structural functional theory death and dying

Family members may harbor superstitions or simply memories of a room or area where a loved one died. Memorials and battlefields are also places associated with death. Places include hospitals (though they do not have the prominent role that they once had as places people go to die, at least in industrial societies), funeral homes, morgues, cemeteries, and other places that deal with the dead and dying. Even statisticians who create actuarial tables play a role in the death system.Ī second component of the death system is places. Clergy, police, firefighters, and health care workers all interact with the dying, dead, and bereaved and therefore have roles in the death system. Anyone, for example, involved in food manufacturing, especially meat, and food service, depends on the slaughter of animals. In other cases, Kastenbaum reminds society, the role may be apparent. These include coroners and funeral directors, persons involved with life insurance, and florists. Other individuals have more regular roles in the death system, earning their livelihood primarily by providing services that revolve around death. Because death is inevitable, everyone will, at one time or another, be involved with death -one's own or others. First, people are connected to the death system. To Kastenbaum, the death system in any given society has a number of components.

Through this concept, Kastenbaum seeks to move death from a purely individual concern to a larger context, understanding the role of death and dying in the maintenance and change of the social order.

Death system, a concept introduced by Robert Kastenbaum in 1977, is defined as 'the interpersonal, sociocultural, and symbolic network through which an individual's relationship to mortality is mediated by his or her society' (Kastenbaum 2001, p.

Structural functional theory death and dying