**1. Introduction**

This chapter aims to bring information and consideration regarding cultural competence as part of the education of the professionals that work with Communication Sciences and Disorders in Brazil. The first important information is that this professional is called Phonoaudiologist and has habilitation both in Speech and Language and in Audiology.

Phonoaudiologist is the professional with higher education that works in the area of Communication Sciences and Disorders. In all Latin America the areas of Audiology (assessment and rehabilitation of hearing and hearing disorders) and Speech-Language Therapy (assessment and intervention with communication, voice and swallowing disorders) are the professional field of Phonoaudiology.

Another major aspect that must be brought to attention is the complexity of the country. The authors will present some information about Brazil as a country and the current issues that are most relevant to the discussion of how cultural competence is considered in the education of Phonoaudiologists and the impact of COVID-19 in this regard.

It is easy to understand that the overview about Brazil will be superficial and incomplete, as would happen with any other attempt to synthesize important aspects such as the history, geography, and economy of a country in just a few paragraphs.

#### **2. Brazil: some information about the country**

What is nowadays the country of Brazil was a Portuguese colony from the sixteenth century until the nineteenth century. The formation of its people and society was the result of the genocide of the original population, the enslavement, and forced immigration through the kidnapping of African individuals aiming to boost the colony's economic workforce based on the extractivist agriculture [1]. During the three centuries of slavery, almost 4 million persons were forcibly brought from Africa to Brazil [2]. These groups, added by the European colonizers, brought different cultural elements that are now an intrinsic part of Brazilian culture in areas such as food, religion, music, and language [3].

When slavery came to an end there was no official segregation, but structural racism still can be observed. It is clear in the small numbers of African descendants in universities, or higher positions in the workforce or political posts—when the topic is black women, the lack of possibilities is even bigger. Albeit several debates have been dedicated to the racial question in Brazil, including the famous idea of a racial democracy [4], this is still a sensitive issue generating social gaps in different and complex levels of the Brazilian society in major cities as well as in small and distant towns.

Structural racism is defined as a social, economic and politic system where institutional and public policies reinforce and maintain the segregation and inequities of social groups based on ethnicity, race or "color."

The "whitening" process that the Brazilian population went through during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the arrival of different groups of immigrants, mainly from Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, was a National State Policy and helped in the deepening of racial and social inequalities. Its reflexes are seen until the present day. **Figure 1** shows the origins of the 4.3 million immigrants that arrived in Brazil during the nineteenth century.

Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world and there are also enormous geographic contrasts. The largest cities are located in the southeast, a very industrialized region that concentrates almost 55% of the country's entire gross product and 42% of the population. For example, São Paulo is the largest city, with over 12.3 million inhabitants; Rio de Janeiro has a demographic density of over 5.6 thousand inhabitants per square kilometer. The north and central regions are the most rural and preserved areas, despite the recent reduction of environmental preservation policies. In the Amazon region, the state of Roraima has the lowest demographic density in the country, with 2.33 inhabitants per square kilometer.

Immigration and migration processes are also different in different regions and at various moments, with different cultural impacts. During the last decade, the number of *Perspective Chapter: Cultural Competence and the Education of CSD Professionals in Times… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104649*

**Figure 2.** *Immigrants in the last decade.*

immigrants arriving in Brazil has increased from 17,188 in 2010 to 117,037 in 2020 [2]. **Figure 2** shows the origins of the largest groups of immigrants to Brazil in the last decade.

Their distribution in the different regions of the country is shown in **Figure 3**.

Brazil has many and large cultural, social, environmental, economic, and educational differences. Portuguese is the official language, spoken by the whole population (over 213 million), but there are large differences associated with specific regions of the country, traditions, age groups, and other aspects.

The original populations are still another aspect of Brazilian diversity. Of the almost 1 million persons of indigenous origin, 60% live in protected areas designated by the federal government. The North region has the largest indigenous population and there are 305 different ethnic groups that speak 274 different languages [5].

It becomes clear that cultural differences are, historically, a relevant part of Brazilian society. Therefore, all the major universities have "Culture and Extension" offices that encourage and support initiatives directed toward the integration between the universities and the specific society where they are located. This way, different actions are carried out in different universities aiming to better reach the different groups. This includes the programs in the areas of communication sciences and disorders.

*COVID-19 Pandemic, Mental Health and Neuroscience - New Scenarios for Understanding...*

**Figure 3.** *Distribution in the different regions.*

Culture and Extension offices in the universities usually have a mission statement of bringing together the university and the environment and community where it is located. The activities are usually as diverse as developing educational experiences to children of different groups to expand sports technology, or from providing health assistance to facilitating cultural shows of developing environmental systems for pollution control.
