| The process of cultural competence is critical for nursing students to understand in order to provide effective nursing care to all populations. The demographics of society are dynamic and constantly changing; therefore nursing students need to be adequately prepared in order to meet the challenges that await them in professional practice. This begins in nursing academia. Nursing faculty are the facilitators of cultural competence in academia. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to uncover the feelings of nursing faculty in relation to teaching cultural competence to nursing students. The interviewing questions addressed personal experiences of the nursing faculty, and how they teach this process to nursing students. Nursing faculty also offered suggestions for future nurse educators related to teaching practices in cultural competence. Six themes were uncovered in this study: (a) faculty experience examples, (b) teaching practices, (c) students as barriers, (d) present teaching practices, (e) educator preparedness, and (f) curricular significance. The findings revealed that nursing faculty use their own personal experiences to teach cultural competence to nursing students, and that cultural competence in nursing education needs to be continuously updated and kept current to reflect the changing demographics of society. |
