Social Perspectives on Death and Dying (2nd edition)

Jeanette Auger

While death is an inevitable happening in all our lives, the perspectives that we hold about death and dying are socially constructed. This text takes us through the maze of issues, both social and personal, which surround death and dying in our country. The author invites us not to just peek at issues of death and dying but to open our eyes wide and examine how Canadian cultures deal with those concepts. In this new updated edition, Auger challenges us to examine our own thoughts, feelings and fears—our own experience—of the death and dying phenomena.

Contents

• Canadian Perspectives on Death and Dying: Introduction 
• Your experiences and Perspectives of Death and Dying 
• Key Concepts in the Maze of Death and Dying 
• Historical Attitudes Toward Death and Dying 
• Types of Death and Dying 
• Hospice Palliative Care 
• Euthanasia as a Sociological Issue 
• AIDs as a Sociological Issue 
• Cross-Cultural Variations in Death and Dying 
• Funeral and Burial Practices 
• Legal and Ethical Issues in Death and Dying 
• Suicide in Canada 
• Dealing with Grief and Bereavement 
• The Revival of Interest in Death and Dying 
• Internet Resources.

About the Author

Jeanette A. Auger is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. She has been teaching for twenty-six years and has worked with older persons for the past thirty as a researcher, community organizer and developer, and social planner. She is the author of Social Prespectives on Death and Dying published in the Spring of 2000 and co-author of From the Inside Looking Out (2002).

Excerpt

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