Today, many societies
extended to include diverse cultures. Cultural diversity is a motive for health
practitioners to enrich their cultural knowledge and achieve cultural
competency in order to optimize the quality of health offered to patients (Mareno and
Hart, 2014). This essay is a reflection on how week 1
assisted me in gaining a better understanding on culture.
I used to link
cultural identity to the person’s geographical origin, ethnicity and
religion. After developing a deep
knowledge on the definition of culture, I understood that it results from the
experiences that people encounter and are linked to the group by whom they are
surrounded (Fiske, 2017). I also found that Lalita Tembang and Monique
Alker share with me the same finding. Thus, I understand now the ambiguity of
supposing to understand a person’s values and belief by presuming his/her belonging
to a culture based on certain parameters that we rendered it into stereotypes.
For example, I come from an Arab Islamic background which may mislead others
into presuming that I undermine women’s capabilities and rights. However, a
culturally competent person would not allow religion nor ethnicity to solely
define my culture or my values and beliefs. Then, by taking my life experiences
and my social group into consideration, the same person may my values and belief
to support equality and judgment of other people’s capabilities beyond their
gender.
Thanks to the
activities of week 1, I think that my deeper understanding about knowledge will
help me in my future practice in nursing in communicating and delivering
healthcare to people from diverse cultures by understanding them as
individual’s instead of presuming their cultural values and beliefs based geographical
origin, ethnicity and religion.
FISKE, S. T. 2017. Prejudices in Cultural
Contexts: Shared Stereotypes (Gender, Age) Versus Variable Stereotypes (Race,
Ethnicity, Religion). Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 12,
791-799.
MARENO,
N. & HART, P. L. 2014. Cultural Competency Among Nurses with Undergraduate
and Graduate Degrees: Implications for Nursing Education. Nursing Education Perspectives, 35, 83-8.
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