Caring Cultures at the end-of-life (SoKuL)
Project Duration: October, 1 2022 - September 30, 2025
Project Lead:
Research Asisstants:
- Mag.Dr. Gert Dressel
- Evelyn Hutter, MA
- Mag.Dr. Barbara Pichler
- Assoz.-Prof.MMag.Dr. Elisabeth Reitinger
Funding Institution:
- The project is funded by Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung as part of program OeAD - Sparkling Science 2.0
Scientific Cooperation:
Partners from Business and Society:
School involved:
Short Introduction:
“Sorgekulturen” (“Cultures of care") are cultures in and of social systems, i.e., families, teams, organizations, or communities that provide care for vulnerable people. In the project we research care for seriously ill and dying people, for very old people and for people with dementia in their intergenerational and cultural diversity. We interpret care (culture) against the background of palliative care and understand dying as a process that includes physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions. Together with students of the “Caritas Ausbildungszentrum für Sozialberufe” and with students of the bachelor program in applied Nursing Science at the FH Campus Donaustadt we want to explore the different cultures of care at the end of life in 12-15 intergenerational and intercultural storytelling cafés and in 8-10 qualitative research interviews. As cooperation partners in the field of Citizen Scientists we could recruit the CS Caritas Socialis, the self-help group PROMENZ, the “Dokumentation Lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen” at University of Vienna and the association “Sorgenetz”. They will all be invited to participate in the storytelling cafés and in the narrative interviews. We will analyze the data together with the students for elderly care and the FH students and create sustainable transfer products from the results (teaching cases, didactic material and a short film). The students for elderly care will have the opportunity to participate in all phases of the research process, to reflect on their own experiences with dying, death and bereavement, and to learn more about cultures of care at the end of life.
On a methodological level, the project aims to contribute to establishing storytelling cafés as a narrative group method in qualitative social science research. The knowledge generated about cultures of care at the end of life and about storytelling cafés in research on dying, death and bereavement will be published in 3-4 scientific publications and in an edited volume.