Addressing death through artistic creation in teacher training
Abstract
One of the fundamental pillars of arts education at the Faculty of Education is the development of critical and creative thinking through the analysis of images and their context. This is achieved by conducting a critical contextual reading, using images as a means of expression and communication. This paper presents a project that develops an educational proposal related to death, based on an arts-based research process carried out in a context of deep introspection and reflection. The main objective is to reflect on personal experiences and raise awareness of acceptance, loss, and suffering—both one’s own and that of others—as core emotional dimensions. The sample consists of 60 students from the DTIE Degree in Early Childhood and Primary Education. The methodological approach is grounded in Arts-Based Learning and self-narratives. Data collection included texts, artworks, questionnaires, and the creation of visual works. Participants approached the topic in a highly personal way, with a predominantly positive orientation, mainly through art installations, sculpture, video art, photography, and performance. The conclusions indicate that this was a healing experience, highly valued by students and considered relevant to their future teaching practice, enabling the emotional and expressive exploration of classroom issues through the arts, both individually and collectively.
Downloads
-
Abstract42
-
PDF (Español (España))41
References
Aspinall, S. Y. (1996). Educating children to cope with death: A preventive model. Psychology in the Schools, 33(4), 341–349. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6807(199610)33:4%3C341::AID-PITS9%3E3.0.CO;2-P
Atkinson, T. L. (1980). Teacher intervention with elementary school children in death-related situations. Death Studies, 4(2), 149-163. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481188008252964
Bautista García-Vera, A., Romera Iruela, M. J., Limón Mendizabal, M. R., & Llorens Marín, M. (2023). Análisis de la formación permanente del profesorado universitario mediante fotografías tomadas por su alumnado. Educatio Siglo XXI, 41(2), 83–102. https://doi.org/10.6018/educatio.509741
Colomo, E., y Oña, J. M. de (2014). Pedagogía de la muerte. Las canciones como recurso didáctico [Pedagogy of Death. Songs as a didactic resource]. REICE, 13(3), 109-121. http://bit.ly/3nV7V0E
Dadfar, M., & Lester, D. (2020). The effectiveness of 8A model death education on the reduction of death depression: A preliminary study. Nurs. Open, 7(1), 294-298. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.390
García Pérez, A. (2022). La experiencia académica personal en Educación Plástica y Visual en la Formación Inicial de los Maestros de Educación Primaria. Educatio Siglo XXI, 40(2), 117–146. https://doi.org/10.6018/educatio.467241
Herrán, A. de la (2018). Fundamentos para una Pedagogía del saber y del no saber. Hipótese. https://goo.gl/owwaW4
Herrán, A. de la, González, I., Navarro, M. J., Freire, V., y Bravo, S. (2000). ¿Todos los caracoles se mueren siempre? Cómo tratar la muerte en educación infantil. De la Torre.
Herrán, A. de la, y Cortina, M. (2006). La muerte y su didáctica. Manual para educación infantil, primaria y secundaria. Universitas.
Herrera, C. (2020). Orugas y mariposas de colores acogen y dan voz al gran elefante ignorado [Caterpillars and colored butterflies welcome and give voice to the great ignored elephant]. Aula de Innovación Educativa (300), 15-19. https://www.grao.com/revistas/revista-aula-300-diciembre-pedagogia-de-la-vida-la-muerte-y-el-duelo-en-la-escuela-35078
Huerta, R. (2021). Cementerios para educar. McGraw-Hill
Huerta, R. (2022). La Memoria. Investigación Basada en las Artes para la formación del profesorado. Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 34(1), 27-45. https://doi.org/10.5209/aris.70081
Huerta, R. (2025). Educar en imágenes. McGraw-Hill
Kübler-Ross, E. y Kessler, D. (2023). Sobre el duelo y el dolor. Ediciones Luciérnaga.
Ramón-Verdú, A. J. (2023). Del texto narrativo a la imagen visual: factores del proceso metodológico en una acción educativa. Educación artística: revista de investigación (EARI), 14, 138-151. https://dx.doi.org/10.7203/eari.14.26389
Ramón-Verdú, A. J. y Villalba-Gómez J. V. (2022). The Image as Language: The Creation and the Use of the Visual Message by Young University Students in Their Communicative Social Activity. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 944187. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.944187
Ramos, N., Murillo, V. y Revilla, A. (2020). La creación de metáforas visuales: una propuesta didáctica a partir de la fotografía. Afluir (Monográfico extraordinario II), 211-227. https://dx.doi.org/10.48260/ralf.extra2.45
Rodríguez-Herrero. P., y Goyarrola-Hormaechea. (2016). Propuestas Didácticas para una Pedagogía de la Muerte desde la Creatividad Artística. Revista Iberoamericana Sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.15366/reice2012.10.2.006
Salido-López, P. V. (2025). Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos Artísticos (ABP-A) y Diseño Universal para el Aprendizaje (DUA): evaluación cualitativa de un programa de intervención pedagógica en la formación inicial de docentes. Revista de Investigación Educativa, 43. https://doi.org/10.6018/rie.565501
Villalba Gómez, J. V. (2018). Didáctica artística y medioambiental: la estampación de materias vegetales como recurso educativo. Educatio Siglo XXI, 36(3), 275–298. https://doi.org/10.6018/j/350001
Villalba-Gómez, J. V., Ramón-Verdú, A. J. y Salido-López, P. V. (2025). La acción A/r/tográfica en el contexto urbano como instrumento para la reflexión crítica del entorno. Grafica, 13(26), 289-296. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/grafica.300
Villalba-Gómez, J. V., Ramón-Verdú, A. J., & Castejón-Ibañez, M. M. (2024). El valor social de las imágenes. Un estudio de caso en universitarios. Profesorado, Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado, 28(1), 281–301. https://doi.org/10.30827/profesorado.v28i1.27964
Copyright (c) 2026 Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Original work publishes in this journal is subject to the following terms:
1. Murcia University Press (the publishing house) holds the copyright of the publishes work, and favours and allows their reutilization under the use license stated in point 2.
© Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, 2015
2. Work is published in the electronic edition under a license (Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 España (legal text). They can be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted and publicly presented, as long as: i) authorship and original publication source is acknowledged (journal, publishing house and URL of the work); ii) are not used for commercial purposes; iii) the existence and specifications of this use license is stated.
3. Conditions for self-archive. Authors are allowed and encouraged to disseminate electronically the pre-pint (before review) and/or post-print (accepted for publication) versions of their work before their publication since that favours earlier circulation and dissemination resulting in an increased chance for the authors to be cited and for the work to reach a bigger share of the academic community. Colour: RoMEO: green.
