The present study aimed to identify the conceptions of death and its implications for the meaning of life among adolescents. To that end, we performed an action-research to address the issue of finiteness starting from the Viktor Frankl conception about the meaning of life and death. We counted with the participation of 17 third year students in high school, the majority of them females (52.9%) with mean age 17 years, ranging from 15 to 24 years old. The results were obtained through five interventions in the classroom. Each intervention lasted on average 45 minutes, being constituted by the questions about death, dying and the meaning of life. Then, the participants' responses were subjected to content analysis. With respect to representations of death, three categories were revealed: thoughts, feelings and beliefs. About the understanding the meaning of life, the adolescents responded in two directions: the subjective and objective senses. When reflected on their own death, their answers were classified in terms of three evaluative categories: experiential, attitudinal and creative. With regard to the question “How would life be if nobody died”, the following types of arguments were observed: valuing life, correcting past mistakes, tautological answer, religious response and life-death dialectic. The results showed the importance of dealing with the subject of finitude in schools.
Death; Adolescent; Attitudes towards death; Death education
