Intercultural Skills: A Reflexive Approach to the Training of Sociocultural Workers

Abstract

The paper aims at (re)introducing the reader to intercultural skills: a concept that has been at the heart of the work of the researchers at IRFAM in their study of the challenges that come with the process of integration for collectives and individuals. Using the figures of the socio-cultural workers and educators who have invaluable experience helping migrant descendants, this essay is a project report on challenges and frictions that emerge in situations marked by asymmetric cultural and social relations. Based on theoretical and empirical sources, the paper also offers a list of intercultural skills that provide those acting as mediators with some conceptual tools that would help them to decipher a specific situation and navigate between the institutional and their personal a priori religious, cultural, or ideological values (metacognition), and those of the individuals with a migrant background - but not only - they work with.