| Among contemporary studies of children's notions of death, the cognitive approach, which applies formal properties of death based on an overreliance on Piagetian cognitive development theory, predominates. However, this does not explore what death means to children, or the extent of children's understanding of death.;This study explores healthy Japanese children's lived experiences of grasping notions of life and death without predetermined components of death, such as finality, universality, and irreversibility. Interpretive phenomenology served as the philosophical underpinning and method of data analysis. A total of 16 healthy Japanese children (7 girls and 9 boys, mean age 8.93) were recruited through network sampling in the Tokyo area. Three interviews, each ranging from 15 to 90 minutes, were conducted with each child. In the first two interviews, children were asked to draw a picture about life or death and explain the drawing. The third interview attempted to clarify the information gathered from the previous interviews.;The study shows that children directly grasped the meaning of life and death from their everyday experiences, consisting more of children's spontaneous contextual understanding of life and death rather than from given theoretical knowledge. These meanings were culturally situated and cross-culturally shared. Japanese children uniquely embraced the religiously incorporated view of death and the afterlife, reflecting the Japanese pantheistic belief system. The children had a comprehensive view of a flow from life through death to the afterlife, which constituted and consisted of the notions of life and death. In this successive flow, life and death were regarded as opposite yet connected. Although linear and circular types of flow from life to the afterlife were found in children's perceptions, in both cases the Christian God was perceived as the key. All of the children exhibited a holistic view of a person while living.*.;*Originally published in DAI Vol. 64, No. 4. Reprinted here with the corrected title. |
