This study sets out to ascertain adolescents' attitudes and opinions towards death education. To this end two instruments were designed and validated: the 'Death Education Attitudes Scale-Students' and the 'Death Education Questionnaire-Students'. The total sample comprised 1897 secondary school students aged 12-19. Participants showed moderately positive attitudes towards death education. Variables such as gender, age and religious beliefs influenced results. Death is not unfamiliar to adolescents; on the contrary, it affects them through the loss of loved ones, and they saw themselves as capable of reflecting on it. The study has implications for the training of teachers and families and for the inclusion of the awareness of death in curricula and in educational policies on national and international levels.

This study explores aspects which influence whether young people decide to remain in a rural area or move away. Based on a qualitative analysis of 41 open-ended interviews with young people from a rural area of inland Spain, it especially examines the perception they hold of the opportunities provided by their rural environment for labour market integration. The results show that: 1) agriculture, the economic base of the area, is not perceived as a means of social and labour market integration; 2) a high degree of mobility between the village and the city is a necessary condition for young people to remain in a rural area; 3) promoting the natural and cultural resources of an area strengthens the feeling of belonging and identity.

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Based on the premise that types of death express differences in lifestyle, this article studies differences in causes of death between rural and urban habitats. This empirical analysis covers all deaths registered during the three‐year period from 1990 to 1992 in Spain, classified according to the following variables: age, sex, cause of death covering twenty‐seven categories, and town of residence. The analysis carried out shows convergence between urban and rural life expectancy. It is no longer the case that the rural population has a higher mortality rate because of a comparatively low socio‐economic level and poorer health care. In fact, the differences noted offer greater life expectancy in the rural environment although the difference of only one year is a relatively short period, hardly justifying the suggestion that improved environmental quality lengthens life expectancy ‐especially taking into account that the extra year occurs at an advanced age. Also of relevance here is the fact that the differences are mostly seen amongst men, whereas amongst women the differences in life expectancy are minimal.