LECTURE OUTLINE

SOCIOLOGY 3384 - DEATH & DYING

MODULE 1: Education About Death
TEXT: The Last Dance: Encountering Death and Dying, Lynne Ann DeSpelder and Albert Lee Strickland,
McGraw Hill, 9th Edition

OBJECTIVES:
1
2
3
4

To explore the role of education about death and dying

To identify things we can learn about life and living by studying death and dying
To describe the four (4) dimensions of death education
To identify the six main goals of death education

TEXT READING:
Chapter 1, pgs. 30-33
ASSIGNMENTS/EXERCISES:
In Class Exercise: The Horse on the Dining Room Table
Research Topic: See Topics List TRACS-Resources. Go to TRACS-Signup to sign up
for your selected research topic. (See Course Calendar for Opening/Closing dates for
Research Topic Signup)
EXAMS/QUIZES:
Syllabus Quiz See Syllabus Calendar for opening/closing dates.
I.

Informal Education About Death (PP-Module 1 Slides 2-4)

A. Why Are You Taking This Course?

B. Informal Education About Death (Text pgs. 30-33)

1. Personal Concerns
a. Previous Experience (Informal or unplanned death education)

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b. Ongoing Experience
2. Desire to better understand what death means
C. Death Education in Medical Schools
1. Prior to 1990
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2. 1990
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3. 1995
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3

Death education nurses

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II. Formal Death Education (PP-Module 1 Slides 5, 6)

A. Four Dimensions of Death Education (Corr, Nabe, Corr, Death & Dying, Life &
Living, 2006, 5th ed., Wadsworth, pgs. 7-9)
1.

Cognitive/Intellectual
Provides factual information about death-related experiences and tries to help us
understand or interpret those events.

2. Affective - Feelings, emotions, and attitudes about death, dying and bereavement.
Death education attempts to sensitize those who are not bereaved to the death,
intensity, duration and complexities of grief and mourning following a death.

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3. Behavioral
Why people act as they do in death-related situations, which of their behaviors are
helpful or unhelpful, and how they could or should act in such situations.

4. Valuational
Helps to identify, articulate, and affirm the basic values that govern human lives.

B. Six Goals of Death Education(Corr, Nabe, Corr, Death & Dying, Life & Living, 2006,
5th ed., Wadsworth, pgs. 9-10)
1. Enrich personal lives

2. Inform and guide individuals in their personal transactions with society

3. Prepare individuals for their public roles as citizens

4. Support individuals in their professional and vocational roles

5. Enhance the ability of individuals to communicate effectively about death-related

Matters

6. Assist individuals in appreciating how development across the human life course
interacts with death-related issues

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