White dominance in nursing education: A target for anti-racist efforts.

Abstract

Literature on racism, anti-racism, whiteness, nursing education and nurse educators was reviewed and analysed for the development of race consciousness and application of anti-racist pedagogy. The literature describes an oppressive educational climate for non-white identifying people, a curriculum that does not attend to the social construction of difference, and a nursing culture that is not consciously situated in a broader sociopolitical context. A particular focus on studies of nurse educators demonstrates a stark need for personal and professional development towards effectively delivering anti-racist pedagogy and a deconstruction of white normativity and dominance amongst white faculty. The protection and reproduction of white privilege is identified through the scholarship itself through a lack of racial analysis, an externalization of the root of oppression and non-specific study measures and outcomes. The persistence and pervasiveness of white dominance in nursing and the lack of anti-racist competence in white educators, particularly, merits a shift in anti-racist efforts away from short-term skill acquisition initiatives towards the deconstruction of socialized white supremacy and enactments of white privilege in nurse educators themselves.