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Conceptualizations of Competence and Culture: Taking Up the Postmodern Interest in Social Interaction

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Abstract

To advance the multicultural counseling (MCC) movement counselors and theorists have explored how postmodern concepts might offer meaningful new directions. To expand on these discussions this paper considers what ethnomethodology (EM), an approach that has contributed to the postmodern interest in social interaction, has to offer debates around how to conceptualize competence and culture. This goal is realized by reviewing how culture and competence have been historically conceptualized in the MCC movement and articulating the challenge posed when one takes up an EM lens. Questions are generated from this perspective and consideration given to how close examinations of counselor/client interactions provide a means for answering such questions.

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  1. University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Mirjam T. Knapik & Aida S. Miloti

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  1. Mirjam T. Knapik
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  2. Aida S. Miloti
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Correspondence to Mirjam T. Knapik.

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Knapik, M.T., Miloti, A.S. Conceptualizations of Competence and Culture: Taking Up the Postmodern Interest in Social Interaction. Int J Adv Counselling 28, 375–387 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-006-9024-3

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