Culture in the Curriculum
Definitions
Culture
Tyler (1871 in Helman 2001)
That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
Leininger 1985
Culture is the values, beliefs, norms and practices of a particular group that are
learned and shared and that guide thinking, decisions and actions in a patterned way
Hofstede 1991
Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members
of one group or category of people from another
Holland and Hogg 2001
Culture is an inherited or learned set of guidelines through which we come to know
how to live in our own social group or within society
Wepa 2005
Culture refers not just to the creative expressions of a society but also to their
practices, knowledge, beliefs and sense of identity. It is dynamic and can be
contested.
Papadopoulos 2006
Culture is the shared way of life of a group of people that includes beliefs, values,
ideas, language, communication, norms and visibly expressed forms such as customs,
art, music, clothing and etiquette.
Transcultural Nursing
Leininger 1995
A formal area of study and practice focused on comparative holistic culture, care,
health and illness patterns of people, with respect to differences and similarities in
their cultural values, beliefs and practices with the goal to provide culturally
congruent, sensitive and competent nursing care to people of diverse cultures.
Andrews and Boyle 1998
A speciality within nursing focussed on the comparative study and analysis of
different cultures and subcultures. Its goal is to develop a scientific and humanistic
body of knowledge in order to provide culture-specific and cultural universal nursing
practices.
Transcultural nursing is synonymous with cross cultural, intercultural and multi
cultural nursing where trans means across, inter means between and multi means
many
Papadopoulos 2006
Transcultural nursing and cultural competence are synonymous.
Multicultralism
Payne 1997 in Wepa 2005
Means affirming the reality of cultural diversity, allowing individuals to keep much
that is distinctive about their cultural traditions in society, thus opposing a single,
dominant culture.
DeSouza in Wepa 2006
Holds that people have the right to retain their own culture and have access to society
and services without being disadvantaged
Andrews and Boyle 1998
Encourages us to try to understand other cultures and traditional practices within the
sociocultural context in which they occur and fosters the understanding that there is a
range of ways to live and solve problems
Paige 1993
The capacity to integrate alternate cultural frames of reference into one’s life and
function effectively in two or more cultures
Cultural awareness
Papps 2006
A beginning step toward understanding that there is a difference
Campinha-Bacote 1995
Includes the process of becoming sensitive to interactions with other cultural and
ethnic groups and requires the nurse to examine his or her biases and prejudices
towards other cultural and ethnic groups
Lister 1999
The students is able to describe how beliefs, values and personal/political power are
shaped by culture and that different cultures, subcultures and ethnicities may validate
different beliefs and values
Cultural competence
Campinha-Bacote 1995
A set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that come together in a system,
agency or among professionals and enables that system, agency or those professionals
to work effectively in a cross-cultural situation
American Academy of Nursing 1995
A complex integration of knowledge, attitudes and skills that enhances cross cultural
communication and appropriate effective interactions with others
Rew et al 2003
Cultural competence can be conceptualised as consisting of 4 components
Cultural awareness the affective domain
Cultural sensitivity the attitudinal dimension
Cultural knowledge the cognitive domain
Cultural skills the behavioural dimension
Lister 1999
The student provides or facilitates care which respects the values, beliefs and
practices of the client, and which addresses disadvantages arising from the client’s
position in relation to networks of power