Understanding Dying, Death, and Bereavement

Using a social-psychological approach, this edition remains solidly grounded in theory and research, but places greater emphasis on the individual and coping with death and dying. These two well-known authors and researchers integrate stimulating personal accounts throughout the text, and apply concepts to specific examples that deal with cross cultural perspectives and the practical matters of death and dying.

Michael R. Leming is professor of sociology at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. He holds degrees from Westmont College (B.A.), Marquette University (M.A.), and the University of Utah (Ph.D.). He has completed additional graduate study at the University of California¿Santa Barbara.

He is the founder and former director of the St. Olaf College Social Research Center and is a former member of the board of directors of the Minnesota Coalition of Terminal Care. He has served as a steering committee member of the Northfield AIDS Response and as a hospice educator, volunteer, and grief counselor. He is the author of numerous articles on social thanatology and family issues and has taught courses on death and dying for over 30 years.

George E. Dickinson is professor of sociology at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He holds degrees from Baylor University (B.A. in biology and M.A. in sociology) and Louisiana State University (Ph.D. in sociology). He has completed postdoctoral studies in gerontology at Pennsylvania State University, in thanatology at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, and in medical sociology at the University of Connecticut. He was Visiting Research Fellow in palliative medicine at the University of Sheffield's School of Medicine in England in 1999 and at the International Observatory on End of Life Care in the Institute for Health Research at Lancaster University in England in 2006. He has published over 60 articles in numerous professional journals.