Schooling and Transformation of the Social Representation of Education among the Baka Natives People of Southern Cameroon

The schooling of children is now an undoubtable reality among the native Baka of Southern Cameroon. But, the statistics are far from satisfactory because parents still continue to provide their offspring with an ethno-ecological education based on their centuries-old habits and customs. There are then two different educational practices that referred to two different social representation of education. Thus, the problem of the present study whose the main question is to know if the fact for the parents to send their children to school has led to a transformation of their social representation of education. Based on the central core theory, we have formulated the hypothesis that the schooling of children acts coercively on parents mind, and led them to homogenize their social representation of education. This has been operationalize into two research hypotheses all confirmed by the test of centrality of empirical data collected through directive interviews conducted with 200 Baka. This led us to conclude that, despite a deep cultural anchorage, the registration and the attendance of young pigmies in publics schools triggered in their parents, a slow but irreversible structural change in their social representation of education and any other related object.