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Embracing diversity in nursing research: essential tips
  1. Lorna Hollowood1,
  2. Calvin Moorley2
  1. 1University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  2. 2London South Bank University School of Health and Social Care, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Lorna Hollowood; L.hollowood{at}bham.ac.uk

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Nursing is a profession that has always worked with diverse people and communities and has taken a social justice approach to care. Nursing has also undertaken research that includes diverse groups and communities. However, nurse researchers working with and undertaking research with diverse groups and communities may encounter problems in executing the research. This may be for reasons such as poor understanding of cultural and racial difference, not having an inclusive research team, for example, LGBTQIA+ researchers to help conduct LGBTQIA+ focused research or using an ableist approach, all of which can lead to exclusion, diminished trust and credibility. In this commentary, we draw on Hollowood’s doctoral journey and Moorley’s research experience, where both work with and research diverse communities’ health. Nurse researchers need to apply methodologies and approaches that are culturally sensitive and inclusive and here we offer essential tips, which have helped us by drawing on culturally specific and diversity-sensitive methods and frameworks to support inquiries which aim to improve the situation of the diverse communities nursing serves.

Choosing culturally sensitive theoretical frameworks and methodologies

Whiteness has dominated nursing,1 and this also extends to nursing research where dominant western philosophies and methodologies are applied. Nurse researchers have not had many culturally and racially sensitive frameworks to choose from and so their research on, for example, race and culture has mainly used frameworks framed on whiteness and this can lead to health and care being interpreted, analysed and recommendations made based on white lens. One of the frameworks we advocate for is The Silences Framework.2 It is a powerful tool to help uncover and understand marginalised discourses in research. This framework explicitly supports the researcher to identify and address the ‘silences’ which sit within a group and impact on their experiences and perspectives. ‘Silences’ refers to the areas of research that we know little about, …

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Footnotes

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.