An Examination of the Validity of an Experiential Death Education on the Theme of Organ Donation

On March 11, 2011, a huge earthquake and tsunami hit the large areas of east Japan and many people lost their families, friends, and other loved ones. Then we realized that death is not at all others\u27affairs, but our own ones. A. Derken (1986) claims that it is cruel as a social attitude to face people to death as the biggest ordeal in life, and that it is important for younger generations to prepare themselves for their own and their beloved one\u27s death. Bearing these backgrounds in mind, this paper aims to develop a death education program which focuses on the death of oneself and one\u27s beloveds, and to examine the students\u27psychological responses to evaluate the validity of the program. This program was carried out for thirty-six students consisting of the third-grade junior high and the first-grade senior high school students in the autumns of 2009 and 2010. The features of this program are: that the organ donation was picked up as a theme; the emphasis was put on being deeply conscious of the death of oneself and one\u27s beloveds; the assignment of having a conversation with family members was given in. After implementing this program, the data on the focus group interviews and the students\u27reports were analyzed. In analyzing the data, the continual and comparative analysis method was used, by referring to M-GTA. As a result, it became clear that the students who took part in the program had acquired varying viewpoints about death, and that the increase of this sense of the party concerned is affected by "the acquisition of varying viewpoints about death". Furthermore, it turned out that "varying viewpoints about death" include "the viewpoint of the recipient\u27s family", "that of the donor", "that of the family whose child was made declaration of brain death", and "that of the student\u27s family"