Resumen de Engaging with issues of death, loss, and grief in elementary school: Teachers’ perceptions and affective experiences of an in-service training program on death education in Cyprus

Polyxeni Stylianou, Michalinos Zembylas

• The purpose of this article is to analyze elementary school teachers’ perceptions and affective experiences of an in-service training on death education taught by the first author over three years at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. The teacher training focused on how to teach about issues of death, loss, and grief at the elementary school.

  The article examines what drives teachers to participate in the training and describes their concerns and dilemmas of engaging with issues of death, loss, and grief in their teaching. The study, which is based on an action research methodology, also explores teachers’ reflections on their pedagogical efforts to design and implement a lesson plan in which issues of death, loss, and grief are included. The analysis addresses a gap in teacher professional development in social studies education engaging with issues of death, loss, and grief and discusses implications for teaching and teacher education.