SCH1101D: Cultural Studies - Australia and Its People - Essay Writing Assessment Answer

Cultural Studies Assignment

Assignment Task

Essay Question

In this assessment, students are asked to research the Indian culture. Write an essay of 1000 words on caring for a patient from this particular culture. Students are advised to use the lecture notes as a guide. Please be mindful that the lecture notes cannot be used as a reference. It is most important for students to highlight what a health professional must take into account when providing care for the patient in hospital. Consider the following:

• how this cultural group understands life processes;
• how this cultural group defines health and illness;
• what this cultural group does to maintain wellness;
• what this cultural group believes to be the causes of illness;
• how do traditional healers cure and care for members of this cultural group; and
• how the cultural background of the nurse influences the way in which care is delivered.

Students are reminded of the following:

• APA referencing must be followed. Please refer to page 2 of unit outline.
• References must be less than 7 years old
• Penalty applies for late submission. Please refer to page 4 of unit outline.
• Plagiarism is an academic misconduct and will be dealt with accordingly. Please refer to page 3 of unit outline.
• More guidelines for the essay will be provided in class and on Moodle.

Reflections

Students are asked write 500 words for each reflection on the following lecture topic:

Reflection 1: Race

Reflection 2: Ethnicity

Reflection 3: Culture

Reflection 4: Australia and Its People

Cultural Studies

Introduction

As societies become more culturally diverse due to economics and demographics changes for the growth of the multicultural world. Health care providers are required to consider cultural diversity as a priority due to the long-standing disparities in the health care. Diversity simply means something that is different from each. Thus, for healthcare providers to understand different culturally diversity they must go beyond to understand things like people’s beliefs, values, customs and practices for the people they are dealing with. Also, understanding the national origin and racial classification and another cultural diversity is very important. Some of the faces of diversity include, language, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender, physical size, political orientation, age, social, economic status, disability, geographical location and disability whether mentally or physically among others are faces of diversity. In general, culture can be said to be patterns of shared and learned behavior and beliefs and practices of a certain ethnic, age, or social group (Wolf, Kahn, Roseberry, & Wallerstein, 1994). Also, it can be referred as complex collective human beliefs and practices that have a structured stage of civilization which are specific for a given period or nation. Thus, human beings use culture to transform and adopt the place they live in. Anthropological study of culture categorized along basic and persistent themes which include change and diversity. The up bring of a person and the environment they live in is what makes the individuals diverse from other different cultures. The study will discuss the interrelationship between language, culture and health literacy and how they impact care provision in Indian culture.

Anthropological principles

Anthropology is the study of human beings from the past to the present. Some of the anthropological principles include language and culture which focus on different aspects of human beings existence. Both culture and language need to be addressed when dealing with healthcare literacy for various culturally diverse patients as they impact how they define health and illness. In many cases, literacy skills are greatly affected by language and culture, native-born patients, culturally diverse, and language barriers that are seen in most patient’s healthcare experiences.

Cultural

Cultural anthropology applies the evolutionary perspective and comparative method in the human culture. Culture is said to be the entire knowledge, traditional ways and values of viewing the world which is passed from one generation to the next. Ethnographers do compare what they hear and see with other findings and observations of other scientists. In the modern days, the focus has been narrowed to three aspects of life, that is political, religion, art and political. In India, there are many cultural groups with different ways of life. Some originated there while others emigrated from other regions. For healthcare providers to understand the culture diverse for the various groups they need to understand their way of life, briefs, and practices. Understanding of the internal logic of society helps outsiders such as caregivers from other societies make sense of behaviors they see which may seem senseless (Dysart-Gale, 2006). At a practical level, caregivers must understand that culture affects collective and individual experience which are indirectly and directly related to health. A good example of cultural influence on individual health behaviors and beliefs seen in the patient’s perception on the locus of control, prioritization of needs, communication of norms, the patient’s understanding of mental and physical illness.

Linguistic

The language of the human beings holds a particular fascination in culture. Language has developed for many years, enabling human beings to transcend individual memory limits. For many years speech has been an important medium of communication. Culture is mainly based on the language and depend on it. Many anthropologists have explored the history, evolution of the human language and its internal structure. They study different prehistoric links between various societies while exploring different verbal concepts in which human use to communicate. The linguistic anthropology aims at explaining the nature of different languages by including hidden connections among behavior, language, and brain. People use language belong to the same community, group, same geographical area or nation. In providing quality care to the patient's caregivers need to understand the language used by their patients (Towle, Godolphin & Alexander, 2006).

How the cultural Group Maintain Wellness

In this case, Indians are known to apply a variety of approaches through which they maintain their health or wellness such as the use of traditional healers. They have different beliefs as well as practices such as yoga, massage, dietary and use of herbal products to ensure good health or wellness. In this regard, the culture places emphasis on treating the patients through holistic approaches as well as ensuring prevention with a majority of methods being centered on herbs to cure illness (Lo, 2010).

How Cultural Background of the Nurse impacts Care

The existence of diverse cultures in the country provides the notion that care providers must have the ability to work in such environment to provide culturally sensitive care. To some extent, the cultural background of the nurses influences the way in which care is delivered primarily when serving a patient from different culture. However, the percentage to which the nurses cultural background influences their care is minimal due to their ability to recognize diversity or cultural awareness (Dysart-Gale, 2006).

Strategies to use to communicate with patients

For a caregiver to deliver quality care to the patients, effectively they need to adopt strategies to help them deal with different cultures. They need to give and seek feedback. This will ensure that patients are satisfied or not. Nodding of the head in a country with many cultures is not acceptable. Keeping it simple is another strategy they need to be applied, nurses and caregivers should try and adopt the way of speaking for them to communicate with patients effectively. When a patient has limited English it’s better to use simple words such as good, more and take than the use of positive, increase and administer.

Conclusion

For health caregiver to offer better services to patients with different cultures, they need to understand their way of life so as to create a connection with the patient. People who relocated to country had a various reason that made them migrate. India is one of the countries that have multicultural differences. Thus caregivers must have ways to dealing with it such as taking time to learn the patients cultural backgrounds and beliefs and incorporating them in care provision to promote positive outcomes.