Ho'okaulike: creating curricular equality from a cultural perspective

Abstract

The current climate of equity and inclusion is shining light on the previously ignored issue of honoring and integrating indigenous knowledge and values into the modern-day nursing curriculum. The Maori people addressed the disregard of cultural recognition in their nursing curriculum and nursing practice and called it cultural safety. The University of Hawai’i (UH) recognizes that Hawai’i unique location and strength in indigenous scholarship sets the school apart from other universities. It pledged in its strategic plan a commitment to promoting a native Hawaiian place of learning. The goal of this project is to incorporate Native Hawaiian cultural values and knowledge into the UH school nursing curriculum by introducing updated program learning outcomes and providing faculty development training to implement the modified student learning outcomes (SLO) successfully. The faculty development workshop held at the start of the semester focused on pronouncing Hawaiian words and the making of lei as an object lesson demonstrating how to integrate Hawaiian culture and values into the nursing curriculum. This resulted in a request to present a class on Hawaiian Death and Dying. The project also polled Hawaiian scholars on what should be included in the curriculum. The list of concepts and values includes Aloha, Akahai, Lōkahi, ʻOluʻolu, Haʻahaʻa, Ahonui, Ohana, Kuʻauhau, Kuleana, and Aloha ‘Aina. NAWSON is actively mapping the new AACN essentials to current Program Learning Outcomes (PLO) and SLOs. This project only moved forward with this portion of the project once the curriculum mapping arrived at this point. The next steps are writing culturally inclusive PLOs, and SLOs and completing the approval process.