Spirit of the drum: the development of cultural nursing praxis

The integration of culture is essential for nursing education and practice with diverse populations. Educators and students in the multicultural classroom must adopt culturally responsive behaviours that validate cultural identity and enhance cultural caring both in the classroom and in clinical areas. Fourth-generation evaluation as described by Guba and Lincoln was used to evaluate the cultural curriculum of a nursing program in northern Canada. The findings suggest that we should adopt a process of integrating difference through the nurse-client relationship and ways of being. Implications for including the traditional knowledge policy of the government of the Northwest Territories in nursing education and practice, as depicted in the Northern Knowledge Model, are discussed.