociology thus concentrates on
the social organization, its stakes, the social change, in short the analysis of the phenomena
of the social life, the groups in particular and the interactions in general. Sociology is
interested in the analysis of the ways in which human beings interact each other, the forces
which determine the social order, the harmony or the disharmony in the human
interactions. The sociology discipline is a product of three revolutions as Raymond ARON
stated: political, economic and intellectual. At its origin, this discipline was reserved to the
developed countries, whereas Anthropology was assigned the underdeveloped world
qualified as primitive. Nowadays, there are many specializations of sociology such as:
sociology of development, urban sociology, rural sociology, sociology of health, sociology of
population, economical sociology, applied sociology, sociology of environment, sociology of
education….

2: Education
Education is a broad concept, difficult to apprehend and which has been defined by many
authors, referring to all the experiences in which learners can learn something.
Education for some authors consists of systematic instruction, teaching and training by
professional or non-professional teachers, in a formal or an informal milieu, in a public or in
a private institution of education. Formal education is that particular socialization acquired
through a school system, whereas the informal education is that particular knowledge
learned through the family, peer groups, friends, religion…
According to a prominent philosopher of education George F. Kneller (1941), education is:
“In its broad sense, any act or experience that has formative effect on the mind, character,
or physical ability of an individual ... In its technical sense, education is the process by which
society, through schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions, deliberately transmits
its cultural heritage and its accumulated knowledge, values, and skills, from one generation
to another”.
Moreover, Emile Durkheim, a prominent figure in the area of sociology of education in his
book titled “Education and Sociology” defined education as:
“The influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life.
Its object is to arouse and to develop in the child a certain number of physical, intellectual,
and moral states which are demanded of him by both the political society as a whole and the
special milieu for which he is specifically destined”(p. 28). In a simpler manner we can
consider that education is the socialization of the younger generation. From all these
approaches of education which are not exhaustive, one can understand easily that there is
an ideal of universal education to which everyone aspire.
 EDUCATION: All learning experiences

INSTRUCTION: planned learning experience

TRAINING: Specific skills TEACHING: Human facilitation

Without education, man would not have been different of an animal. It is only through
education that a society gains a chance to replicate in the future. It appears from the above
that education can have a normative approach (What education ought to be: for many,
education is understood to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality
and acquiring wealth and status for all by developing every individual to their fullest
potential (Sargent, 1994). The descriptive approach to education(education is the aggregate
of all the processes by means of which people develop abilities, attitudes and forms of
behaviour that are of positive value to themselves and to the society in which they live
(Good, 1973). The etymological approach (from the Latin “educere” which means to lead out
or to bring out (of ignorance); and “educare” which means to rear or to bring up (through
character training and discipline).
3. Instruction
It refers to the intentional facilitating of learning toward identified goals, delivered either by
an instructor or other forms.
4. Schooling
Schooling goes on in very formal logical stages as for example pre nursery; nursery, primary,
university. Each stage in schooling ends up with an exam that leads to the award of
certificate to those who are successful.

4. Society
Society is a system or organization of mutual relations between human beings, implicit in
certain communities and institutions. The term "society" is used to identify a group of people
who share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial area and feel themselves to
constitute a unified and distinct entity. It comes from the Latin word societas, which in turn
was derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend and ally") used to describe a bond or
interaction among parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Used in the sense of
an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of
functional interdependence, possibly comprising characteristics such as national or cultural
identity, social solidarity, language, or hierarchical organization.
Society as defined by Calhoun et al (1994): "A society is an autonomous grouping of people
who inhabit a common territory, have a common culture (shared set of values, beliefs,
customs and so forth) and are linked to one another through routinized social interactions
and interdependent statuses and roles."
As a matter of fact, society is a bigger family where people mix together, talk to one another,
share pains and pleasure and try to progress collectively. People come in contact directly or
indirectly, personally or through passive agencies e.g. press, radio, cinema, television and so
forth. Therefore, social relationships are closely-knit. A “we-feeling” is created and the “we-
feeling” forces everybody in the society to look for his place in it, to find his rights and duties
and to learn good manners.
The vagueness of the concept of society motivated some scientists to find different
substitutes to the concept. Louis Althusser opted for the concept of “Social formation” at the
place of society. For this author, a social formation is a combination of three levels of
relationships: economical, ideological and political.
Anthony Giddens arguing against the identification of the society to a nationwide preferred
to talk of “Social systems” and “Institutions”, which may not be limited by national
boundaries.
5: Sociology of education

Sociology of Education may be defined as the scientific analysis of the social processes and
social patterns involved in the educational system. In sociology of education we are very
much concerned with public schooling systems of modern societies including the expansion
of higher, further, adult, and continuing education. As such, sociology of education is an
expression that denotes ideologies, curricula, and pedagogical techniques of the inculcation
and management of knowledge as well as the social reproduction of personalities and
cultures (Marshall, 1998). For Corwin, sociology of education is the study of how social
institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcome (1965). The
fundamental researches of two great sociologists Emile Durkheim and Max Weber are
considered as the start-up of sociology of education. Emile Durkheim worked on moral
education as the basis of social solidarity. Durkheim was a functionalist, which means that he
was interested in the role that various social institutions played in society and in particular
how they contribute to the maintenance of social order. This idea was important to his
interest in and understanding of education. Durkheim believed schools were the primary
socialization agent for the production of future adults. This is reflected in his work on moral
education, which places the development of consensus and solidarity in society in the hands
of the school.
Max Weber’s (1864–1920) theory of social structure and the interplay between social class,
social status, and power did acknowledge the importance of the mechanisms through which
one social group could maintain its position in society. Credentials that reflected the
possession of knowledge were one way in which individuals could make a legitimate claim
for membership in particular class, status, or power groups.
After the Second World War this discipline gained its place amongst the scientific subjects as
a separate field of knowledge. Technological improvement and commitment of human
capital in the industrialization of America and Europe gave rise to the social mobility. It
became then easier to move up to the upper strata of the society gaining technical skills,
knowledge. Families who were farmers earlier could become workers in factories, civil
servants…. All the precedent was made possible through education. Sociologist began to
think that education promotes social mobility and undermines class stratification.
Above all sociology of education is a branch of study holding on the relationship between
sociology and education.

4: Educational sociology/ sociology of education

Educational sociology is that discipline which merely attempts to apply the innovated
principles of sociology to the field of education. It is an applied branch of education; whereas
sociology of education is not an applied branch, it is a field of specialization. Sociology of
education attempts to study directly education as a system of the society and attempts to
develop necessary principles and laws regarding education as a social system and its internal
relationships within itself as well as its external relationships with other institutions of the
society. It is concerned with both the construction of a theory on education and its
application. Educational sociology doesn't apply any principles evolved somewhere in the
field of sociology of education.
Educational sociology is defined as the application of sociology to the solution of
fundamental educational problems. Educational sociology is vowed mainly to the training of
teachers. Educational sociology studies problems from the field of education and try to solve
them, using sociological concepts whereas the sociology of education studies sociology
problems, using educational concepts. Educational sociology would imply an emphasis upon
educational and social questions while sociology of education emphasizes sociological
problems in the realm of education which is the concern of sociologists.

II: Levels of Sociological Analysis

There are generally two levels of analysis in sociology, which may also be regarded as
branches of sociology: micro-sociology and macro- sociology (Henslin and Nelson, 1995).
Micro-sociology is interested in small- scale level of the structure and functioning of human
social groups; whereas macro-sociology studies the large-scale aspects of society.
Macro-sociology focuses on the broad features of society. The goal of macro-sociology is to
examine the large-scale social phenomena that determine how social groups are organized
and positioned within the social structure. Micro-sociological level of analysis focuses on
social interaction. It analyses interpersonal relationships, and on what people do and how
they behave when they interact. This level of analysis is usually employed by symbolic
interactionist perspective.
Some writers also add a third level of analysis called meso-level analysis, which analyses
human social phenomena in between the micro- and macro-levels. Reflecting their particular
academic interest sociologists may prefer one form of analysis to the other; but all levels of
analysis are useful and necessary for a fuller understanding of social life in society.

III: The scope of sociology of education

Sociology of education represents the scientific approach of education as a social

phenomenon. The first function of sociology of education is "to study objectively and
comparatively the educational relationships, the educational roles and the educational
groups distinct from social systems in various societies, earlier and present, in the whole
world".
Sociology of education’s main prospects are ideologies of education, curricula, pedagogical
techniques of the inculcation and management of knowledge, the social reproduction of
personalities, cultures, inequalities, the school institutions, their actors and their
relationships; the stakes of education in connection with other issues and institutions as
family, environment, religion, social mobility, gender, socialization...
Anne Barrère and Nicolas Sembel esteem that sociologists of education are mostly
interested with two major questions: the first one holds on the way a society trains
autonomous individuals able to occupy a pluralistic number of roles inside a permanent
changing and specialized world. The second question holds on the manner school copes with
social inequalities, mobility and in a broad way the social stratification. In short, sociology of
education is interested with all the questioning systems which are developed around
education.
The Relationship between Education and Society
Education and society are intricately connected, with education reflecting and shaping the
values, norms, and structures of society. Some key aspects of the relationship between
education and society include:
 Knowledge Transmission: Education serves as a mechanism for transmitting
knowledge, skills, and cultural values from one generation to the next. It
encompasses both formal education (schools, colleges, universities) and informal
education (family, community, media).
 Social Reproduction: Education contributes to the social reproduction of existing
social structures and inequalities. It perpetuates patterns of social advantage and
disadvantage by reproducing social class, racial, and gender inequalities through
processes such as tracking, streaming, and hidden curricula.
 Social Change and Mobility: While education can reproduce existing inequalities, it
also offers the potential for social change and mobility. Education can provide
 individuals with opportunities to acquire knowledge, skills, and qualifications that can
enhance their social mobility and challenge existing social hierarchies.

IV. Three major focuses in Sociology of Education

Durkheim (1895) conceived education as the socialization of the younger generation, which
is a continuous effort to inculcate to the child ways of seeing, feeling and acting which he
could not have arrived at spontaneously. Thus, formal education is primarily designed to
inculcate crucial skills and values central to the survival of the society or to those who hold
effective power. Sociology of education can be well understood through its dramatization
into main domains. There are three, but not exhaustive main focuses:
A: The sociology of the school (educational) institution.

It is around this topic that at its beginning, sociology of education worked out, starting from
founding work of Durkheim. It is mainly made up of "macro-sociological" approaches, which
are interested in the social determinants of the school (educational) situations. It appears
through this prospect that the purpose of education is "to cause in the child a certain
number of physical, intellectual and moral states which is demanded from him by the
political society as a whole, and the social background for which he is particularly destined".
The characteristic of the modern societies is to have an entrusted function to a specialized
institution: school. The school system is as such considered as a social subsystem whose
principal function is to carry out a methodical socialization of the younger generation, in
view to train citizens apt to really contribute to the promotion of the social values, the
training of patriotic citizens submitted to the institutions and values of the society. The main
prospect developed here is functionalist with an emphasis on deviance as a failure in the
fulfilment of school’s function of socialization.

B: The sociology of the contents of education

This prospect of the sociology of education holds on the fundamental concepts of curriculum
vitae and in relation with the knowledge, it analyses the organization of the school
knowledge as a consequence of domination relationships in the society, and wonders about
the way in which the actors adapt themselves (or not!) to that knowledge. On some aspects,
this current consists at the same time of sociology of science and epistemology. This current
was developed in England in the Seventies, around Young and Esland. Its interest is
particularly on the way in which contents of education are selected, starting from the
knowledge socially available, then treated on a hierarchical basis and legitimated. It is a
"relativistic" plan: there is no true knowledge, which would be founded epistemologically,
but only choices and social constructions, which always fit in relation of being able, in a
dominant position. To this end, the "school knowledge" is a specific fact, different from the
scientific knowledge; it is above all a product of the social stakes and calculations.
The analysis of the "school disciplines" shows that their construction is arbitrary: they consist
of knowledge socially acceptable at school. The question "what must one teach?" is most
marginally epistemological; only a negligible part of the knowledge produced in the societies
is regarded as acceptable at school. On this unit, only a part is regarded as having to be the
subject of acts of teaching. In a strict sense, it would initially be necessary to speak not about
"school knowledge", but about objects of school teaching, or "school matters", according to
the use in force at the beginning of the century. This approach is mostly developed by the
Marxist authors.

C: The sociology of the school (educational) actors

The school actors are teachers, students and administrative staff. The study of the school
actors, whose development is more recent, gathers many works of orientation, sometimes
very different around the question of the school actors, their experience and their strategies.
By putting the "subject" at the centre of the analysis, it is located at a more sociological point
of view. Here, it is not anymore the knowledge itself which is questioned, but the
relationship that the actors maintain with that knowledge, interactions among the
educational actors and interrelated components. To B. Charlot, it is an issue of constructing
sociology of the subject: school actors. The knowledge is a relation of the subject knowing in
his world, produced by the interaction between the subject and his world. It is presented in
the form of objects or of de-contextualized statements. But these statements are only the
substantialized form of a relation to the world. This view is mainly developed by
interactionist sociologists.

V: Classical views on sociology of education

Modern sociology was born out of the Industrial Revolution and the increasing awareness of
radical shifts in the social structure of society, in particular in Europe and England. But it was
during this period that education as we know it was also expanding, so that in a way,
industrialization and educational expansion went hand in hand. Education did enter into the
writings of the early classical sociologists, although not always in well thought-out forms.

1. Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–1883) never fully developed or integrated education into his theory of
capitalism and social class. But he and Fredrick Engels did refer to education frequently in
their writings about the class struggle. They advocated education for all, but they were
primarily concerned with the type of education that was given to the children of the working
classes and how this education served the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, in
maintaining their social dominance. Although Marx did not focus directly on education in his
theory of society, his ideas have formed the base of what later would become known as neo-
Marxist sociology of education. This perspective is very much related to forms of
reproduction theory, in which education is thought to serve as a mechanism for reproducing
the class structure of society, thereby reproducing the privileges of the dominant class.

2. Max weber

It follows implicitly that education, as a mechanism for the development and transmission of
knowledge, is an important social institution in this stratification process. The notion of
education as a source of knowledge and its manifestation in educational credentials was also
important in Weber’s notion of bureaucracy and the increasing rationality of society. Weber
believed that European society was developing a new kind of organization as forms of
societal authority changed from traditional structures (for example, a monarchy) to rational
structures (an elected Parliament). He thought this shift permeated the economic facets of
society and particularly society’s productive sectors. Industry and manufacturing gradually
shifted from domestic and cottage production to factory production and this required a new
form of organizational structure called “the bureaucracy,” or a type of hierarchical authority
structure based on rational and legal rules. For Weber, the bureaucracy represented “the
purest type of legal authority,” and the concept has since become the foundation for
sociological studies of organizations in modern society. Weber’s ideas have had a major
effect on studies of the social organization of schools, and within them, the roles of principal
and teachers and the hierarchical relationships between them. The study of teachers as
professionals and of workers owes much to Weberian sociology. The study of teacher
burnout and teacher accountability in the present trend toward high-stakes standardized
testing is ultimately rooted in Weberian principles of organizational sociology and the
sociology of bureaucracy.

3. Emile Durkheim

The third, and perhaps the most important, of the classical sociologists who influenced the
development of the sociology of education was Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Durkheim held
the chair of sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he taught future teachers. Over and
above his sociological writings, Durkheim wrote three works directly related to education in
which we find the foundation of modern sociology of education: Education and Society
(1922), Moral Education (1925), and finally The Evolution of Educational Thought: Lectures
on the Formation and Development of Secondary Education in France (1938). These works
are primarily the lectures for three of the courses that Durkheim gave to students, but they
were pre- served and published and today form the basis of any Emile Durkheim study of
education. Durkheim did not believe these functions of education came about without
conflict. Indeed, in his work The Evolution of Educational Thought, Durkheim traces the
constant conflict between the church and state in France over the control of education. He
did not see this as a conflict between a particular religious or theological dogma and the
state, but rather as a conflict between the sacred and the secular, which he regarded as “the
germ of that great struggle” (Durkheim, 1938/1977, p. 26). Durkheim described education as
a contested social institution in society. On the one hand, education established and
maintained social consensus and solidarity through its socializing function, but on the other
hand, the self-interest of individuals and groups requires the state regulation of education.
Durkheim insisted education was responsible for the production of the ideal adult, yet he
also recognized that education was a profession for those who participated in it. Many issues
and areas of research in contemporary sociology of education are embedded in Emile
Durkheim’s understanding of education: the role of merit in educational selection and
attainments, the role of teachers in schools, and the study of government and private
schools, to name but a few.
VI: The importance of sociology of education to a student teacher/counsellor

Questioning the importance of the sociology of education implies to analyse the role of
sociology to a teacher. Generally, learning sociology provides us with what sociologists call
the sociological imagination.
1. The Sociological Imagination and intuitiveness
Sociology is more than important for each social actor whose job is to help others find their
way. Sociologists attempt to understand and explain human social behaviours by studying
the groups they belong to. Sociologist Peter L. Berger once said that," the excitement of
sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in
which we have lived all our lives”. As Mills saw it, the sociological imagination could help
individuals cope with the social world by helping them to step outside of their personal, self-
centric view of the world. In employing the sociological imagination, people are able to see
the events and social structures that influence behaviour, attitudes, and culture.
2. Neutrality and objectivity
Sociology is interested with the social and cultural factors which influenced education.
Education is a production of the society. It is then of great interest to have a neutral
appraisal on this. This inescapable role is noticeable as far as the teaching profession is
concerned. A teacher studying sociology will understand a school system better, makes
rational decisions regarding their students’ education, gives a unique look at educational
institutions and its independence and dynamic interactions among other institutions in
society. Therefore, these teachers are able to deal better with the complex organizational
and interpersonal issues that are faced by teachers and school administrators.
3. Cultural competence and out casting of ethnocentrism
Learning sociology helps us understand how social forces influence our goals, attitudes,
behaviour, and personality. We become more sensitive towards the social issues.
Furthermore, learning sociology helps to cast aside our own biased assumptions, stereotypes
and ethno-centric thinking and practices to become more critical, broad- minded and
respectful in our interpersonal and inter- group relationships. By learning sociology, we can
be more humane and people–centred; we give high value to human dignity.
4. Self-enlightenment and critical sense
In general, sociology increases our self-knowledge. Learning sociology can provide us with
self- enlightenment. When we learn sociology, we gain more knowledge about the
conditions of our own lives, and about the way our society and social system function. As
such knowledge increases, we can be more empowered to influence the direction of forces
and circumstances that affect our lives. We can also be more responsive to the various
policies set by governments; and can suggest our own policy initiatives and alternatives.
5. Applied Sociology
In addition to the aforementioned theoretical benefits, sociology has certain practical
benefits. There is what we call applied sociology, the application of sociological knowledge,
principles, methods, concepts and theories to provide the solutions to the contemporary
social pathologies. Sociology plays practical roles to tackle social pathologies. Sociological
knowledge is highly applicable in dealing with today's most crucial social problems, and in
facilitating developmental activities in educational sectors. Sociology of education helps the
teacher to understand the main problems that an educational system generates, and what
attitude one should have in front of these problems. By knowing all this a teacher can
harmonize his position with the interests of the students.

6. Quest of exhaustiveness
Sociology analyses the process of education in all the possible sociological prospects, in such
a manner that a teacher can learn about how their socio-professional category is socially
represented, how they are considered, what are the errors of their predecessor, what are
the main interests of the school population, how the relationship among the school
population is characterized…. By knowing all these before entering the school world, a
teacher is most likely vow to polish his doings.
7. Interdisciplinary
Sociology of education will help the student teacher to develop an interdisciplinary reading
of educational realities. This suggest a complementarity among various academic disciplines.
This method permits to have a global complementary and total, as far as possible, point of
view on a subject. Interdisciplinary suggests that there is often a need to mediate between
people working towards the same goal from different disciplinary perspectives. Apart from
respect, mutual understanding of the assumptions and approaches of the other discipline is
essential for interdisciplinary co-operation.
VII. WORKING ONE’S CULTURAL COMPETENCE
In all areas of teaching practice, individual must acquire cultural competencies, integrate
them into their relationships with students and colleagues and be accountable for them.
Cultural competence is understood as “the application of theoretical and practical
knowledge, attitudes or personal qualities that teaching professionals need to maximize
respectful relationships with students, colleagues and the members of the educational
community”. It is essential to avoid placing an ethno-cultural label on people, who should be
seen as culturally unique and plural beings. The teacher must abandon his ethnocentric
position (pretending to know for the other), for a posture open to others, to discuss different
ideas and ways of seeing and adopt a diversity compatible thought.
The concept of cultural competence refers to the knowledge, skills, judgment and personal qualities
that teachers need to provide services adapted to the cultural characteristics of their clients. Cultural
competence consists in particular of attaching value to diversity, of knowing the customs and cultural
traditions of the populations served and of taking them into account in teaching of the students,
dealing with the parents and the authorities. The following can be considered in the standards of
practice relating to cultural competence. They are among others, the importance of ethics, self-
awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skills, empowerment and advocacy, communicating in the
learner’s language and doing evidence of intercultural leadership.
The following six postulates help in appreciating clearly the cultural competence of a teacher:
 Cultural competence is a process. Cultural competence is not an end, but a journey. So rather
than being culturally competent, we are in the process of becoming culturally competent.
 Cultural competence is made up of five constructs (cultural awareness, cultural knowledge,
cultural skills, cultural encounters and cultural desire).
 Cultural encounter is the key and pivotal element of cultural competence. Thus, it is through
cultural encounters that the teacher finds the energy and motivation to become culturally
competent.
 There is more variation within an ethnic group than “trans-ethnic”. It is important to insist on
the individual characteristics to be considered at all times so as not to fall into the trap of
stereotypes and “recipes” for interventions depending on the culture.
 There is a direct relationship between the level of cultural competence of the teacher and
their ability to provide cultural teaching. A teaching professional with a higher level of cultural
competence will work with more confidence.
  Cultural competence is an essential component in providing efficient teaching and
learning services to clients from another culture.

There are many impacts arising from the acquisition of cultural competence. For example,
the student would have better adherence to the content of teaching by receiving lessons
imbued with a holistic approach (therefore culturally appropriate) and that would result in
an improvement in the learners’ quality of knowledge. In the same vein, a "multicultural
competence" makes it possible to avoid ethnocentrism and to eliminate prejudices and
discrimination and promote cultural relativism in teaching-learning settings. These results
demonstrate the relevance of stimulating the development of cultural competence in
students, a development for which immersion in the literature recognizes that international,
urban and rural teaching internships, even of two weeks duration, enhance the level of
cultural competence of the teachers.