Naive theory of biology: the pre-school child's explanation of death

Abstract

This article explains the naive theory of biology that the pre-school child uses to explain the cause of death. The empirical investigation showed that the young participants do use a naive theory of biology to explain function and do make reference to ‘vitalistic causality’ in explaining organ function. Furthermore, most of these participants gave an external explanation for the cause of death (e.g. gunshots, poison, sticks), but those participants who gave an internal (biological) explanation for the cause of death were well-informed about the biological teleology of body organs. These findings concluded that education, socioeconomic factors and culture influenced the acquisition of a naive theory of biology. Regarding the view of educators, all emphasised the need for guidance in how to explain the concept of death to young children. The research approach was conducted from a qualitative paradigm and was based on the strategy of phenomenology and grounded theory approach. The researcher chose two cultural settings (urban and suburban milieu) and used eight pre-school children and four educators as her participants.