Final review Flashcards
Observe social structures, interpersonal relationships, human thinking, feeling and behavior as it relates to funeral service.
Funeral service sociology
The name is derived from the Greek god of death: Thanatos. It is the study of death and dying.
Thanatology
- Not a synonym for social sciences
- Only one branch of the social sciences
- Greek philosophers of ancient times are credited as the founding fathers of social science.
Sociology
A family’s attitude towards death determines what type of funeral merchandise is purchased, their social behaviors and their needs. The needs are faced at the arrangement conference.
- Sociology for this begins with the arrangement conference and ends with the final disposition.
Funeral Service
The study of social groups, their modes of organization, the processes which tend to maintain or change those forms, and the relationships between the groups.
- The science of social groups, the processes that tend to maintain or change these forms of organization and the relations between groups.
- The science that deals wit the various social groups which we encounter in our world today.
Sociology (3 different definitions)
- We address ourselves specifically to the funeral and disposition of human remains with the various social groups that a funeral director will serve.
- Funeral service has evolved as changes have occurred throughout the country. We now do video tributes, post to social pages, etc. which wasn’t heard of 10 years ago.
- Every family is unique and the funeral director must see their needs. He/she must be responsible to their tangible and intangible needs.
Funeral Service Sociology
Credited as the founding fathers of this field of social science in ancient times.
Greek Philosophers
- Every one of these is unique.
- Each will have its own individual wants and needs which a funeral director must meet.
- There are times these will have conflicting needs and the funeral director must be able to handle this type of situation.
- Requests cane be tangible or intangible
Families
Can be seen or touched.
Tangible requests
Goodwill.
Intangible requests
- Another branch of social sciences
- Closely related to sociology but not the same.
- Begins at the time of the death (and sometimes anticipated death) and ends with acceptance of the death.
Psychology
Needs and wants of the families are based on the background and culture of the family.
- Mores
- Folkways
- Customs
Family background and culture
- Must behaviors
- Rules or behaviors which are considered vital to the welfare of the group and accompanied by relatively severe sanctions.
- The basic and most important patterns of ideas and acts of people as related to treatment of the dead which call for strong reaction from society if violated.
Mores
- Informal practices
- Behaviors which when violated carry only informal sanctions such as scolding or ridicule.
- Behaviors that are construed as somewhat less compulsive than mores of the same society, and do not call for strong reaction from the society if violated.
Folkways
- Social behaviors
- A social behavior which is considered to be normal and is based on tradition.
- Social behavior is dictated by the tradition of the people.
Customs
True or false:
Mores, folkways and customs determine a family’s funeral customs.
True
- Must be well versed in the mores, folkways and customs of the clientele he/she serves. He/she should have a basic idea of all the various religious clientele he/she might serve.
- Must be able to immediately put his/her hands on information regarding mores, folkways and customs if not totally familiar with such.
- Must understand the funeral customs of subcultures.
- Blended families can possibly mean one or several subcultures.
The funeral Director
- The learning process begins at this age - either direct or indirect.
Birth
The acquiring of the culture by a person through deliberate instruction by other members of that society.
Direct learning
A process by which a person learns the norms of the culture by observation of other.
Indirect learning
- A system of abstract patterns of and for both the living and dying which are learned directly or indirectly.
- Unique and distinctive way of life- a pattern for each individual within a particular one of these.
- Regulates the ideas and beliefs shared in common by members of one’s society.
- Created by the group in which one is living and imposed on every member of the group.
Culture
- Divisions of the culture, but still associated with it.
- Distinctive traits
- Unique thoughts and ideas
- Still have some uniform beliefs
- A division of smaller identifiable unit of a culture, connected to that culture by common traits, having unique traits to itself.
Subculture
- The funeral rite itself can be called a social function.
- It is a cultural universal because some type of response to death is found in every culture.
- The funeral director must examine and understand the social structure of the family’s society.
- They reflect both modern and contemporary tendencies.
4 key points of the funeral rites
- Socialization
- The process by which each individual learns about the accepted social values and activities important to his/her culture.
- The method by which social values are internalized (learned)
- The process by which a person learns the social values of a society.
- Dictates what people can (and more importantly) cannot do in regards to death and the funeral rite.
- these dictates become custom.
Enculturation