Frequently Asked Questions
Chapter 5: Culture & Ethnicity

What is the difference between culture and ethnicity?

Culture refers to knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, habits, customs, languages, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, and practices that are unique to a particular group of people. Culture is learned from one generation to the next, shared, social in nature, and dynamic.

What is the difference between ethnicity and race?

Ethnicity is a group’s perception of themselves, or a group identity, involving a common social heritage passed from one generation to the next. Race is a grouping of people based on biological similarities, such as facial features or color.

How do the definitions of ethnocentrism, racism, and stereotyping compare?

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to all others. Oppression follows when one group imposes cultural biases on another. Racism is discrimination directed toward those who are misperceived to be inferior due to biological differences. Stereotyping is the expectation that all members of a racial, ethnic, or cultural group act alike and share similar beliefs and attitudes.

What are the organizing phenomena that define a culture?

Culture can be defined by communication, space, orientation to time, social organization, environmental control, and biological variations. Nurses need to use interpreters and attend to the client’s body language to communicate effectively. Personal space and orientation to time vary by culture and should be considered when working with a client from another culture. Social organization provides a broad view of how clients are structured by family, religious, and ethnic groups. Environmental control refers to the relationships between people and nature and to a person’s perceived ability to control activities of nature. Biological variations among cultures include enzymatic differences, susceptibility to disease, and nutritional variations, all of which may affect responses to treatment.

What is transcultural nursing?

Transcultural nursing, developed by nurse/anthropologist Madeleine Leininger, is the study and analysis of different cultures and subcultures with respect to cultural care, health beliefs, and health practices, with the goal of providing health care within the context of the client’s culture.

What are the elements of cultural competence?

The elements of cultural competence are cultural awareness, knowledge, skill, encounters, and desire.

What are the components of a cultural assessment?

A culturally competent cultural assessment requires self-reflection, facilitation of client choice, gaining cultural knowledge, and effective communication. A cultural assessment should include the client’s ethnic heritage, family roles and functions, religious practices, food preferences, native language, social networks, formal and informal educational experiences, health care beliefs, and family patterns of health care.

How does culture affect traditional nursing diagnoses?

Formulating culturally competent nursing is challenging because several nursing diagnoses are culturally biased. These include Impaired Communication, Noncompliance, Impaired Social Interaction, Deficient Knowledge, Disturbed Thought Processes, and Powerlessness.

What is culturally competent nursing?

Culturally sensitive nursing intervention requires self-awareness (introspection and study of other cultures), a nonjudgmental approach (avoiding stereotyping and judgmental words; avoiding reacting negatively to another person’s lifestyle), and client education delivered without arrogance and without using medical jargon.

How does culture affect access to care?

Failing to recognize the effects of cultural differences on client behavior negatively influences access to health care. Vulnerable populations, such as the poor, the homeless, migrant workers, abused individuals, the elderly, pregnant adolescents, and people with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other sexually transmitted diseases have difficulty finding transportation to medical services, difficulty understanding medical instructions, and fewer financial resources to access care.

What are the elements of culturally sensitive teaching guidelines?

Culturally sensitive teaching begins with an assessment of the family’s English fluency, extent of family support, access to community resources, level of education, and social status since arriving in the United States. Additionally, the nurse should access client strengths, include informal caregivers, assess the client’s present knowledge, and ascertain the client’s perception of learning needs. While delivering health education, the nurse should observe family roles and include the dominant family member in teaching, use language understood by the client (with an interpreter if necessary), avoid medical jargon, and clarify verbal and nonverbal messages with the client.