TY - JOUR PY - 2014// TI - Cultural variances in composition of biological and supernatural concepts of death: a content analysis of children's literature JO - Death studies A1 - Lee, Ji Seong A1 - Kim, Eun Young A1 - Choi, Younyoung A1 - Koo, Ja Hyouk SP - 538 EP - 545 VL - 38 IS - 6-10 N2 - Children's reasoning about the afterlife emerges naturally as a developmental regularity. Although a biological understanding of death increases in accordance with cognitive development, biological and supernatural explanations of death may coexist in a complementary manner, being deeply imbedded in cultural contexts. This study conducted a content analysis of 40 children's death-themed picture books in Western Europe and East Asia. It can be inferred that causality and non-functionality are highly integrated with the naturalistic and supernatural understanding of death in Western Europe, whereas the literature in East Asia seems to rely on naturalistic aspects of death and focuses on causal explanations.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0748-1187 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2014.899653 ID - ref1 ER -