Mitchell Kim M
College of Nursing, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Nurs Inq. 2023 Oct;30(4):e12565. doi: 10.1111/nin.12565. Epub 2023 May 30.
Defining a nurse as literate is disciplinary and contextual, linked to professional identity formation, and an issue impacting patient safety. Literacy and language proficiency are concepts assessed through examining skills in four pillars: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This article explores how literacy is not only a practice issue but inextricably intertwined with issues of race, equity, diversity, and inclusiveness in our profession-both in regulatory policy and classroom pedagogy. In making the argument that language is a proxy for race, three cases of language and literacy will be presented. First, the deficit discourse of multilingual student struggle is stereotyped to the presence or absence of an accent, with multilingual student needs often treated homogeneously in disregard of population heterogenous abilities. Second, regulatory policies for language testing internationally educated nurses are discriminatory with testing context bearing little relationship to the language needs of nursing practice. Third, that the myth of "one standard English" results in racist evaluation practices of student academic performance. Recommendations are made for reframing how language and literacy are viewed in nursing education and regulation of practice with a focus on acknowledgment of one's personal relationship to racial issues and emphasizing the need for a change in mindset toward racialized multilingual students and writers.
将护士定义为有文化素养的人是学科性和情境性的，与职业身份形成相关，也是影响患者安全的一个问题。文化素养和语言能力是通过考察阅读、写作、口语和听力这四大技能来评估的概念。本文探讨了文化素养不仅是一个实践问题，而且在我们这个行业的监管政策和课堂教学法中，它与种族、公平、多样性和包容性问题紧密相连、不可分割。在论证语言是种族的代表时，将呈现三个语言和文化素养的案例。第一，多语言学生面临的困难的缺陷话语被刻板地归结为有无口音，多语言学生的需求往往被一概而论地对待，而忽视了人群能力的异质性。第二，针对国际教育护士的语言测试监管政策具有歧视性，测试情境与护理实践的语言需求几乎没有关系。第三，“标准英语”的神话导致了对学生学业成绩的种族主义评估做法。本文提出了一些建议，旨在重新审视护理教育和实践监管中对语言和文化素养的看法，重点是承认个人与种族问题的关系，并强调需要改变对多语言学生和写作者的种族化思维方式。
