Approach to death in the school context: a study anchored in the school’s organizational documents

Abstract

The study aims to verify if the theme of death is addressed in a private elementary and secondary school, with a Christian origin, located on the northern coast of Portugal. The qualitative, exploratory, transversal and descriptive research is based on the analysis of the school's organizational documents, specifically, the School Educational Project, the School Curriculum Project, the Internal Regulation and the Annual Activity Plan. The results suggest that it is not possible to identify explicit mentions of the theme of death in the organizational documents, expressive of the curricular concerns of the School. However, they emphasize related themes referring to the limits of the human condition, such as finitude, vulnerability, integral formation, attitudes and values. A new educational project on death and finitude becomes fundamental to ground the education of young people in the meanings that reward their lives.