Diversity in Nursing Education: Middle Eastern Students

Culturally diverse students face barriers to success in nursing school. One troublesome obstacle is the faculty-student relationship. This study explored Middle Eastern nursing students in Jordan and identified Eastern-Western cultural differences that may occur in the United States.

Existential descriptive phenomenology and feminist theoretical framework were used to design, collect data, and analyze results for 24 final-semester students. Six themes were identified: dissatisfaction, time, negativity, gender, culture, and utopia. Findings indicate Middle Eastern students and families have a different view of nursing than U.S. faculty members.

Strong influences of family, culture, and community directly relate this study's conclusions to Middle Eastern students studying in the U.S. These findings may prevent faculty-student misunderstandings, diminished student academic performance, and loss of culturally diverse U.S. nurses.

The faculty-student relationship benefits from an understanding of the cultural challenges and experiences identified by Middle Eastern nursing students studying in the U.S. [.