One hundred American teenagers and 84 Israeli teenagers were interviewed by open-ended questionnaires in order to study their attitudes toward death, holding variables like religion, socio-economic status, and education constant. All the respondents are Jewish, members of a youth movement, high school students, and are fifteen to sixteen years old. The results show a strong tendency to avoid discussions and thoughts about death, more so by the Israelis. Death is strongly feared and associated with war and car accidents, more so by the Israelis. Americans associate army service with death. Death is generally viewed as physical and spiritual cessation of life. The avoidance approach and fear of death that were found suggest the need to offer special courses on man and death in high schools.

The aim of this research was to uncover and understand the experiences, and the coping strategies employed by African teenagers in coming to terms with the death of a loved one, the support needs in relation to this, and the need to provide guidelines on how they would like to be supported by social workers. A qualitative research approach was employed, following an explorative, descriptive and contextual research design. The study was conducted in Cullinan near Pretoria in Gauteng Province. Data were collected, using structured interviews with a purposively selected sample of African teenagers who met the criteria for inclusion in the study. The data were analysed, according to the framework provided by Tesch to ensure the trustworthiness of the qualitative data was to be employed for the data verification. The findings included seven identified themes, the sub-themes and categories of which were supported by the extracts from the interview transcripts, and the literature reviewed for this research. The research report, together with the conclusions and recommendations, based on the conclusion, were drawn from the research- thereby, showing how the goals of the study were achieved. / Social Work / M. Soc. Sc. (Mental Health)

The aim of this research was to uncover and understand the experiences, and the coping strategies employed by African teenagers in coming to terms with the death of a loved one, the support needs in relation to this, and the need to provide guidelines on how they would like to be supported by social workers. A qualitative research approach was employed, following an explorative, descriptive and contextual research design. The study was conducted in Cullinan near Pretoria in Gauteng Province. Data were collected, using structured interviews with a purposively selected sample of African teenagers who met the criteria for inclusion in the study. The data were analysed, according to the framework provided by Tesch to ensure the trustworthiness of the qualitative data was to be employed for the data verification. The findings included seven identified themes, the sub-themes and categories of which were supported by the extracts from the interview transcripts, and the literature reviewed for this research. The research report, together with the conclusions and recommendations, based on the conclusion, were drawn from the research- thereby, showing how the goals of the study were achieved. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Science (Mental Health))