Implementing the multicultural education perspective into the nursing education curriculum

Journal of Instructional Psychology, Dec, 2003 by Hazel L. White

Approximately, seventeen percent of basic baccalaureate students identify themselves as African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, or American Indian (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 1996). Attrition rates for minority students in nursing are between 15% and 85% and are related to academic difficulties in the classroom and insufficient numbers of faculty committed to helping students succeed (O'Neil, 1992). These students can face a number of barriers that affect their ability to be successful in college. According to Campbell and Davis (1996), the nature of these barriers may be personal, academic, or institutional. These barriers include lack of identification with the campus, low faculty commitment to student success, financial problems, and personal factors. College is for most students the last change to succeed. College faculty can play and important role in reversing this problem and facilitate the success of minority students.

First of all, the curriculum must be directed toward the personal development of the students and toward nursing students in providing them with an education that will enable them to work with clients from different backgrounds and economic status. This approach would empower the nursing students with a better attitude about themselves and others. It will also help them to have a better attitude about heir abilities to succeed in nursing and in society. Additionally, nursing students will have the knowledge and skills to help empower their clients in developing a better attitude about their own worth and potentials for happiness, peace, and health.

Next, university administrators and faculty must be willing to examine the role of faculty in promoting the success of students. Effective teachers have the greatest impact on students' success. Good (cited in Paccione, 2000, p. 980) concluded, "... some of the strongest messages teachers communicate to students are expressed through classroom behavior ... Teachers may have the best intentions in the world, but if they behave inequitably, real damage occurs" (p. 632). Hence, teachers who are able to build rapport with students have the opportunity to make a significant difference (Paccione, 2000). Paccione (2000) further stated that the one way that teachers are able to establish this rapport and make a connection with students from different races and cultures is by becoming cultural competent. To become competent one must become a cultural broker (Gay cited in Paccione, 2000).

   A cultural broker is one who thoroughly
   understands different cultural systems,
   is able to interpret cultural symbols from
   one frame of reference to another can
   mediate cultural incompatibilities, and
   knows how to build bridges or establish
   linkages across cultures that facilitate
   the instructional process. (p. 287 cited
   in Paccione, 2000, p. 980).

It takes a skillful and committed teacher to become a cultural broker for the growing population of students from different races and cultures (Paccione, 2000). This will entail the faculty being able to talk with students about their feelings and experiences as they progress through the program. Research has shown that frequency and quality of student non-classroom discussions with faculty are significantly and positively correlated with academic achievement (Cohorn & Giulliano; Pascarella; Terenzini & Pascarella cited in Boulter, 20021)) and informal student-faculty contact was associated with persistence in college (Pascarella cited in Boulter, 2002).