Belfast children's awareness of violent death

Although violent deaths due to the Northern Ireland civil strife receive wide publicity, up to three times as many people are killed in road accidents, and death-rate statistics reveal that natural causes predominate. Against this backdrop the study explores development of the death concept in Belfast children (n = 200). A disguised test technique was supplemented by more probing questions. Subject variables were age (five groups from 3 years 8 months to 15 years 8 months), sex, verbal ability, religious denomination, and place of residence. Vocabulary scores were significantly related to conceptual level for the 7- and 13-year-olds only. More advanced definitions were given by the 4-year-olds living in the 'troubled' areas, by both groups of 13-year-old Protestants and by the 15-year-old Protestants living in the 'less troubled' areas. Overall, the children attributed death more often to sickness than to accidents or to violence; just as frequently to heart disease and to old age as to explosions and shootings and more often to road accidents and to cancer than to specific local violence. These attributions quite accurately reflect the total objective situation, and suggest that violence is not a salient dimension for the children of the area.