A Home for Death: Making Space for the Sociology of Death and Grief in Irish Third Level Education

Courses on death and dying can be found in most universities in the United States and the trend is similar in other countries across Europe along with Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Many of these courses are offered as part of nursing, allied health, counselling, religious studies, psychology, social work or specific interdisciplinary programmes and can be taken as electives by students enrolled in the study of almost any field. In contrast, higher education in Ireland offers few chances for students to learn formally about death, even in programmes that train those professionals who care for and support the dying, bereaved and grieving. Where there is attention paid to death and grief, it is often limited to examining the psychological responses of and to the individual griever. While this approach is both helpful and important, expanding the teaching to include sociological perspectives is vital. A sociological view allows students to develop a well-rounded understanding of the impacts of loss and grief stemming from bereavement and non-death related events across the lifespan. The lenses of culture, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, technology, ethics, politics and social justice all impact on how death and bereavement are experienced and managed; individual psychological models are arguably insufficient to truly expand what we know about death and grief. This presentation will argue that a sociological lens in Irish death education is essential, and that decolonising the academic space around death and grief for the contemporary Irish third level student is imperative.