ABSTRACT
This opening chapter explores some key issues in relation to death education and related matters. It helps us understand how various thinkers have made contribution to the gradual development of an approach to death and dying informed by sociology and the broader perspective it brings to the subject matter. It sets the scene for the chapters that follow. In order to establish the important role of sociology in developing an adequate understanding of death and dying, we highlight a number of important issues. First, we explore the social nature of death and dying before moving on to consider how suicide, generally regarded as a very private, individualistic matter, is actually a profoundly social (and thus sociological) phenomenon.
