Book Review
Transcultural nursing: An introductory teaching package for nurse lecturers and teachers
Olga Kanitsaki
ISBN: 0 646 10830 1; 1992; La Trobe University;
Ted Nunan
Distance Education Centre, University of South Australia, Adelaide SA
Transcultural Nursing aims to guide lecturers in their teaching of the area. To do this it provides a resource base about transcultural nursing and a packaged curriculum that they might deliver to students. The teaching package uses themes of context, people, health, care and nursing in its exploration of transcultural nursing.
Its teaching methodology aims at discovery learning within a range of health/illness and care contexts. The attractively produced folder contains six teaching units: introduction to transcultural nursing, transcultural perspectives on health/ illness beliefs and practices, transcultural concepts of care, maximising transcultural therapeutic nurse people relationships, the development of a transcultural nursing and health care system, and student subject evaluation. From the outset I must state that this review considers only the structural arrangements of the package in relation to its intended use as a resource for teaching.
My expertise is with educational rather than nursing matters. What is clear from the outset is that the package combines a number of aims: it is directed at improving the information base of nurse lecturers in the area, it spells out possible teaching strategies and provides learner materials with the expectation that the package will solve the practical problems of 'how to teach' in this area, and it provides a means of fostering learning about transcultural issues, and how they might, be taught for nurse lecturers. The package is well researched and comprehensive in the ways it provides resources and teaching suggestions.
The first section which deals with the aims of the package, the suggested organization and time allocation for units, extensive essential and recommended reading lists, video resources and a lesson, sets the scene for explaining the teaching arrangements. Each of the following units addresses the nurse lecturer and teacher providing details about the unit aims/objectives, background content through key points. Each unit then moves to methodological arrangements and suggestions for practice (student hand-outs, group work, critical reflection questions, whole class discussion topics, focusing questions etc.) finishing with further reference works relevant in the unit. Unfortunately, such an approach runs the risk of being taken as a 'teacher-proof set of materials; indeed, the package will appeal to those who feel that their initial training or background ignored transcultural issues and how to teach them.
So for those users, the objectives driven course design and the teacher-directed approach to learning contained within the package may meet an urgent need. Strategically the package may meet the short term needs of nurse lecturers. However, experience within the field of professional development of teachers would cast doubts upon the long term effectiveness of 'teacher-proof packages in promoting both staff development of teachers and 'expert approaches' for learners. While the package has alternatives in relation to suggested teaching activities and approaches, it is difficult not to get the impression that the materials are intended to be used in their entirety.
The structuring and sequencing of content, the methodologies and assessment have a structural integrity which will be recognised as a form of teacher support. Indeed, the package contains an implicit view about appropriate teaching (and learning); it presents a largely teacher centred (directed) approach to the transmission of 'transcultural nursing'.
The package would have a quite different structure if it was to focus upon students and be intended for use by learners rather than teachers. A student directed teaching approach should have produced a different sort of package and involved a different approach to staff development issues. Unfortunately, the package spends little time clarifying its own 'model of teaching and learning'. This, I would argue, is necessary as teachers who wish to use the package will want to know whether the package suits or can be adjusted to suit, their values about teaching and learning. Nurse educators, like other teachers, are sensitive to the impact of beliefs, values and power relationships between teacher and learner which attend curriculum determination and teaching, and a natural reaction to any 'package approach' will be a critical analysis of the 'hidden curriculum'.
Nevertheless, the package must be recommended for its comprehensiveness and potential usefulness in inducting lecturers to issues of transcultural nursing and how they might be taught to students.
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