Death literacy: Tensions between theory and practice

TL;DR

This essay explores how 'death literacy' is implicitly discussed in UK policy and guidelines, highlighting tensions between theory and practice in understanding death and dying.

Contribution

The paper identifies implicit references to death literacy in UK policy and proposes ways to bridge theoretical and practical gaps.

Findings

Death literacy is implicitly mentioned in UK policy and guidelines despite not being explicitly defined.

The essay highlights tensions between how death literacy is understood and how it is practiced.

Recommendations include setting benchmarks for public discourse on death literacy.

Abstract

Death literacy is a burgeoning field in palliative care research and the social sciences, exploring people’s knowledge, skills, experiential learning and social action as these pertain to death and dying. Death literacy is not described or advocated in UK policy or guidelines explicitly, yet this essay shows that it is mentioned implicitly, and these implicit definitions and uses are explored. In this critical essay, the authors draw on a series of examples from UK-based policy and guidelines to describe the ways death literacy is implicitly articulated in the material. In doing so, the essay draws attention to the ways death literacy is understood in policy and guidelines, the ways death and talking about death are framed, and the ways that nuanced contextual accounts of death literacy are critical to developing this branch of study further. By looking at the ways death literacy is framed in policy through the lenses of time, taboo and how death is discussed (or not), this essay develops an account of the tensions and gaps between theory and practice. Recommendations to address these gaps include discussions centred on the timing of conversations about death and dying, and establishing a benchmark for what is discussed and constitutes ‘death literacy’ in public discourse. As such, the essay contributes to the growing body of literature on death literacy in the United Kingdom.

Death literacy is a term that is being used in policy, social sciences and death studies to understand and explore the ways people know about death and dying, often based on their experience. Death literacy has not been widely or empirically studied in the UK, and so the policy and guidelines in the UK do not explicitly draw on the term. This essay therefore describes how policy and guidelines implicitly talk about death literacy. These descriptions enable the authors to begin offering ways death literacy might be understood and defined in policy. The authors also identify where there are gaps between how death literacy is understood, and how it is practiced.

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