Women, Death, and Dying:
|
VOL. 8, No. 2, 55-68
This paper examines the effectiveness of a distance education course entitled Death and Society as a way of linking personal experience with cultural beliefs about death. Because the majority of students in this course are women, four gender-specific issues are discussed. First, feminist theory is used to assess the value of the course as a reflection of women's experience. Second, course content is outlined, and an assignment linking personal experience with cultural views of death is described. Third, findings from a survey of students in the course are reported; they confirm expectations that the assignment had helped students view their experiences with death in the context of societal expectations and cultural beliefs. Fourth, ways of modifying the course to provide a woman's perspective on death and dying are presented. The paper concludes with recommendations for a woman-centred approach in other distance education courses.
Le cours intitulé Mort et société veut sonder chez l'apprenant le lien entre son expérience propre de la mort et les visions dont est porteuse sa culture. La nature des quatre questions soulevées ici est fonction de la composition du groupe de télé-apprenants, majoritairement féminin. On propose d'abord une évaluation du cours en tant que miroir du vécu des femmes, qui s'appuie sur la théorie féministe. Suit un aperçu du contenu du cours et la description d'un travail assigné visant à faire observer le lien entre l'expérience de la mort et les visions qu'en a la culture. Vient ensuite le résultat d'une enquête auprès des participants, qui confirme que le travail leur avait permis d'envisager leurs expériences personnelles de la mort dans le contexte des attentes sociétales et des croyances culturelles. Enfin, on propose des modifications à apporter à ce cours afin qu'il tienne compte de la vision de la mort qui est propre aux femmes. L'article termine en suggérant comment on pourrait étendre cette approche axée sur la vision des femmes à d'autres cours offerts à distance.
The concept of distance education is now accepted worldwide as a way of reaching students who would otherwise be denied access to university courses. In Canada, the distance education movement is committed to the goal of breaking down geographic and class boundaries that have constrained many potential students in the past. With this in mind, a range of teaching resources and technologies has been developed to build communication between students and professors. One of the most exciting developments in distance education currently is the concern among researchers and policy-makers with the unique needs of women in distance education (Faith, 1988; Faith & Coulter, 1988; Kirkup & von Prummer, 1990). Since women constitute a majority of distance students, both in Canada and internationally, their welfare should be a major consideration (Burge & Lenskyj, 1990; Coulter, 1989).
This paper focuses on the efficacy of the University of Waterloo distance education program for students taking the sociology course entitled Death and Society, proposing ways in which the course content and structure could be modified to address women's issues more effectively. The course is based on the premise that, because death and dying are removed from everyday experience in industrial societies, people are often unsure of their own roles and confused by the responses of others when death does occur. Ideas drawn from the work of Philippe Ariès are used to enhance students' understanding of cultural views of death. Ariès (1981) contends that two ideal types of cultures can be conceptualized - the Culture of Acceptance and the Culture of Denial. The first is characteristic of pre-industrial societies where death occurs frequently and often without warning, forcing people to deal with it at an everyday level. The second prevails in industrialized societies where death is associated with advanced age and people typically die in institutional settings. In this kind of society, because people have been shielded from the reality of death, they may be unaware of the rituals associated with death and dying.
The majority of students in this course are women, many of whom indicate that they have experienced the death of a family member or that they deal with death at work. The content and design of the course encourages them to view their experiences within the framework of broad demographic patterns and attendant social changes that can alter cultural views of death and dying. For example, life expectancy has increased markedly over the past hundred years, so most women now first encounter death at mid-life or later, with the deaths of parents or a spouse. If they are familiar with the idea of cultural denial of death, they will be able to interpret and understand the responses of others in the face of death.
Because this course is popular among women, four issues associated with women's views of education are identified for discussion. First, relevant feminist theory is reviewed, and the value of the course as a reflection of women's experience is assessed. Second, the content of the course is briefly outlined, and an introductory assignment linking personal experience with broad cultural responses to death is described. Third, a survey of students who have completed Death and Society is used to evaluate the course: in particular, students are asked if the assignment in question helped them translate their experiences with death into an understanding of societal expectations and cultural beliefs. Fourth, ways of expanding the course material and strengthening communication links to present a woman's perspective on death and dying are explored. The paper concludes with a review of the findings and offers suggestions for applying a woman-centred approach in other distance education courses.
Contemporary feminist theory incorporates a number of overlapping perspectives, but feminism is generally grounded in the view that women and men lead different lives in patriarchal societies. Consequently, some feminist theorists advocate a distinctive sociology for women that draws on their everyday experience, enabling them to arrive at an understanding of a social world where power is held by men (O'Brien, 1982; Smith, 1987, 1990). Smith (1990) contends that "the worlds of men have had, and still have, an authority over the worlds that are traditionally women's and still are predominantly women's - the worlds of household, children, and neighbourhood" (p. 13). This alternative approach, as delineated by Smith, represents a radical departure from the theories, methods, and subject matter of traditional, male-centred sociology. According to this argument, women in academic settings face a disjunction between their own life experience and established bodies of knowledge that reflect a male point of view.
In the context of distance education, this commitment to existing theories and methods may be confusing for women who are physically removed from the university community. The packages of objective, factual material sent to correspondence students may have little direct bearing on their social worlds. Some critics also argue that this approach discourages critical thinking on the part of the student, reinforcing the authority of the distant professor (Coulter, 1989).
Over the past twenty years, proponents of women's studies as a separate discipline have introduced alternative approaches to learning, encouraging women to explore their own direct experience in order to understand their society better. Recent works show that these methods are now being effectively integrated into women's studies distance education courses (Bray, 1988; Burge & Lenskyj, 1990; Coulter, 1989; Warren, 1987).
This study extends existing research by moving beyond the subject area of women's studies courses and examining the responses of women to a course on death and dying that incorporates material related to their everyday experience.
This approach is relevant because aging, dying, death, and grief are common themes in the lives of women: wives act as caregivers to their elderly husbands, daughters are expected to look after aging parents (Chappell, 1989), and given pronounced gender differences in life expectancy, widowhood is an "expectable life event" for most women (Martin Matthews, 1987). Women also do most of the day-to-day work in hospitals, nursing homes, and home care programs, either as paid employees or as volunteers. These aspects of women's experience are addressed in the Death and Society course by using the students' subjective experiences to introduce broader concepts. The final section of the course departs from this experiential model, presenting objective demographic material to demonstrate changing patterns of mortality over time.
The study focuses on women who have dealt with the death of family members or friends, examining the connections between their personal experience and the material presented in the course. If the course has been effective, students should have gained an appreciation of societal expectations in the face of death, enabling them to move beyond their personal concerns and locate their own experience within the framework of broad social change and underlying cultural views of death.
The distance education course entitled Death and Society is similar in design to others developed through the University of Waterloo correspondence program. It consists of twenty audiotaped lectures, an optional video, a textbook, lecture notes, tables, diagrams, and supplementary readings. Students are required to return five completed assignments at specified intervals and write a final examination. They are also advised to contact the professor by telephone whenever they need help.
Introductory lectures provide a sociological view of death and dying, emphasizing the importance of underlying cultural beliefs in shaping views of death. At this stage, a historical perspective is adopted, encouraging students to compare contemporary North American customs with those of earlier societies. The work of Philippe Ariès (1974, 1981) is introduced, and students are asked to critique his view that we live in a culture of denial. Institutional responses to death are discussed in detail in the opening lectures before the course moves on to a series of case studies dealing with hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and home deaths.1 The final section of the course makes use of demographic material to examine mortality rates, changing causes of death, and population pyramids. In short, the sequence of topics encourages students to examine their own experience first by considering it in the context of societal expectations. It then leads gradually into an exploration of broad social change by comparing cultural views of death in various societies and concludes with an examination of the demo-graphic indicators that can influence cultural beliefs about death. Because this demographic material typifies the authoritative knowledge that Smith (1990) identifies, it is left for the end, allowing students to view it through the lens of their personal experience.
The first assignment invites students to step from their own experience into a broader framework:
Select one of the institutional responses to death outlined by Ariès and interpret it in light of your own experience. For example, you could discuss contemporary mourning rituals based on your experience with the death of friends or family members. If you have had no immediate contact with death, you could inter-view an older person or a professional person who deals with death. Include in your paper a consideration of the broad cultural view of death (i.e., acceptance or denial) and show how the experience you describe is related to the prevailing cultural view. Does it indicate acceptance, denial, or a contradictory set of beliefs?
It is important to note that students are given a way out here. If they have no personal experience with death or if they do not want to discuss it, they can interview someone who has been involved with death or dying. In fact, most students welcome the chance to relate their own encounters with death to societal expectations. Many are surprisingly open about their feelings, leading me to believe that they choose the course because they are trying to make sense of their own experience with death.2
In April and May 1991, questionnaires were mailed to 198 students who had completed the course Death and Society through the University of Waterloo distance education program between 1988 and 1991.3 Eight questionnaires were returned unopened because respondents had moved without leaving forwarding addresses. Follow-up postcards were mailed to 66 non-respondents early in June. A total of 137 respondents had returned their completed questionnaires by mid-June.4 One hundred and twenty-three or 90% of these respondents were women, and they comprised the sample used for this analysis. They ranged in age from 23 to 63, with an average age of 42. One-third of them lived in communities of 50,000 or more, and, of the remainder, 62% lived more than 50 kilometres from a community of 50,000 or more.
Although the response rate was relatively high in this study, there is always a risk of response bias. In this case, response rates may have been slightly higher for women than for men. Variable class size across the four-year period may also have been a limiting factor. The results would have been more convincing if a larger pool of respondents had been available. Then, it would have been possible to isolate subgroups on the basis of age or community size. Consistently large classes would have facilitated a longitudinal study designed to compare students in the first class with those in succeeding years. Although this course was also offered on campus simultaneously, no comprehensive list of students was available for a comparative study. This approach would have been an effective way of contrasting findings for two potentially different groups of students.
The questionnaire was designed with three goals in mind. First, it was intended to elicit responses about reasons for taking the course. Second, I wanted to see if the course generally helped students translate their personal experience with death and the responses of others into an under-standing of underlying cultural views of death. Third, I wanted to know specifically if the first assignment had enhanced their understanding of cultural beliefs. Six questions were placed strategically throughout the questionnaire to accomplish this end. In the first question, respondents were given a choice of reasons for taking the course and asked to select their main reason. Thirteen per cent of them said that their choice was based on general interest, 39% referred to a personal interest in the subject, and the remainder said they had taken the course for academic credit or job advancement. This question was purposely placed at the beginning of the questionnaire and couched in general terms to encourage responses that were not affected by the researcher's expectations.
In the second question, respondents were asked directly if they had decided to take the course because they had experienced the death(s) of friends or family members, either recently or in the past. At this point, half of them replied that an experience with death had been instrumental in their decision to take the course. Some students who reported in the first question that they were primarily looking for an academic credit or a course leading to job promotion now cited previous experience with death as an additional reason for choosing the course.
In the third question, those who reported an experience with death as a contributing factor were asked to indicate how the death(s) had influenced their decision to take this course. Their responses have been grouped into three broad categories - personal loss, societal awareness, and socio-cultural understanding. Personal loss reflects individual feelings about the death they experienced, societal awareness refers to a desire to understand other people's responses to death, and sociocultural understanding indicates an interest in historical and cultural views of death.5
Responses to this question, shown in , indicate that 50% cited personal loss, 35% mentioned societal awareness, and 15% reported socio-cultural understanding as ways in which the deaths of others had spurred them to take the course. These findings suggest that, on entry to the course, most students were still dealing with their own private feelings or the responses of other people where deaths had occurred. Very few linked their experiences to the prevailing cultural beliefs that can influence social behaviour.
In the fourth question, respondents were asked to specify ways in which the course had been helpful in dealing with these deaths. Forty-six per cent said they had put personal loss into perspective, whereas 44% reported increased societal awareness. The remaining 10% indicated a gain in sociocultural understanding. These responses suggest that, when faced with general questions about the course, most students remained focused on their personal experiences with death or the responses of those around them. Very few were alerted to the impact of cultural beliefs about death.
In the fifth question, respondents were asked specifically if the first assignment had helped them make connections between their experience with death and broader cultural beliefs. The question was worded in the following way: "In the first assignment, you were asked to interpret institutional responses to death in light of your own experience (possibly the death of friends or family members). Was this assignment useful in terms of understanding ways in which we deal with death in our society?" Eighty-six per cent of the respondents reported that the assignment was useful in this respect.
In the sixth question, those who said the assignment was useful were asked very specifically how it was useful. At this point, 56% said they had gained sociocultural understanding, whereas only 20% reported dealing with personal loss, and 24% said they had improved their societal awareness. These findings, shown in , are important because they indicate a distinct shift from personal concerns to a broader awareness of responses to death. It is now evident that the assignment helped many people to resolve some of their personal concerns with death and to understand the responses of others, viewing these more immediate experiences in the context of underlying cultural beliefs. If they had felt lonely and grief-stricken without support from others, they could now understand that it was probably because our society is, to some extent, characterized by the cultural denial that Ariès describes. This denial is manifested in the responses of family and friends who are unable to talk frankly with a dying person or accept open mourning as a way of dealing with death.
Feminist researchers and educators have noted that distance education can be very effective in helping women to "find their voice" (Coulter, 1989, p. 16). Researchers have done so by listening to women's stories and encouraging their active involvement in the learning process. Although the Death and Society course has achieved this aim by incorporating material that links personal experience with broader societal and cultural views of death, it was not specifically designed with women in mind. Because most of the students in this course are women, measures could be taken in future to make the course more relevant to their concerns. Course content could be modified to reflect women's ways of learning, technology could be used more creatively to stimulate interaction at several levels, face-to-face encounters could be arranged, and the structure of the course could be improved.
This course is primarily a study of aging, death, and dying, but it could provide a unique perspective by borrowing some of the teaching techniques used in women's studies courses. A discussion of feminist theory could be included to enhance women's appreciation of the links between their personal experience and the knowledge they encounter in academic settings (Smith, 1990). This perspective could be used to introduce students to the first assignment.
Some of the methods used in the present course could also be expanded to counteract the "invisibility of women" that is common in traditional course material (Burge & Lenskyj, 1990; Eichler, 1988). In the current version, works of fiction are used to provide insight into women's encounters with death. For example, a reading from Ray Bradbury's book Dandelion Wine is included on one of the tapes to portray the peaceful death of a very old woman. Margaret Laurence's novel The Stone Angel is also used to illustrate the loneliness and frustration often experienced by elderly women. The use of fiction could be expanded to provide historical and cross- cultural comparisons. The students themselves could contribute to this process by completing an assignment based on a novel or short story of their choice.
Demographic tools are important in this course, but they could be used more effectively to mirror the experience of students. One way to accomplish this would be to have students map patterns of mortality across their own family trees. This would allow them to relate the lives and deaths of their ancestors to prevailing infant mortality rates, childbirth deaths, and life expectancies. It would also stimulate interest in the roles of mothers, stepmothers, widows, and orphans, helping women to understand their own social history.
Coulter (1989) contends that packages of printed material often appear to be authoritarian, presenting factual material that is not to be challenged. Textbooks, in particular, tend to present facts to be memorized in preparation for examinations. In the Death and Society course, a textbook was included initially because organizers of the Waterloo distance program had found that students in most courses liked the security of a book. However, routine evaluations for this course have revealed that the textbook is not popular. Unless an outstanding text is available, it would be preferable to include an expanded selection of readings for students to explore.
Audiotape technology is an effective way of presenting distance education lectures, especially if the professor takes time to prepare interesting and varied material. In the current version of this course, the professor is female, and a male voice is used to read quoted material. A male doctor also presents his view of death and dying in a small community. In a revised version, a variety of presentations by women could be used to describe their personal experiences. For example, palliative care nurses, hospice volunteers, family caregivers, elderly women, cancer patients, or widows would all have interesting stories to tell.
Telephone lines are very useful for maintaining contact between professor and student. The Athabasca University model of telephone tutoring is particularly effective, especially in establishing one- to-one links in women's studies courses (Bray, 1988). The Waterloo system would benefit from a similar approach. Currently, the onus is on students to call their professors at specified times of the week, and students are usually expected to pay for their long distance telephone calls. Although students do call to discuss the course material, most of their concerns are with deadline extensions and the organization of their assignments. Toll-free lines and regular weekly contact would improve communication markedly. Scheduled audio-conference calls would also facilitate small group discussion and encourage students to establish links with their classmates. This kind of communication has proven to be very effective in women's studies distance courses (Burge & Lenskyj, 1990).
Most of the recommendations presented above could be implemented at minimal cost. If additional funds were available, several other measures could be used to enhance the quality of women's distance education. Many of the people who choose this course are reacting to a highly charged emotional experience, so they would probably benefit from face-to-face contact with their classmates. This could be arranged if monthly seminars were instituted in various regions during the semester. This approach would be more feasible if course enrolment numbers were limited. Because the Death and Society course has been very popular in the past, a cut-off point of 100 students has been established. If a maximum of 30 students per term could be maintained, communication would be greatly improved. Currently, a major problem lies in the fact that graduate students mark assignments, and often students feel that they are not in touch with the professor. If the purpose of the course is to listen to women, then one of the best ways to achieve this goal is to reduce class size so that students can communicate directly with the professor.
Finally, since our concern here is with the experience of women, the course could evolve over time, reflecting the ideas of successive cohorts of students. If a women's studies approach is to have a lasting effect on the organization of knowledge, then every woman is a potential contributor. Students who tell their own stories about encounters with death or those who find inspiration in a fictional account have earned the right to be heard. One of the greatest rewards from a course like this would be a collection of readings drawn from the writing of the women who take part from year to year.
In this paper, the effectiveness of the University of Waterloo distance education course Death and Society has been considered. Because the majority of students taking this course have been women, discussion has centred on four areas of concern to women. First, relevant feminist theory has been reviewed, and ideas developed by Dorothy Smith (1987, 1990) have been used to explain the unique position of women in distance education. Second, the content of the course has been outlined, with particular emphasis on an assignment used to encourage links between personal experiences with death and broad cultural views. Third, a study designed to assess the effectiveness of the course generally and the assignment specifically has been described. The findings indicated that most students learned to place their personal concerns with death in the context of societal expectations and broad cultural beliefs about death and dying. Fourth, changes in the structure and content of the course have been recommended as additional ways of addressing women's interests.
This approach is compatible with Dorothy Smith's (1990) argument that established sociology must be rewritten to incorporate the experience of women because a woman's understanding of her social world is very different from the way knowledge has been presented to her. Until the 1970s women were practically invisible in all areas of sociological enterprise except as wives, mothers, or widows. With the expansion of women's participation in the labour force and the rise of the feminist movement, research has been broadened to include women's new roles. Feminist theories are now being formulated to accommodate these changes, existing courses are being rewritten to include women's issues, and new courses are being designed to deal with women's unique experience.
Distance education is an important vehicle for introducing a woman's perspective in a broad range of disciplines. I have chosen to discuss sociology because it is the area that I know best. Many of the women who enrol in distance courses do so because they are unable to attend full-time classes. Others have small children, and some are isolated geographically. Many lack the money or time to attend classes on campus, and some value the privacy of home study. Women in distance education are, on average, older than students on campus, so they often bring years of valuable experience to contribute to the learning process. In this paper we have seen that many women consciously chose a course on death and dying because they had had an encounter with death and they wanted to explore the subject further.
The approach outlined here would be useful for most sociology courses, but it is particularly suited to the areas that embrace women's everyday experience. It would be effective as a way of dealing with issues in the sociology of the family because it could address potentially sensitive issues such as violence, sexual abuse, separation, and divorce. One of the advantages of distance education is that it allows women in abusive situations to study in secret (Coulter, 1989). By taking care to respect their privacy, a distance course could help these women understand their feelings and take steps to gain control over their lives. This approach would also be suitable for courses dealing with gender roles, by helping women to under-stand the implications of their socialization and the impact of major social institutions on their lives where societies are organized along patriarchal lines. In courses related to the sociology of work, women could expand their personal awareness by examining gender-based discrimination, male-female earnings differentials, job segregation, and the persistence of patterns where women's paid work is seen as secondary to their family responsibilities. This woman-centred approach would also be appropriate for courses on race and ethnicity, giving women a clearer picture of their disadvantaged position and explaining it in historical terms. All of these areas acquire new meaning when accepted ways of learning are challenged and women's everyday experience is used to explore their social worlds.
1. Institutional responses to death are defined in sociological terms as repeatable patterns of behaviour. They include such customs as death bed rites, mourning rituals, tombs, epitaphs, wills, and symbols of death.
2. The ideas of C. Wright Mills are used to introduce the current version of the Death and Society distance course, encouraging students to write an autobiographical account before dealing with broader sociological concepts. Mills argued that every individual lives out a biography in a society that is embedded in a historical sequence. In this respect, his ideas are similar to those of contemporary feminists.
3. Most of the questionnaires were mailed on April 23. Fourteen of them were mailed on May 20 to students who completed the 1991 winter course in May, after their marks had been submitted to the registrar.
4. Six respondents who returned their questionnaires after June 15 were not included in the analysis. When they are added to the total, the overall response rate is 72%.
5. This was an open-ended question permitting respondents to answer in their own words. In keeping with the theme that students should be allowed to report their own experience, indicators were constructed from their responses to this question. A summary of the coder's ordering of these responses is presented in the Appendix.
Ariès, P. (1974). Western attitudes toward death. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. Ariès, P. (1981). The hour of our death. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bradbury, R. (1946). Dandelion wine. New York: Doubleday.
Bray, C. (1988). Women's studies at a distance: Experiences of students and tutor. Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 14(2), 37–49.
Burge, E., & Lenskyj, H. (1990). Women studying in distance education: Issues and principles. Journal of Distance Education, V(1), 20–37.
Chappell, N. (1989). Health and helping among the elderly: Gender differences. Journal of Aging and Health, 1(1), 102–120.
Coulter, R. (1989). Women in distance education: Towards a feminist perspective. In R. Sweet (Ed.), Post-secondary distance education in Canada (pp. 11–22). Athabasca University and Canadian Society for Studies in Education.
Eichler, M. (1988). Nonsexist research methods. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Faith, K. (Ed.). (1988). Toward new horizons for women in distance education: International perspectives. London: Routledge.
Faith, K., & Coulter, R. (1988). Home study: Keeping women in their place? In D. Sewart & J. Daniel (Eds.), Developing distance education (pp. 195– 197). Oslo: ICDE.
Kirkup, G., & von Prummer, C. (1990). Support and connectedness: The needs of women distance education students. Journal of Distance Education, V(2), 9–31.
Laurence, M. (1964). The stone angel. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Martin Matthews, A. (1987). Widowhood as an expectable life event. In V. Marshall, Aging in Canada: Social perspectives (3rd ed.) (pp. 343–366). Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry and Whiteside.
Mills, C. W. (1970). The sociological imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
O'Brien, M. (1982). The politics of reproduction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Smith, D. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Smith, D. (1990). The conceptual practices of power: A feminist sociology of knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Warren, C. (1987). Feminist discourse and the research enterprise: Implications for adult education. The Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 1(2), 23–42.
1. "Please indicate briefly how this event (death of one or more friends or family members) influenced your decision to take this course." Personal Loss (individual feelings about death)
1. Wanted to understand personal feelings
2. To try to make sense of loss
3. Had change of attitude to death Societal Awareness (understanding of responses of others)
1. Respected mourners
2. Wanted to increase awareness
3. Helped take care of someone close who died
4. Upset because people blame dead person
5. Didn't like others' attitudes to death
6. Understand coping strategies to death
7. To understand grieving process
8. To help children understand father's death
9. Needed death discussion in school curriculum
10. To prepare for other's death
l1. To understand aging, dying, grieving process Sociocultural Understanding (history, culture, rituals)
1. Wanted to understand history of death
2. To understand rituals
3. Society's inability to deal with death
I thank the Office of Teaching Resources and Continuing Education (TRACE) and the Department of Sociology at the University of Waterloo for helping to fund the research reported in this paper. I also thank Brenda Nussey of the Department of Sociology at McMaster University for coding the questionnaire used in this study.
Jean McKenzie Leiper is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph.