| Learning Objective #1: 1. Identify communication concepts relatively new to nursing for deeper inquiry into and evaluation of multicultural and multiracial/multiethnic communication interactions. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: 2. Describe instances in which provider or patient categorizing of social identity produce variations in the process, content, and outcomes of health encounter communication. |
In nursing, traditional models of communication and models related to transcultural nursing lack sufficient concepts to bridge the gap between cultural variations and social inequalities. As a result, few nursing communication studies address disparities in the process of care. This theoretical presentation begins with a review of traditional models and their associated concepts used within nursing to investigate variations in communication and culture for patient care. Next, we present data from an online interactive concept mapping exercise with 50 Nursing students to identify concepts necessary to evaluate provider-patient communication as a process more sensitive to social and cultural diversity. Their silences mirror silences within the profession affirmed by this conceptual analysis with their feedback. Finally, we offer a multidisciplinary framework, membership categorization, to provide for a common language and set of ideas derived from sociolinguistics and social psychology and operationalized for application in nursing communication investigations. The premise of this framework is that social identities produce internally identified and externally attributed social memberships and social locations that may or may not be acknowledged or accepted by providers and patients as speech partners while speaking with one another. Since membership categorization and its effects are not consistently captured by commonly used nursing research methods, ethnography of communication will be presented as a method that can be used in conjunction with the newly identified theory and concepts for studies of social inequality in the process of care. Examples of ethnography of communication using student volunteers, recorded interviews, and previous data offer an opportunity to view examples of membership categorization and consider how they may be applied to disparity research. The process extends the ability of nurse investigators and clinicians to articulate questions for research and evaluation of racial/ethnic and linguistic disparities arising from the interpersonal process of care.