Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil.
The present study examined the development of an understanding of the concept of death by Black African learners residing in a rural area in the Eastern Cape. The study was set against the background of the African cultural meaning systems related to death. There were 31 learners whose ages ranged between 6-8, 9-12, and 13-16 years. Only learners whose parents gave consent were included in the study. Data were collected using drawings and semi-structured tape-recorded interviews from a modified version of the Smilansky (1987) Death Questionnaire. Drawings were analysed following Marton’s (1981) phenomenographic method. Pattern coding was used to pull the paraphrased segments of the interview transcripts into meaningful themes. The responses specific to the five components of death were analysed using Smilansky’s scoring method. From the analysis of drawings 9 categories of description emerged and these reflected a contextualised understanding of death. The overview of the drawings reflected more similarities than differences between the age groups. The referent object influenced the pattern of component acquisition. For instance, the level of understanding was better for human death compared to the level of understanding for animal death among the 6-8 age group. The reversal was true for older learners whose level of conceptualising animal death was more advanced than the level of conceptualising human death. This finding demonstrates the influence of cultural practices on the development of the conceptualisation of death. The conceptualisation of old age seemed to develop before the other components followed by inevitability, then irreversibility, and last, finality and causality. Gender differences were noted only in the explanations of causes of death. The conclusions reached demonstrated that the development of an understanding of death is affected by age, cognition, and by other familial and cultural factors depending on the context within which such development takes place. The principles of the neo-Piagetian theory proved useful in explaining the findings of the present study. Finally, recommendations regarding guidelines for handling death-related issues with children and regarding directions for future research are provided.