Culture

Culture



Culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 2008, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture

An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. (The term is also sometimes used to refer to multiculturalism within an organization. This article does not currently cover that alternative meaning.) There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago. Since then they have spread throughout the world, successfully adapting to widely differing conditions and to periodic cataclysmic changes in local and global climate. The many separate societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other, and many of these differences persist to this day.

Culture and Diversity When You Are Providing Nursing Care for Patients

To be culturally competent the nurse needs to understand his/her own world views and those of the patient, while avoiding stereotyping and misapplication of scientific knowledge. Cultural competence is obtaining cultural information and then applying that knowledge. This cultural awareness allows you to see the entire picture and improves the quality of care and health outcomes.( Stewart, 2008)

Adapting to different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for others view points. Cultural competence means to really listen to the patient, to find out and learn about the patient's beliefs of health and illness. To provide culturally appropriate care we need to know and to understand culturally influenced health behaviors.

In our society, nurses don't have to travel to faraway places to encounter all sorts of cultural differences, such as ethnic customs, traditions and taboos. The United States provides plenty of opportunities for challenges stemming from cultural diversity. To be culturally competent the nurse needs to learn how to mix a little cultural understanding with the nursing care they offer. In some parts of the United States culturally varied patient populations have long been the norm . But now, even in the homogeneous state of Maine where we reside, we are seeing a dramatic increase in immigrants from all over the world. These cultural differences are affecting even the most remote settings. (Uustal, 2008)

Nurses function in a health care environment that mirrors the diversity and cultural complexities of the larger society. The diversity of clients is varied and related to gender, age, socioeconomic status, education, physical and mental disabilities, regional locations, sexual life-style, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore the range of issues and their implications for nursing ...