Advancing the study of life and death education: theoretical framework and research inquiries for further development
Year: 2023
Type: review
Abstract: Life and death education, also known aslife educationanddeath education, is an interesting subject that may coincide with the subject of lifespan development. In brief, from our theoretical perspective, which guides our teaching and curriculum development, life education considers personal understanding of life functioning on a daily basis, whereas death education explores matters that are related to death and dying. For example, how can a social worker utilize his life knowledge, or life wisdom, to assist a relative to understand the intricate nature of death? In a similar vein, how can a senior citizen use her personal experience of Buddhist meditation practice to overcome a minor Covid setback? Central to our teaching practice is the premise of ‘active transformation’ (i.e., transforming life knowledge into positive practice) and the premise of ‘theoretical infusion’ (e.g., the infusion of a distinctive epistemological belief in the teaching of life) that would, in turn, help to enhance and facilitate deep, meaningful understanding of life and death. The purpose of the present article is for us to discuss a proposition of a theoretical-conceptual model, which depicts the ‘unification’ or integration of three major viewpoints of life and death: thesocial viewpoint, thephilosophical viewpoint, and thepsychological viewpoint. We theorize that unification of the three theoretical viewpoints may help provide grounding for effective teaching and holistic understanding of the subject contents of life and death. Such discourse, importantly, may also assist to advance the scope and complexity of the lifespan development subject. Finally, in addition to our theoretical-conceptual model of life and death, we propose three major research inquiries for development: themeaning of situated mindset, theunderlying nature of spiritual transcendence, andproposition of appropriate methodological accountsfor usage. Overall, then, we purport that our conceptual analysis and discussion overview, based on philosophical reflection, may serve to stimulate interest, intellectual curiosity, scholarly dialog, etc.
Source: Frontiers in Psychology
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,295
Funder: University of New England
OpenAlex ID: W4385302912