Towards a National Discursive Construction of Nurses' Diversity Related Competencies?

This paper will explore the premises for developing a national discursive construction of the professional competencies needed by nurses when confronted with cultural difference and intercultural contact. Based on an analysis of the Danish nursing community's articles in the Danish Nursing Union's journal, "The Nurse", covering an eight-year period it is concluded that the nursing profession understood as a community of practice continues to encounter the same type of problems related to diversity and that increased knowledge, skills and competencies are needed. The discourse of a new Bachelor degree programme in nursing containing a national, standardised curriculum is therefore analysed to uncover how cultural difference and intercultural issues are prioritised in terms of learning goals and resources, and to examine whether the discourse contributes significantly to the understanding of the character of the diversity related competencies of future nurses.