TRANSCULTURAL NURSING: Transforming the Curriculum

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Abstract
More than three decades have passed since Leininger established the field of transcultural nursing as a research based specialty which is recognized around the world as an essential and formal area of study and practice. When the importance of culture to nursing was first articulated by Leininger in the early 1950s, knowledge and awareness of these cultural influences were largely unknown and unrecognized in nursing education. The typical 1950s nursing curricula were soundly rooted in biophysical medical content, technical skills, tasks, and practices with no mention of cultural influences. Few nursing faculty had formal academic preparation in the social sciences, and Leininger was the first professional nurse with doctoral preparation in anthropology (Leininger, 1970, 1978, 1981b, 1984a, 1984b, 1989a, 1990b, 1991).