4.9: Transcultural Nursing Education

The ability of nurses to change their current and future nursing practices through transcultural nursing care approach in the nursing care system can be achieved through cultural specific transcultural nursing education programs [22, 58].

Regardless of their ethnic characteristics, nursing educators have great responsibilities to develop positive attitudes towards intercultural nursing care as a role model for their students [29, 58].

In addition, registered nurses should be aware of these issues and develop their knowledge and competence. Educators and administrators need to know, understand and believe in the importance of intercultural nursing care in order to be role models for students. The first step in the development and implementation of intercultural nursing education programs in nursing institutions is to evaluate the curriculum. It is recommended that the review in nursing schools be started with an examination of the mission statement. It should be examined whether the significance of cultural differences, care and education are explained in the mission statement [58, 59].

The multicultural education approach and educational program should replace the dominant cultures in nursing schools. With the help of this approach, school administrators and academics should observe whether content issues are appropriate and adequate in terms of multicultural education in current educational programs [58].

In terms of multiculturalism, important main subjects, concepts, theories should be defined and integrated into the curriculum [59].

The terms such as cultural competence, multiculturalism, cultural diversity, cultural awareness, cultural safety should be intertwined with other professional subjects into the curriculum.

An educational environment should be created in which racial differences are accepted and respected in nursing education. Within the scope of the program, generalizations and conceptualizations specific to different cultural groups should be introduced in theoretical and practical courses. During the courses social problems, experiences brought about by different racetracks such as racism, prejudicial discrimination, language problems, communicative difficulties, lack of obtaining information, health services that do not meet the needs, lack of recognition or determination of diagnosis, and incorrect nursing diagnosis should be discussed [58, 59, 60, 61].

Students can examine and evaluate their racial characteristics in the communication and skills lab. In addition, similarities and differences between ethnic groups should be emphasized in all lectures [58, 59].

In intercultural nursing education, the students’ ethnocentric worldview “just like me” should be replaced by the view “not like me”. It is stated in the nursing education that it is very useful for the student to assume some duties and responsibilities in community services and health education programs to develop cultural competence [58].

In addition, it has been shown that the exchange of national and international students and teaching staff in nursing schools is a very useful way to build cultural awareness and sensitivity by experiencing, working, and living in another culture, in order for students to find intercultural opportunities in different cultural settings [58, 62, 63].

It is stated that it is a useful teaching method for nurses to teach nursing diagnoses with case studies involving different cultural items in education programs. In nursing programs focusing on intercultural education, nursing educators use methods and tools such as critical reflection, discussion groups, role playing, observations, simulation exercises, clinical scenarios as well as written materials, videos, film monitoring and audio tapes [58].