Educating death. Children of five generations confronting dead and funerals.

Abstract

A growing strand of studies suggests that in contemporary societies adults have long been engaged in a process of protecting children from death and the experiences surrounding it. This raises questions about the level of protection children are subjected to. Based on a survey of 2000 Italians, the article analyses people born between 1929 and 2013 about two childhood experiences: exposure to the sight of a corpse and attendance at a funeral. Three main findings emerge. Firstly, the proportion of who saw a dead body or attended a funeral as children is far from negligible. Secondly, the analysis of the two experiences considered over the course of a century casts doubt on the hypothesis of linear growth of protection and shows, instead, a curvilinear trend. Finally, the analysis shows the recent emergence, in some social settlements, of resistance to the overprotection of children from the experiences examined.