What do teenagers have to say about adolescence and the subject of death? / O que os jovens têm a dizer sobre a adolescência e o tema da morte?

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2005

RESUMO

This work investigated how the adolescents perceive, reflect and deal with the subject of death and verify how the teenagers explain the high rates of mortality in their age group. Moreover, it was investigated the need of discussing the subject of death with family, friends, professionals and the best way to do it. This reflection is relevant and fundamental once the statistics show astonishing data about the increase of mortality between adolescents, mainly related to accidents and violent deaths. It was intended to comprehend the process of adolescence and its relation to the subject of death, using a qualitative approach. Teenagers (ages 14 to 17) from two schools in the city of São Paulo participated in this study. The video “Talking about death with the adolescent” (Laboratory of Death Studies of Psychology Institute of University of São Paulo) was shown and discussions with the adolescents were proposed, inspired in the modality called Focal Group. Thematic categories were stood out with the intention of construct some points of analyses. The reflections made by the adolescents envolved: the subject of death and the difficulty of thinking about the possibility of loss of dear persons. In general, the adolescents don’t notice death as a personal possibility, expressing feelings of immortality and onipotence. When losses of adolescent friends were mentioned, the feelings of shock and intense sadness were frequent and friends are important sources of support in a process of identification. Some of the hypothesis about the high rates of mortality in adolescence were: use of drugs; violence; banalization of death; unfavourable social situations; AIDS; unemployment and lack of perspectives of future; suicide; difficulty in the communication with professionals, friends and family; difficulty in the expression of feelings and help requests; accidents; lack of limits and attitude of challenging the world; bad influences; non-imposition of responsability by society; difficulties in education etc. It was stablished a contact with professionals of education that reflected how schools are an important space to offer the discussion and reflection about the subject of death between professionals and between/with the students.

ASSUNTO(S)

death education taxa de mortalidade educação em relação à morte adolescência mortality rate adolescence

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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