Nurturing cultural competence in nurse education through a values-based learning approach

Abstract

Global reports of cultural insensitivity continue despite the growing evidence highlighting the importance of nurturing cultural competence development in nurse education and practice. With the widening sociocultural diversification of the patient population, it is now imperative that nurse educators establish cultural competence as a graduate capability. The recent focus on revisiting and recommitting to core nursing values is welcomed, however further consideration is needed to ensure such values are lived in nurses behaviours, when engaging with culturally diverse patients. Undergraduate nurse education needs to embrace opportunities to engrain values based learning in curriculum design and utilise innovative learning and teaching approaches that ensure cultural competence is more explicitly developed. This paper discusses the importance of providing opportunities for students to critically review approaches to care, whilst ensuring cultural competency is a more visible responsibility of the future registered nurse in delivering quality care. The authors outline some practical approaches to examining core values underpinning nursing practice in the context of cultural competence development.