The increasing interest in the role of racism and racialization in health disparities, calls for exploring new paradigms in addressing and eliminating health disparities related to race/ethnicity. Cultural competence is conceptualized as one of the keys ways to address racial/ethnic disparities in public health and healthcare. However, for cultural competence to fulfill this role, it requires a...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this research was to locate cultural competence within the experiential domain of the non-English-speaking patient. DESIGN Seven language-specific focus groups were held with 59 hospital patients and carers of patients with limited English to better understand their experience and to identify critical factors leading to their constructions of care. Grounded theory ana...

This article describes the structure, process, and outcomes of developing a blueprint for integration of cultural competence education into the curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing. The overarching framework of Kotter (1995) on leading change and organizational transformation was used as a guide for evaluation of faculty efforts. Within the setting of a research-inten...

Cultural competence training is mandatory in the United States of America to alleviate minority health disparities though few studies have examined perceptions across stakeholders. We conducted separate focus groups with patients, clinicians, and administrators from the psychiatry department at one community hospital and compared responses to hospital policies. Stakeholders defined cultural com...

This paper describes the enhancement of cultural competence through trans-Atlantic rural community experiences of European and Canadian nursing students using critical incident technique (CIT) as the students' reflective writing method. The data generated from 48 students' recordings about 134 critical incidents over a 2-year project were analysed by qualitative content analysis. Five main lear...

Describing the link between culture (as a phenomenon pertaining to social aggregates) and the beliefs and behaviors of individuals has eluded satisfactory resolution; however, contemporary cognitive culture theory offers hope. In this theory, culture is conceptualized as cognitive models describing specific domains of life that are shared by members of a social group. It is sharing that gives c...

The phenomenon of intercultural communication has been the subject of a great deal of research in the field of ESL education; however, the research has been primarily focused on the incorporation of target culture in foreign language curriculum. Starting with the current situation of cultural awareness, this paper stresses the importance of establishing cultural subjectivity so as to adopt the ...

Due to increasing national diversity, programs addressing cultural competence have multiplied in U.S. medical training institutions. Although these programs share common goals for improving clinical care for patients and reducing health disparities, there is little standardization across programs. Furthermore, little progress has been made to translate cultural competency training from the clin...

The Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) believes that cultural competence is a critical factor in providing quality cancer care to an increasingly diverse patient population (ONS, 1999). Nurses and their interdisciplinary colleagues should be educated comprehensively to foster sensitivity and responsiveness to issues of diversity. ONS (1999) issued guidelines and identified four components of educat...

BACKGROUND Cultural diversity often leads to misunderstandings, clashes, conflicts, ethnocentrism, discrimination, and stereotyping due to the frequent intersection of many variables, such as differences in traditions, behaviours, ethical and moral perspectives, conceptions of health and illness, and language barriers. The root of the issue is related to the way people conceptualise differences...