The pragmatics of culture: the rhetoric of difference in psychiatric nursing.
Culture becomes an issue in the treatment of psychiatric patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. Inpatient psychiatry at an urban, general hospital in San Francisco, California, has developed specialized treatment programs for Hispanic, black, and Asian-Pacific patients. These patients are recognized as culturally distinct; their cultural situations must be addressed by a program of culturally sensitive nursing care. The implementation of such a program has not generally led to serious cultural analysis on the part of nurses and other caregivers but rather, to a rhetorical and strategic use of the concept of culture and a stereotyping of traits, styles, and beliefs. This article critically examines this rhetoric of cultural difference as an aspect of the rhetoric of normalization practiced in this setting.
Foster
S W
SW
Department of Psychiatric Nursing, San Francisco General Hospital, CA 94110.
D001208:Asia / Q000208:ethnology; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006303:Health Services, Indigenous; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing; D012495:San Francisco; D013240:Stereotyping