PERCEIVING AND COPING WITH EXCLUSION: THE SOCIALIZATION EXPERIENCES OF ETHNIC MINORITY NURSING STUDENTS.
Contributors: Portland State University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 260
Subjects: Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies.; Education, Bilingual and Multicultural.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This study focused on the stress, appraisal, and coping experiences of ethnic minority nursing students at a predominately white institution, the Health Sciences University School of Nursing. Faculty's perceptions of students' stress, appraisal and coping provided a context for the students' experience.

Data from 23 ethnic minority nursing student and 12 nursing faculty interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis proposed by Glaser and Strauss. Common to most nursing students was the phenomenon of making it in nursing school characterized by being out of control and gaining control.

Unique to ethnic minority students was some aspect of ethnicity as central to their problematic experience. A core phenomenon of exclusion as a threat to identity emerged. Three forms of exclusion were identified: (1) linguistic difficulty; (2) interpersonal disregard; (3) organizational cultural incompetence. Students'acceptance of responsibility for the problematic situation influenced their coping strategies. Holding back, keeping silent, disengaging and giving up were the usual coping responses. Only when the stakes were high would students speak out, negotiate or confront in order to preserve their academic progression.

Faculty accurately identified students' stresses as: staggering under the load, building a professional identity, experiencing isolation and facing cultural unresponsiveness. Faculty misidentified some of students' withdrawal coping behaviors as a cultural norm of being quiet or reserved. In addition, faculty offered descriptions of their own stress in teaching ethnic minority students with English as a second language such as trying to decide when to bend over backwards to help the students and when to draw the line.

The most important conclusion reached was that ethnic minority students experienced a set of stressors linked to their perceptions of their ethnic status. A major stressor was exclusion, in that it interfered with the core task of becoming socialized as a nurse. Weak social bonds within the school of nursing can hamper the recruitment of particular ethnic groups into the health care profession.

Recommendations were made to focus on the interpretation of health care events to surface the cultural nuances of understanding and meaning.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: A, page: 4096.

Thesis (PH.D.)--PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1992.

School code: 0180.