Death Education

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Death Studies Journal

Death education, also known as education about death, dying, and bereavement, is based on the idea that death-denying, death-defying, and death-avoiding attitudes and practices in American culture can be transformed, by empowering individuals and institutions to better be able to deal with death-related experiences as a result of educational efforts.

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Origins

Death education can be traced back to the death awareness movement, which was unofficially started by Herman Feifel's book, The Meaning of Death (1959). Feifel and other scholars noted that the subject of death had become "taboo" in the twentieth century and challenged individuals to acknowledge their personal mortality, suggesting that to do so is essential for a meaningful life. Feifel pioneered the scientific study of attitudes toward death and pointed to the multidisciplinary nature of the field. At about the same time other pioneers focused on more specific issues concerning dying persons and their care and the experience of grief.

Reflecting the broad-based academic beginnings, courses on death and dying were developed by Robert Kastenbaum, Clark University, Robert Fulton at the University of Minnesota, Dan Leviton at the University of Maryland, and James Carse at Yale University, among others. In 1969 Fulton established the Center for Death Education (now the Center for Death Education and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse). In 1970 Robert Kastenbaum founded Omega: The Journal of Death and Dying, the first professional journal in the field. In the same year the first conference on death education was held at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1977 Hannelore Wass founded the journal Death Education (later renamed Death Studies).

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