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Death Studies
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The meaning of death for children and

adolescents: A phenomenographic study
of drawings
a b a
Maare E. Tamm & Anna Granqvist
a
Department of Research and Development , Boden College of
Health and Caring Sciences , Boden, Sweden
b
Boden College of Health and Caring Sciences , Hedenbrovagen,
96144, Boden, Sweden
Published online: 14 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: Maare E. Tamm & Anna Granqvist (1995) The meaning of death for children
and adolescents: A phenomenographic study of drawings, Death Studies, 19:3, 203-222, DOI:
10.1080/07481189508252726

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07481189508252726

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 THE MEANING OF DEATH FOR
CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS:
A PHENOMENOGRAPHIC STUDY OF DRAWINGS
xp~mmffiwxxxmffixmmffiwm~wmwxwxxwwxxxwwxwxffimwmffixffi~xw~wxx

MAARE E. TAMM
ANNA GRANQVIST
Department of Research and Development,
Boden College of Health and Caring Sciences,
Boden, Sweden
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The purpose ofthas study was twofold: to investigate the qualitative dzffences
in children’s concepts of death, as reflected in their drawings and to study the
g& differences in children%death concepts. Subjects were 431 children .f
f&r age groups (9, 12, 15, and 18 years) and both sexes. The children were
asked to draw their impression of the word death and to give a verbal com-
mentary on what they had drawn. The drawings were analyzed according to a
phenomenographic method and assigned to one o f 3 superordinate and 10
subordinate qualitative categories. The categories werefound to be both age and
gender related. Biob&al death concepts dominated the ymnger age groups,
and metaphysical death concepts were found predaminukdy in the older age
groups. B o y had m e violent death concepts then did girls and personifid
death m e oftmi. Girls depicted death in m e emotional terns than b q s did.

One of the earliest studies in which pictures were used to deter-

mine how children at different stages of development concep-
tualize death was that of Schilder and Wechsler (1934). These
researchers administered a series of death-related pictures to a
sample of American children, ages 5- 14 years, and asked for their
reactions. The findings indicated a strong relationship between
children’s concepts of death and their belief that death is caused

Address correspondence to Maare E. Tamm, Boden College of Health and

Caring Sciences, Hedenbrovagen, 96144 Boden, Sweden.

Death Studies, 19:203-222, 1995 203

Copyright 0 1995 Taylor lk Francis
0748-1187/95 $10.00 .OO+
 by aggressive or violent forces. Children ages 5-12 years were
especially likely to mention such themes as war, murder, accidents,
or other violent acts in response t o the prqjective pictures.
Schilder and Wechsler’s findings have been supported by recent
researchers using different methods (Gartley & Bernasconi,
1967; Koocher, 1973; Weiniger, 1979).
About 10 years after Schilder and Wechsler’s (1934) study, the
Hungarian researcher Nagy (1948) conducted a series of studies
of children’s “theories” concerning death. She used three inter-
related methodological approaches : children’s drawings of death,
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children’s written compositions about death, and verbal discus-

sions Lvith children about their thoughts and feelings about death.
Nagy’s most distinctive finding, one often reported by other re-
searchers, was the child’s tendency to personify death. According
to Nag), most children between the ages of 5 and 9 go through
a period in which they anthroponiorphire death. Death is given
form and will: It is the bogeyman, the grim reaper, a skeleton, a
ghost, or a shadow, emerging nightly from graveyards and hunt-
ing people.
More recent studies with American children (Gartley & Ber-
nasconi, 1967; Kane, 1979; Koocher, 1973; McIntire, Angle, &
Struempler, 1972; Townley 8c Thornburg, 1980) do not corrobor-
ate Nagy’s findings with a Hungarian sample that children per-
sonif) death. This could be due to historical, cultural, or ideolog-
ical differences between the two countries. The Hungarian
studies were performed during the World War 11, in the context
of military domination, whereas the Anierican studies were per-
formed 30 years later in a country in peace.
Met hodolog ica1 differences a 1so make cornpar i son s d i fficu 1t .
In the Anierican studies, the methods were mainly quantitative,
that k, the interview were h e a d y structured, with little probing
or siibject-intervie\rer interaction. I n the Hungarian studies, the
approach was qualitative, emphasizing interpretation of chil-
dren’s drawings and open-ended, intensive, and personal inter-
views.
Using drawings, as Nagv (1948) did, Lonetto (1980) was able
to replicate to a certain deiree Nagy’s observation that children
personify death, despite a great difference in sociocultural ex-
posure to death (Lonetto’s research was conducted in Canada).
 Meaning of13eath fw Children 205

However, this could have been due to the method used. Asking
the children to draw might have induced them to give death form
and shape.
Whereas Schilder and Wechsler (1934) used a projective tech-
nique and Nagy (1948) used drawings and open-ended interviews
as instruments to capture the meaning children attribute to
death, Piaget ( 1929) introduced an alternative qualitative
method, termed the “clinical interview.” Piaget’s findings using
this met hod cast a germinal theoretical framework on children’s
conceptions of life and death that has provided an enduring line
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of research for the past 65 years.

The recent research on the development of children’s con-
cepts of death is anchored in the work of Piaget (1929); although
different methods have been used, his model of cognitive devel-
opment (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) has been adopted as an index
for substantiating Nagy’s (and others’) theoretical assertions.
Broadly, contemporary researchers have found that children in
the preoperational developmental stage (ages 2-7) conceive of
death as reversible, temporary, and attributable to various exter-
nal causes. Children in the operational developmental stage (ages
7- 11) regard death as irreversible, attributable to internal causes
(cessation of body function), and a universal phenomenon. Chil-
dren in the formal operational developmental stage (ages 12 and
on) relate their death concepts to the complex system of religious
and philosophical thought, meditating about the nature of death
and life after death (Childers & Wimmer, 1971; Kane, 1979;
Melear, 1972; Smilansky, 1987; Speece & Brent, 1984).
This current body of empirical research has mainly involved
quantitative methodologies, entailing the use of such instruments
as structured interviews or paper-and-pencil measures, both
standardized and nonstandardized. For an overview, see Prichard
and Epting (1992).

Recent Qualitative Approach

Research involving qualitative methodology, similar to Schilder

and Wechsler’s (1934) and Nagy’s (1948) studies, has been scant
(Yalom, 1980). Projective pictures with death-related contents
 206 iM.E . Tanim and A . Granqvist

were used by Robinson (1976), who studied the concepts of death

held by Anglo American and Mexican children ages 6- 11 years.
In Finland, Tamminen (1991) used eight projective photographs
to study children’s and young people’s questions relating to
death. A similar study was conducted in Sweden by Hartman
( 1986) to investigate children’s life questions, including those of
death.
Children’s drawings have been used as a methodological tool
by Childers and Wimmer (lU71), Lonetto (1980), and Wenestam
(1984; Wenestam & Wass 1987). Wenestam used a phenomeno-
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graphic method to assess qualitative differences in children’s

drawings about death. The phenomenographic method, devel-
oped primarily by Marton (1981), was adapted by Wenestam €or
application to children’s drawings. This method is content de-
pendent and holistic, which avoids the restrictions imposed by the
structured methods and is thus sensitive to studying systems of
meanings of the death concept.
In a previous investigation (Tamm & Granqvist, 1993), we
used the phenomenographic approach combined with an open-
ended interview to study how children reason about death. The
study consisted of 76 children in two age groups (6 and 9 years
old). Half of the children in each age group were boys and half
were girls. The children were asked to make a drawing of what
came to their minds when they heard the word “death” and to
give brief commentaries explaining what they had drawn. There-
after they were questioned about different aspects of death.
The drawings and verbal commentaries were analyzed and
described in six content-specific qualitative categories, as follows:
violent death, the dead body, the final rest, emotions at death,
personification of death, and afterlife. The qualitative differences
in the content of children’s drawings were related to gender but
not to age. Boys in both age groups tended to view death in more
violent terms than girls did, and girls in both age groups tended,
albeit slightly, to relate death to emotions of different kinds. Also,
more girls’ drawings than boys’ drawings were images of an
afterlife.
The purpose of the present study was to build on and expand
our previous study. The present study had two foci. The first was
to investigate in more depth the meaning death has to children
 Meaning of Death fur Children 207

and youth of different ages when they conceptualize it in draw-

ings. The second focus was to study the qualitative differences
in boys’ and girls’ concepts of death.
We chose to focus on children’s drawings for several reasons.
First, drawings are a well-established medium for assessing
thoughts and perceptions that may not be immediately accessible
at the verbal level. Second, drawings have been used by earlier
researchers investigating children’s death concepts (Lonetto,
1980; Nagy, 1948; Wenestam, 1984; Wenestam 8c Wass, 1987),
which permits us to compare our research method with others’.
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Third, children’s drawings have been used to assess gender dif-

ferences on different topics (Rubenstein, Feldman, Rubin, 8c No-
veck, 1987).
This study was part of a larger project on different aspects
of children’s ideas about death.

Method

Subjects
A total of 431 children (213 girls and 218 boys), divided into four
age groups, participated in the study. There were 112 third grad-
ers (ages 9-10), 114 sixth graders (ages 12-13), 101 ninth graders
(ages 15-16), and 104 high school students from the secondary
school (ages 18-19). The subjects were drawn from five schools
(four elementary schools and one secondary school) in Boden, a
small town in northern Sweden. None of the children had expe-
rienced a recent loss in their immediate family.

Procedure
The children participated as intact classroom groups. Participa-
tion in the study was voluntary, and all children volunteered to
participate. The children were asked to make a drawing depicting
what came to their minds when they heard the world “death.”
They were also asked to give a brief written commentary after
they had drawn the picture, explaining and specifying the con-
tent of their drawing. The children carried out the task during
 art classes and had watercolor pencils and colored oil pastels avail-
able.

A?Wll ~ S Z S

We anal?zed the children’s dratvings following the phenomeno-

graphic method of Wenestam (1984). According to the analytical
procedure, we analyzed all drawings and the complementary
comments in a repeated and thorough manner, viewing each
drawing as a unit and noticing qualitative similarities and differ-
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ences in the drawings. When there was a contradiction between

the drawing and the written commentary, the drawing was the
predominant factor in assignnient to a category.
T h e analytic process gradually gave rise to a number of
content-specific categories, each representing a separate quality.
These categories were combined into superordinate categories.
Toset her such categories extracted from the data are considered
to be ii representative description of the “data field” for the sam-
ple. The hierarchical structure of the category system of 3 super-
ordinate and 1 0 subordinate categories is presented in the Results
section.

Reliability
T w w judges not involved in the category development were sup-
plied‘tvith Lvritten general descriptions of the different categories.
Each judge independently assigned all drawings to one of the
categ&ies. Reliability was defined as the proportion of interjudge
agreement in the classification of all 431 drawings. Reliability
assessed this way was 98%. The 10 cases in which the judges
disagreed lvere excluded froin the analvses.

Results

Qualitntizie Catqorirs of Draii1incg-s

The hierarchical structure of the category system is presented in
Table 1.
 Mmning 01 Death fm ChiMrrn 209

TABLE t Categorical System for Classification of Children’s

Drawings of Death

I. Biological death concept (n = 150)

A. Violent death
B. Moment of death
C. State of death
11. Psychological death concept (n = 75)
D. Sorrow
E. Mental imageries
E Emptiness
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111. Metaphysical death concept ( n = 196)

G . Tunnel phenomenon
H. Mystery of death
1. Personification
J. Perceptions of heaven and hell

I. Biological death concept. All drawings in this category repre-

sented the death of the body in one way or another-as an event,
as the moment of death, or as a state. This superordinate category
was made up of the following subordinate categories.
Categmry A: Violent death (n = 46). Drawings in this category
represented death as an event caused by external violent forces.

A1 ( n = 12): drawings depicting violent deathly events, such

as war, shooting, bombing attacks, etc.
A:! ( a = 23): drawings of murder scenes or hanging or other
kinds of suicides.
A3 ( n = 11): drawings of accidents of different kinds.

Categmry B: The moment of death (n = 22). In this category

were drawings depicting the very moment of death, when the
body and the soul are parted.
Categmy C: The state of death (n = 94). Drawings in this
category represented death as a state, depicted as a deceased
person in a coffin or a deceased pet, a funeral scene, or a picture
of a graveyard.
 dtnth concept.
22. P~~chologzcal Drawings in this superordinate
categbry featured emotions of different kinds associated with
dying such as grief, sadness, anxiety, etc. There were three sub-
ordinate categories under this heading.
Cattgory D: SoTrout (ti = 32). The drawings in this category
depicted crying people, often at a grave.
Category E: Mental imageries (n = 13). These drawings fea-
tured a person thinking or imagining anxieties or other horrible
things about death.
CakgorT F: Emptirwss (n = 30). Drawings in this category
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presented *blackor grey fields, one of the archetypes of death

associated with darkness, emptiness, formlessness, and nothing-
ness, and were supplemented by verbal descriptions of the mental
states pictured.

III. Metaphysical death cmzept. This category was the most com-
plex and difficult to grasp of the three superordinate categories.
All of the drawings were abstractions of religious, philosophical,
or other symbolic themes about the meaning of death or about
the afterlife. The category comprised four qualitative subcate-
gories.
(&egor)l G: The tunnel p h o m e r w n (n = 43). This category
contained representations of near-death experiences and descrip-
tions of them. These experiences were depicted as dark tunnels
with a core of golden light, passages through darkness toward
light, or beautiful outdoor scenes encircled by darkness.
Cakgory H : The mytery~.of death (n = 91). The drawings in
this category were symbolic, representing the mystery or the es-
sence of death by means of religious, cultural, or personal sym-
bols. 'The drawings composed symbolic patterns of crosses,
flames, candlelights, swords, bleeding hearts, and flowers. There
were also paintings of landscapes at night, with a grave, a cross,
or a church in splendid isolation and illuminated with a white,
tnysterious light. Some pictures represented visions of the earth
or of life on earth, divided into two fields-the light field of peace
and happiness, with people embracing each other, and the dark
field of sorrow and emptiness, composed of mutilated persons
or people whose eyes were brimming over with tears. The draw-
 Meaning of Death fm Children, 211

ings in this category were, as a rule, supplemented by verbal

explanations.
Category I: Persunajication (n = ?l). The drawings in this
category anthropomorphized death. Death was represented as
the grim reaper, a skeleton, the devil, the scythe man, or similar
person if ications.
CategoryJ : Perceptions of heaven and hell (n = 31). Heaven was
represented by religious symbols, such as sky, God, and/or angels;
as tropical landscapes with groves of palm trees; or as fairytale
fantasies. Hell was represented by such symbols as bleeding or
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mangled corpses, skeletons, cobwebs, the devil, the kingdom of

the dead, etc. In this category there were also drawings repre-
senting the dual exit, that is, heaven and hell, or a judgment
scene. The judgment scene could be a religious one with God as
the judge or a secular one, depicted as a door or a way out with
two entries.

Comparfion of Drawings by Age and Gender

The distribution of the drawings in the subordinate categories by

age group and gender is presented in Table 2. As may be seen,
there were substantive differences between children of different
ages and genders. With regard to age, the biological death con-
cept (i.e., concerning bodily death) declined from the age of 15
years on. The reverse was seen for the metaphysical death con-
cept (i.e., the symbolic use of higher levels of abstractions), which
steadily increased with increasing age. The number of drawings
in the category “psychological death concept” (i.e., the use of
symbols to represent feelings about death and the dead) was
about of the same magnitude across the ages.
With regard to gender, there were significantly more boys
than girls whose drawings fit in the category biological death
concept, Mantel Haenszel summary x2 (1, N = 154) = 11.48, p
< .001, and significantly more girls than boys whose drawings fit
in the psychological death concept category, Mantel Haenszel
summary x2 (1, N = 73) = 3.81, p < .05. The category meta-
physical death concept had approximately equal numbers of boys
and girls.
 TABLE 2 Suniber of Drawings in the Superordinate
Cntegoi ies b\ Age and Gender

Biological Ps)chological Metaphysical

Age group death concept death concept death concept
9 year olds
Total 68 16 23
BO!-S 40 4 14
Girls 28 12 9
12 year olds
-rotai 5. 0 22 40
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B0)3 30 8 21
Girls 20 14 19
13 )eaI olds
l i l taI 20 15 65
Boys 13 7 24
Girls 3 8 41
18 \ear olds
.lilta I 12 22 68
Boys 9 11 31
Girls 3 11 37

56 43 90
98 28 88

The distribution of the drawings in the three subordinate

categories of the biological death superordinate category by age
and gender is presented in Table 3. Although the number of cases
was too small for statistical analysis, substantive differences and
similarities nith regard to age and gendcr were apparent. As may
be seen from Table 3, with increasing age there was a steady
decline in pictures portraying death caused by violent events.
Concern about the methods of death dominated the drawings of
the 9-vear-old group and also, although to a less extent, the 12-
year-old group. In all age groups, there were more war scenes
and murder acts in boys' pictures than in girls' pictures. Of the
9 girls who represented death by violence, 8 portrayed accidents.
Only 1 girl in the 9-year-old group drew a war scene.
The moment of death was depicted with about equal fre-
quency in all age groups. The two younger age groups of both
 Meaning of Death fm Children 213

TABLE 3 Number of Drawings in the Subordinate

Categories of the Biological Death Concept by
Age and Gender

Moment State of
Age group Violent death of death death
9 year olds
Total 26 4 38
Boys 20 1 19
Girls 6 3 19
12 year olds
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Total 10 2 39
Boys 7 2 22
Girls 3 - 17
15 year olds
Total 5 3 12
Boys 5 1 9
Girls - 2 3
18 year olds
Total 5 1 6
Boys 5 - 4
Girls 1 2

sexes showed greater concern in their drawings about the rites of

burial (termed “The state of death”) than did the two older age
groups, Burial-related drawings depicted tombstones, caskets,
graveyards, churches, and church services.
The distribution of drawings in the different subcategories in
the psychological death superordinate category is presented in
Table 4.As the table reveals, there was a decline with increasing
age in the number of drawings depicting sorrow although this
was noi statistically calculated. There were also marked differ-
ences between the sexes: More girls than boys represented death
by sadness and grief. Death was depicted as mental imageries,
that is, as a horrible, terrible, or anxiety-provoking thing, by only
a small number of children in the 9- and 12-year-old groups.
Depictions of death as emptiness, darkness, and formlessness
were more frequent in the two older age groups and also more
frequent in boys than in girls. Boys especially showed a prefer-
ence for the exclusive use of black in their drawings and stated
 2 14 'M.E . Tumrn and A. Crunqziist

TABLE 4 Nuniber of Drawings in the Subordinate

Categories of the Psychological Death Concept
by Age and Gender

Mental
Age group Sorrow imageries Emptiness
9 year olds
Totit I 11 3 2
Boys 2 - 2
Girls 9 3 -

12 vear olds
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Tot a I 12 10
Boys 5 3
Girls 7 7
15 year olds
Total 4 11
Boys - 7
Girls 4 4
18 year olds
Total 5 17
Boys 1 10
Girls 4 7

that all death meant to them was a feeling of blackness and emp-
tiness.
Table 5 gives information on age group and sex group fre-
quencies and subcategory distribution for the metaphysical death
superordinate category. Table 5 shows that the representation of
death by near-death experience, that is, as a tunnel vision, started
at 12 years and was more pronounced in girls. There was a stead-
ily increasing trend in drawings representing the mystery of
death across the ages. Personification of death seemed to be a
preferred representation form for boys (22 boys compared with
9 girls). In personifying death, all children gave masculine char-
acteristics to death, yet the girls' pictures were less aggressive in
character, representing death as a mythical figure in a landscape
setting, dressed in a long, dark mantle. The afterlife, mainly in
heaven, was represented by all ages, with a slight predominance
in girls. A number of drawings in this category (4 boys and 8
 Meaning of Druth fir Childrrn 215

TABLE 5 Number of Drawings in the Subordinate

Categories of the Methaphysical Death Concept
by Age and Gender

Tunnel Mystery Heaven and

Age group phenotnenon of death Personification hell
9 year olds
Total 10 4 9
Boys 6 4 4
Girls 4 5
12 year olds
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Total 5 20 11 4
Boys 1 12 7 1
Girls 4 8 4 3
15 year olds
Total 20 25 7 13
Boys 7 7 6 4
Girls 13 19 1 9
18 year olds
Total 18 36 9 5
Boys 7 19 5 -
Girls 11 17 4 5

girls) depicted the dual exit, that is, both heaven and hell, or a
secular judgment scene.

The Use of Colms

The children in the three younger age groups used multiple color
combinations in their drawings, and the number of colors used
was greatest in the 9-year-old group. In the oldest age group
(18 years), only 2 boys and 10 girls used colors; the rest drew
monochromatic pictures, although all colors were available.

Discussion

Qualitative Categwies

The major findings of the study concerning the number of quai-

itative categories and their relation to each other extend those
 reported bv Wenestam (1984; Wenestam & t i a s s , 1987). Wenes-
tam and %ass (1987) identified 10 categories from children’s
drawings about death, which they considered an extended and
refined description of Wenestam’s (1984) previous findings. In
the present study, we found a hierarchical category system, con-
sisting of 3 superordinate and 10 subordinate categories (see
Table 1).
Because the phenomenographic method that we used has its
starting point in data and not in a priori formulated hypothesis,
the categor). system that emerged from our data is independent
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of others’ findings and systematizations. The categories identified

in our study have in part a correspondence in Wenestam and
Wass’s (1987) categories. Ne\,ertheless, it could be argued that
our description system differs from theirs in that it is more elab-
orated and can thus be considered to be a more in-depth descrip-
tion of the meanings children attribute to death.
Comparison between Wenestam and Miass’s ( 1987) category
systeni and ours reveals the following similarities. Wenestam’s
causes category is equivalent to our violent-death category, a sub-
ordinate category of the superordinate category biological death
concept. Wenestam’s emotion category corresponds to our super-
ordinate category psychological death concept, which included
three subordinate categories: sorrow, mental imageries, and emp-
tiness. The category cultural and religious practices and symbols
in Wenestam’s study corresponds to our state of death subordi-
nate category of biological death concept. Wenestam’s Christian
concepts of afterlife category is equivalent to our category per-
ceptions of heaven and hell. Wenestam’s nature of death category
has in part a correspondence to our superordinate category me-
taphysical death concept, his category consisting of three subor-
dinate categories and ours consisting of four.
As can be secn from the preceding comparison, our descrip-
tion system, with three superordinate and 10 subordinate cate-
gories, offers a systematized and meaningful way of summarizing
and describing the qualitative differences in the meanings that
children attribute to death .
The present study demonstrates also that children’s drawings
about death can be reliably categorized by content-specific qual-
itative variations (interjudge agreement was 98%). The validity
 Meantrig of Death for Children 217

of this procedure is enhanced by the fact that most pictures could

be categorized and therefore little use of the nonspecific category
in the system was required.

Comparison by Age and Gender

There were both age and gender differences in the children’s
conceptions of death, the latter of which were not systematically
studied by Wenestam (1984; Wenestam & Wass, 1987).
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Age. Younger children (9 and 12 years old) represented death

predorninantly in biological terms, being concerned with the
physical features of death and the dead and the causes and con-
ditions of death. The two younger age groups were also mostly
concerned with two aspects of biological death: violent death and
the rituals of the dead.
Young children’s preoccupation with violent death was dem-
onstrated in early research by Schilder and Wechsler (1934), who
argued that death appears not as the natural end of life for young
children, but rather as the result of others’ hostility and punish-
ment. However, one can argue that their results were influenced
at least in part by the violent themes in the projective pictures
they used. However, the relation between death and violence in
children’s death conceptions has been found also by more recent
researchers, using different kinds of methods (Antony, 1971;
Gartley & Bernasconi, 1967; Koocher, 1973; Tamm & Granqvist,
1993; Weiniger, 1979; Wenestam 8c Wass, 1987).
The present data are in line with earlier findings in indicating
that children ages 9-12 deal with death in a realistic and worldly
manner, depicting what they know and perceive daily. Television
has tended to replace the family as the teacher of life and its
crises, in particular of the ways people die. Viewing on television
the ever-present scenes of war and of sudden death caused by
explosions or shootings surely influences the meaning of death in
children.
On the other hand, it could be possible, as Antony (1971)
suggested, that the child’s first ideas of death are connected with
violence. According to Antony, young children often kill small
insects, worms, and other crawling creatures, and this experience
 of violence can influence their thoughts about death even later in
life. illso, their spontaneous games, playing with guns, pistols,
and other war toys or playing cops and robbers or cowboys and
Indians, can familiarize children especially boys with the many
ways people can kill each other. Further research is needed to
clarify whether it is the environmental influences, introduced by
television, or children’s own activities with killing (play and war
games) that affect their death concepts.
The second age-related finding-the children’s concern with
the riuals of the dead-is in agreement with Piagetian develop-
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ment of the child. ,4ccording to Piaget and Inhelder (1969), chil-

dren at the preoperational developmental stage (2-7 years) con-
ceive of death as reversible and thus do not need to be concerned
about burial rites. Children at the concrete operational stage
(7-12 years) are losing this viewpoint and replacing it with a
growing interest in the rituals of passage out of life, giving them
thereby an opportunity to learn about one of life’s basic facts-
death. Our findings support this developmental progression, and
findings similar to ours have been reported by others (Antony,
1971; Lonetto, 1980).
The present results show further that the death concept de-
velops from a biological representation to a metaphysical repre-
sentation with increasing age. Children in the two younger age
groups (9 and 12 years) thought of death mainly in biological
terms, and children in the two older age groups (15 and 18 years)
frequently related their understanding of death to a complex
system of religious and philosophical thought. This supports
Piaget’s developmental model and is in agreement with most of
the studies (Childers & Wimmer, 1971; Kane, 1979; Melear, 1972;
Smilansky,, 1987; Speece & Brent, 1984).
About 20% of the drawings were about the mystery of death.
An additional 16% represented death by psychological means,
and about 10% of drawings depicted the tunnel phenomenon (a
total of 46%). In comparison, only 7% of drawings represented
death in traditional religious themes-as perceptions of heaven
or hell. These findings indicate that the subjects investigated
tended to transcend the traditional Christian view of the world
and adopt a wider psychological, spiritual, or existential view of
life and death.
 Meaning of Death for Childrm 219

Gender There were also substantial gender differences in the

children’s drawings. The most striking difference between boys
and girls was in their representation of violent death, and the
difference was most evident in the 9-year-old group. Boys rep-
resented death as war, murder, shooting, killing, explosions, etc.,
and girls, as far as they chose a violent theme, represented death
by accident. Earlier researchers (Gartley & Bernasconi, 1967;
Hartman, 1986; Koocher, 1973; Schilder & Wechsler, 1934; Wei-
niger, 1979; Wenestam, 1984) have not, at least not sufficiently,
pointed out gender differences in children’s violent death con-
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cepts. It is a point that should be addressed more carefully in

future research.
Previous reviews of the literature about sex typing in general
have agreed that greater aggressiveness in boys than in girls is
the most consistent sex difference found both in American cul-
ture and cross-culturally (Ember, 1981; Maccoby &Jacklin, 1974).
Once again, this behavioral sex difference was supported by the
themes depicted in children’s drawings.
Gender differences were also found in the personification of
death. In the three younger age groups, more boys than girls
personified death. Personification of death was found by Nagy
(1948) between ages 5 and 9, and these findings were replicated
partly by Lonetto (1980), but neither of them looked for gender
differences. Our data show that the personification of death is
present through all ages (although to a slight degree: 7% of all
drawings) and is more pronounced in boys.
Yalom (1980) argued that the personification of death is an
anxiety emollient. As long as a child believes that death is brought
by some outside figure, the child is safe from the really terrible
truth that death is not external. Yalom further argued that the
anthropomorphic fear of death lingers with one all through life.
We agree with Yalom and suggest that the issue-the supposed
objectivization of death anxiety-should be examined further in
future research.
Personification of death also has a methodological impor-
tance. Because only Nagy (1948), Lonetto (1980), and we have
found personification themes in children’s death concepts, it
could be argued that the finding is due to the method and in-
structions used. Both Lonetto and Nagy had children draw and
 220 XI. E . Tonini rind A. G m n p i s t

tell their thoughts about death. Lonetto had children produce

about 10 drawings of death with the instruction “Draw death,”
and Nag): asked the question “What is death?” Drawing requires
a concrete representation, reinforced by the instructions given,
that may not be present when only verbal representation is re-
quested. The role of representation media has previously been
examined by the first author (Tamm, 1990), and we suggest that
future research on death-related issues in children should also
focus on the role of representation media.
More boys than girls in our study represented death as emp-
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tiness and darkness, and more girls than boys drew death in
psychological terms, as sorrow and sadness, and drew near-death
experiences. Religious themes, reflected in drawings of heaven
and hell, were rare in both sexes.
The choice of psychological and scientific themes, that is, feel-
ings of emptiness and near-death experiences, may reflect socio-
cultural variables. Sweden has, to a large extent, a secular culture
in which death is viewed in an existential and scientific, rather
than religious, manner. The darkness and emptiness in the boys’
drawings may thus have an existential meaning, and the pictures
of near-death experiences from the girls may reflect a scientific
attempt to grasp the meaning of death. Our data indicate, there-
fore, the presence of sociocultural influences. The trend to rep-
resent death in secular rather than religious themes was also
present in our previous study (Tamm & Granqvist, 1993) and
should be investigated further.

Summary

A category system of 3 qualitative superordinate and 10 quali-

tative subordinate categories of children’s depictions of death
were identified and elaborated. These categories were considered
to support and to expand previous studies of the development of
death concepts in children. Biological death concepts dominated
the younger age groups, and metaphysical death concepts were
found predominately in the older age groups. Boys had more
violent death concepts than girls did and tended to personify
death more often.
 Meaning of Deathfw Children 22 1

Further studies are necessary to examine the validity of the

present findings and the explanations we suggest. Much more
attention needs to be directed to the influence of age, gender, the
use of representation media, and sociocultural variables on chil-
dren’s concepts of death.

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