A Preliminary Study of the Modern Funeral Knowledge and Attitude

• Main Authors: Po-Wei , Chen, 陳伯瑋
• Other Authors: Haunn-Tarng Tseng, Ph.D.
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/83259805306896722043

碩士 === 國立臺北護理健康大學 === 生死教育與輔導研究所 === 101 === By taking a reference to the publication of "Equal and Autonomous Reverence - Modern Citizen Funeral" which consists of six chapters - Concept, Ceremony, Condolence Money, Green Burial, Clerical Work, and Collaboration, promulgated in June 2012 by the Ministry of the Interior, this study has prepared a self-made questionnaire to explore modern Taiwanese and funeral industry's attitude toward funeral ceremonies. Hopefully, the results from this study can help the Government formulate the reforms of funeral regulations and ceremony practices, and provide basic information for the researchers of funeral policies and ceremonies to take references. Meanwhile, this study will leave a trail to witness the contemporary Taiwanese attitude toward funeral ceremonies. This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter one is about the research motivation, Chapter two is literature reviews, Chapter three is research method, Chapter four is research results, and Chapter five is the results and suggestions. Subject to the limited time and research fund, this study has not been able to make an overall survey to cover the entire Taiwan, and therefore the study objects, extracted from layered random sampling, are confined to the greater Taipei area (Taipei City, New Taipei City and Keelung City). There were 1,200 copies of the questionnaire sent out, and all of them were then returned, i.e. a 100% collection rate. Among the returned, 67 copies from cities other than in the greater Taipei area as well as 7 invalid copies with unidentifiable basic information and incomplete answers were excluded, making a total of 1,124 valid copies - a 93.7% validity, and among which there were 70 copies from the funeral industry and 1,054 copies from the general public. This study then used the statistic software SPSS for Windows 20 to enter the data for statistic analysis on the domestic funeral industry and general public's attitude toward the modern funeral ceremony. To make the analysis more elaborate, the funeral practitioners and general public's attitudes toward the funeral ceremonies were compared, and the funeral attitudes among people of different ages, educations, religions, habitations, and people conceiving different funeral core values, were also compared. This study comes to the following findings: (1) gender makes significant discrepancy on the perception of the funeral attitude; (2) age makes significant discrepancy on the perception of the funeral attitude; (3) education makes significant discrepancy on the perception of the funeral attitude; (4) religions of funeral practitioners and the general public make significant discrepancy on the perception of the funeral attitude. Accordingly, this study closes with the following suggestions: (1) continue to push forward the three core values of modern funeral (funeral autonomy, sexual equality and respect for diversification) and establish the modern funeral concepts; (2) continue the campaign of "green burial" to build eco-friendly and sustainable funeral facilities; (3) continue to root the funeral education in younger generations and bring it up to professional levels; (4) continue to support local authorities' assessment on funeral practitioners and regular publication of the survey reports. Currently, the competent authorities are engaged in the funeral reform, and it is necessary to enhance the public education on the funeral practices. Also, collaborations from the industry, authorities and scholars are required in order to reform and modernize the Taiwan funeral practices. Keywords: Modern citizen funeral, layered random sampling, Attitude toward funeral, Core values of funeral