CULTURALLY COMPETENT SCHOLARSHIP - SUBSTANCE AND RIGOR

There is an urgency to the development of culturally competent care. T his urgency is due to increasing diversity, increasing disclosure of i dentities, care delivery moving to homes, and increasing inequity in a ccess to health care. The development of a knowledge base for cultural ly competent care is constrained by substantive and methodological iss ues, such as the limited view of culture as a unit of analysis and lim itations in designs and methods that could capture the integrative nat ure of participants' experiences. Therefore, I propose that components of foundational knowledge in nursing may include, but should not be l imited to, populations and their cultures; culture-specific nursing ph enomena; and responses to diversity, marginalization, vulnerability, a nd transitions. To develop culturally competent knowledge, researchers , theoreticians, and reviewers are urged to address eight criteria to ensure rigor and credibility in scholarship: contextuality, relevance, communication styles, awareness of identity and power differentials, disclosure, reciprocation, empowerment, and time.