Sensemaking in Parent-Child Discussions of Death
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University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2016 Preparing for the Inevitable: Sensemaking in Parent-Child Discussions of Death Carrie Ann Wartmann University of Central Florida Part of the Communication Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Wartmann, Carrie Ann, "Preparing for the Inevitable: Sensemaking in Parent-Child Discussions of Death" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 5124. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/5124 PREPARING FOR THE INEVITABLE: SENSEMAKING IN PARENT-CHILD DISCUSSIONS OF DEATH by CARRIE ANN WARTMANN B.A. University of Central Florida, 2010 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Nicholson School of Communication in the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Summer Term 2016 ©2016 Carrie Ann Wartmann ii ABSTRACT Death is something everyone will one day encounter, yet American society has a tendency to avoid or deny death in everyday life and language. Death makes people uncomfortable, and many view it as a topic too complex for children to understand. Children, however, witness big and little deaths in their lives: of pets, relatives, plants, and favorite fairy tale characters. When a child experiences a death, he or she may have questions for parents or other trusted adults which our current avoidance-geared society does not prepare adults for. Children exist in a specific cultural context, and learn rules and expectations of society from an early age. How society views a subject like death will influence how it is talked about, experienced, and learned. Parents and families serve as the primary means of socialization for young children and hold a position of expertise within the parent-child dynamic. Both socio- cultural and personal beliefs about death will influence how a parent approaches death education with his or her child. Through examination of the sensemaking and sensegiving accounts of parent participants, this study sought to understand what the process is like for parents who are discussing the subject of death with their children, what goals and concerns parents have, what information a parent privileges as important within the social and historical context of the conversation, and what resources he or she accesses, if any, to assist with communication. By framing the participants’ experiences as “making sense” of a social environment after an interruption, this study was able to investigate the processes of sensemaking and sensegiving in an interpersonal context between parent and child, the roles of Weick’s (1995) characteristics of iii sensemaking, implicit and explicit messages relayed to children about death, and the influence of social scripts on both processes. Twelve semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted to gather accounts in context of parents who had previously discussed death with their children. Interviews were analyzed based on a modified constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). The study was designed to remain as close to the relayed experience of the participants as possible with hope that information from the participants’ experiences will be useful for both academics and parents as a future resource for preparing for parent-child communication about death. iv This work is dedicated to the parents who so graciously offered their stories. Thank you for sharing your time and experience with a curious student. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to start by thanking my committee chair Dr. Sally Hastings for her unending support and patience with this project. I fell down a few research rabbit holes, and would have been lost without your guidance. Thank you also to my committee members, Dr. Harry Weger and Dr. George Musambira. Your advice and encouragement for continuing research truly made me feel like this project was worthwhile. I could not have finished this thesis project, or my graduate program, without the advice and friendship offered by Kirsten Seitz. You do more for the graduate students than we could ever put into words. You offer guidance and support to us when we need it most, and I truly believe the program would not be what it is without you. Thanks for saving my “s.” I would also like to thank my family and friends who have provided encouragement and waited patiently on any and all social gatherings until deadlines, exams, or papers were complete. Thank you for letting me talk things through with you when a new theory got me excited, even when you had no idea what I was saying, and for giving additional perspective when school was too stressful. I could not have done this without your support. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 Children and Death ..................................................................................................................... 6 Media. ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Western Conception of Childhood.............................................................................................. 9 Communicating about Death .................................................................................................... 11 Resources. ............................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 17 Organization .............................................................................................................................. 18 Sensemaking ............................................................................................................................. 21 Phases of sensemaking. ......................................................................................................... 23 Ecological change. ............................................................................................................ 24 Enactment. ........................................................................................................................ 25 Selection. ........................................................................................................................... 26 Retention. .......................................................................................................................... 27 Sensegiving. ...................................................................................................................... 27 Characteristics of sensemaking. ............................................................................................ 29 vii Identity. ............................................................................................................................. 29 Retrospective..................................................................................................................... 30 Social................................................................................................................................. 31 Ongoing............................................................................................................................. 33 Extracted Cues. ................................................................................................................. 34 Plausibility. ....................................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 38 Study Design ............................................................................................................................. 39 Study Participants ..................................................................................................................... 39 Sampling ................................................................................................................................... 42 Data Collection ......................................................................................................................... 42 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 43 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ..................................................................................................... 46 Sensemaking ............................................................................................................................. 46 No frame of reference. .......................................................................................................... 47 Continued tradition. .............................................................................................................. 50 Rejected scripts. ...................................................................................................................