Cultural competence and scientific competence are not hierarchical, but integrated in nursing action. Nurses have a special accountability to transcend ethnocentrism. A nurse cannot be effective if he or she is confined in the narrowness of one's own culture. The knowledge base of nursing is meaningful to the patient and the patient's needs and to the needs of the family and community. Such needs occur within a given social context.
Nurses value cultural differences and strive to individualize knowledge for care.
Nurses recognize the real and strive for the ideal. At the same time, nurses acknowledge the complexity in the world. They question how privilege may blind the nurse to the wisdom of ordinary people and thus, how the needs of some people may not be recognized by nursing. As a discipline with a social mandate, nurses take responsibility for social transformation. Political activism is one form of valuing and acting within the discipline.