In a society in which we live, children experience a variety of death and loss, but our society still avoids openly mentioning or dealing with the issue of death to children. However, cognitive development related to the concept of death is mostly ca...
In a society in which we live, children experience a variety of death and loss, but our society still avoids openly mentioning or dealing with the issue of death to children. However, cognitive development related to the concept of death is mostly carried out in early childhood. This suggests that it is possible and necessary to talk about death to children.
Therefore, in this study, the results of the first study related to the attitude of the childcare teachers to the death education for children and the result of the second study which divided the infant picture books with the theme of death into the cognitive concept and emotional characteristics were derived. Based on the results of the previous two studies, the results of the third study suggest educational proposals centered on activities and activities.
In relation to the first research question, a focus group interview was conducted with 27 childcare teachers in 5 groups. Each group consisted of four to seven people, and the interview was conducted for about one hour. The collected data were analyzed according to the theme analysis method. Teachers' attitudes toward death education were found to be the teacher's personal level, the curriculum level, and the socio-cultural level as a result of searching and analyzing attitudes toward childcare teachers.
On the teacher's personal level, teacher's attitude and knowledge about death education for children appeared. Teachers felt that it was difficult to explain to the child about the subject of death, and while they realized that they had to explain it frankly, they explained the death in other words. In addition, in order to interact with children or to explain death by the theme of death, teachers said that related teacher education is needed. On the curriculum level, the teachers talked about the topics within the curriculum and the concrete method of education. Participants in the study felt that there was no reference to the teacher or educational materials to present to the child. This is because there is no content related to death at current Nuri program. The participants thought that picture books were effective as a media for death education for children. In addition, the teachers discussed how to educate infants about the content. On the socio-cultural level, teachers recognized that it was difficult to agree on death education for children due to cultural specificity and religious diversity.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of childcare teachers toward death education for children in depth. Because it is a qualitative study, this study revealed the viewpoints, values and beliefs of the research participants and tried to understand it in depth and did not aim to generalize the results. This study is meaningful in that it deeply analyzes the attitude of childcare teachers and provides basic data to death education for children.
In relation to the second research question, 60 children's picture books dealing with death among domestic and foreign books published in Korea were selected and analyzed. The cognitive concepts of death in the collected picture books were applied to the content analysis by making the analysis frame with reference to the previous study of Corr and Balk (2010). The emotional characteristics of death in the collected picture books were applied to the content analysis by making the analysis frame with reference toe the previous study of Bowlby(1980).
In the picture book of death, various cognitive concepts and emotional characteristics of death appeared. Specifically, the cognitive concepts of death were finality, universality, causality, and noncorporal continuation, and the emotional characteristics of death were numbing, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair, and reorganization.
This study analyzed the children's picture books about death, and showed contents and aspect of the cognitive concepts and emotional characteristics of death. This provides basic data on death education for children using picture book. The use of picture books with various death concepts is useful as educational medium for children education, especially death and life education. And it is expected that it will increase educational effect to use as educational medium.
The third research question is about the proposal of death education for children using picture books, and the proposal of activity consists of aspects of cognitive understanding and emotional coping. The educational proposals proposed in this study are activities that can be interact with children with the contents related to death in general childcare or early childhood education site.
Based on the results of the previous two studies, the situation set in this study was chosen as the situation that is treated in the field. In addition, the following points were considered in selecting picture books. First, we considered how many cognitive concepts and emotional characteristics appeared in a picture book. Second, the difficulty of cognitive concept in picture book was considered. Third, we considered the intensity of emotional characteristics in picture books. In addition, religious diversity and cultural characteristics were considered.
In the cognitive aspect, four books were selected to help children understand the concept of death. And in the emotional aspect, the situation of bereavement with grandparents, parents, and animals is presented, and selected two picture books each.