[Problems of the culture concept and the phenomenon of otherness. Considerations of the theoretical-conceptional basis of transcultural nursing as a subject of teaching].

One important strategic feature inherent to the notion of culture is its normative potential of differentiating between "selfness" and "otherness" and of behavioural security when dealing with "others" or "otherness" (or the strange, foreign or alien), in the sense of a different culture to one's own. As a consequence, everything unknown to common sense becomes "foreign" or "strange". The idea of "otherness" and "culture" as social constructions leads to another thesis: in the context of education transcultural nursing as a subject of training cannot be merely introduced into the curriculum as a new subject that includes supposedly new factual knowledge. Moreover, established subjects should be enrichened in a way that culture as the basis of all human action and behaviour is integrated and reflected upon from the beginning. Concrete examples show the possibilities of how transcultural topics can be introduced into the conventional curriculum.