Death education and public health approaches to death, dying and bereavement

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Paul, Sally; Rodríguez Herrero, Pablo and de la Herrán Gascón, Agustín, eds. (2026) Death education and public health approaches to death, dying and bereavement. In: Perspectives on Death Education and the Pedagogy of Death. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781040943700 (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003770824)

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Abstract

Death and grief education are considered key aspects of a public health approach to death, dying and bereavement. Such an approach recognises illness, caregiving, death and loss as experiences that will impact everyone at some point in their lives and demand both individual and social actions to improve related experiences. From this perspective, death education with and for children is frequently associated with school curricula, whereby formal education on death and grief is part of a whole school approach to death and bereavement. A whole school approach recognises the multiple ways in which schools can shape the experience of death and loss and the agency and capacity of children, staff and the wider school community to navigate these experiences. Here, death and grief education are associated with concepts of death and grief literacy and work towards both acknowledging death and grief as part of children’s lives and preparing them to support themselves and others when such experiences occur. In this chapter, I discuss the significance of a public health approach to death, dying and bereavement and the role of death and grief education within this. I then go on to explore the extent to which children feature within public health debates, showing how school communities play a key role in taking forward such approaches. Lastly, I discuss some examples of death and grief education programmes in schools, developed from a public health lens. I consider some of the associated challenges and opportunities for continuing work in this area and how it links with wider concepts of death and grief education in children’s lives.

ORCID iDs

Paul, Sally ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1690-8411; Rodríguez Herrero, Pablo and de la Herrán Gascón, Agustín
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)