This article examines baccalaureate nursing education curricula in the People's Republic of China. Three 5-year curricula and one 4-year curriculum were content analyzed and contrasted. Findings of this study suggested that: (i) the biomedical model dominated the three 5-year traditional curricula; (ii) political-ideological content permeated all four curricula; and (iii) the reformed curriculum at Peking Union Medical College was a genuine effort toward building a new nursing curriculum model that intended to differentiate nursing education from medical education. In addition, major themes of recent curriculum reforms were highlighted. Recommendations were suggested to improve the outcomes of future curriculum endeavors. Explicit as well as implicit comparisons with an ideal-typical American generic baccalaureate nursing curriculum were made when appropriate.

Grounded in first-hand experience, research, and published literature, this article provides an emic view of the health-seeking behaviors and barriers to health care of Southeast Asian immigrants. Implications for the home health nurse are also examined. Such an understanding is the foundation for building the cultural and linguistic competencies for taking care of Southeast Asian clients. In addition, in light of the changing demographics of the U.S. population reflected in Census 2000 and the recently released national standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services, the article also discusses the challenges and implications of implementing the national standards to reduce and eventually eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

This article examines China's collaborative initiatives with Western countries to assess the impact of globalization on Chinese nursing education, especially at the post-secondary level, in the post-Mao era. Through the theoretical framework of mutuality, it evaluates the outcomes of globalization in two broad domains: pedagogy and system-institution-program building. In addition, case studies on two collaborative projects between Chinese nursing programs and Western institutions were conducted to further illustrate the principles of mutuality. This qualitative assessment is primarily based on a systematic review of published studies on the multifaceted dimensions of globalization in Chinese post-secondary nursing education in both English and Chinese nursing literature since 1990. It is supplemented by unpublished documents and data obtained from a research trip to China in 2000. The study concludes that globalization has been, and will remain, one of the major forces underpinning Chinese nursing education (and the nursing profession in general), which is moving towards integration into the global nursing community. However, there is a significant imbalance in the knowledge transfer equation both in the national and international context. Great efforts need to be made to synthesize nursing knowledge in the East and West to achieve an integrative nursing science.