Émile Durkheim

April 15, 1858 - November 15, 1917

 Biographical Background
• Born April 15, 1858 in Epinal, Alsace, France.
• Father, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather
were all rabbis.
• Although coming from a Jewish tradition he
was secular in his religious views.
• Entered the École Normale Supérieure in
Paris in 1879.
• Read and studied with classicists with a
social scientific outlook while in school.
• The French academic system had no social
science curriculum at the time, and he took
his degree in philosophy in the class in 1882.
Biographical Background
• 1887 – started his teaching career in Bordeaux to
teach pedagogy and social science to new teachers.
• In 1885-86 he spent a year studying psychology with
Wilhelm Wundt in Berlin.
• 1893 - published The Division of Labor in Society.
• 1895 - published Rules of the Sociological Method, and
founded the European Department of Sociologique at
the University of Bordeaux.
• 1896 - founded the journal L'Année Sociologique, the
first journal of sociology in France.
 Biographical Background
• 1897 - published Suicide
• 1902 - awarded a prominent position in
Paris as the chair of education at the
Sorbonne.
• 1912 - published Elementary Forms of
the Religious Life. His position became
permanent and he renamed it the chair
of education and sociology.
• His son died in World War I, and he
never recovered emotionally.
• Suffered a stroke in Paris in 1917,
briefly recovered and resumed work but
later that year, on November 15, he died
at age 59 from exhaustion.
Contributions and Theories
• He sought to construct one of the first
scientific approaches to social phenomena.
• Saw that traditional societies were held
together by the fact that everyone was
more or less the same.
• Along with Herbert Spencer, he was one of
the first to conceptualize the idea of social
functionalism:
– Functionalism views society as a system of
interdependent parts whose functions
contribute to the stability and survival of
the system as a whole.
• Thought that society was more than the
sum of its parts, and coined the term Social
Facts:
– Social Facts have an existence all their own,
and are not bound to the action of
individuals.
 Contributions and Theories
Durkheim on Education:
Believed that education served many functions:
 To reinforce social solidarity
Pledging allegiance: makes individuals feel part of a group and therefore
less likely to break rules.
 To maintain social roles
School is a society in miniature: it has a similar hierarchy, rules, expectations to
the “outside world,” and trains people to fulfill roles.
 To maintain division of labor
School sorts students into skill groups, encouraging students to take up
employment in fields best suited to their abilities.

Along with sociology he was trained

in pedagogy, and concluded that the
institution of public education was a
necessary replacement for religion in
a secular society.
 Contributions and Theories
• Durkheim on Anomie:
• Anomie is the breakdown of social norms regulating behavior.
• Durkheim and other sociological theorists coined the term anomie as
“a reaction against, or retreat from, the social controls of society.”
• All deviant behavior stems from a state of anomie, including suicide.
• Durkheim on Crime:
• Crime serves a social function, meaning that it has a purpose in society.
• He saw crime as being able to release certain social tensions and so have
a cleansing or purging effect in society.
• His views on crime were unconventional at the time.
 The Division of Labor
• In The Division of Labor in Society Durkheim examined how social order
was maintained in different types of societies.
• Traditional societies were held together by the fact that everyone was
mostly similar to one another. The collective consciousness is highly
isomorphic with individual consciousness.
• In modern societies, the highly complex division of labor resulted in
people with different occupational specializations. This created
dependencies that tied people to one another since no one person could
fill all of his/her needs by themselves.
• Increasing division of labor leads
to rapid change in a society. This
can produce a state of confusion
regarding norms and a growing
impersonality in social life. This,
in turn, may lead to a breakdown
in the norms regulating behavior
and a sense of anomie.
 Social Facts

According to Durkheim, social facts are the subject matter of

sociology. Social facts are “sui generis” (meaning of its own
kind; unique) and must be studied as distinct from biological
and psychological phenomenon.

Social facts can be defined as patterns of behavior that are

capable of exercising some coercive power upon individuals.

They are guides and controls of conduct and are external to

the individual in the form of norms, mores, and folkways.
 Social Facts

“A social fact is identifiable through the power of external

coercion which it exerts or is capable of exerting upon
individuals”
- Rules of Sociological Method (1895)

Through socialization and education these rules become

internalized in the consciousness of the individual. These
constraints and guides become moral obligations to obey
social rules.
 Human Dualism
“There are in each of us…two consciences:
one which is common to our group in its entirety…the other,
on the contrary, represents that in us which is personal and
distinct, that which makes us an individual”
- Division of Labor in Society (1893)
“Because society surpasses us, it obliges us to surpass
ourselves, and to surpass itself, a being must, to some degree,
depart from its nature—a departure that does not take place
without causing more or less painful tensions.”
- Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1914).
 Human Dualism

“It is not without reason, therefore, that man feels himself to

be double: he actually is double….In brief, this duality
corresponds to the double existence that we lead
concurrently; the one purely individual and rooted in our
organisms, the other social and nothing but an extension of
society.” - Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1914)

Our purely individual side seeks satisfaction of all wants and

desires. It knows no boundaries. Without being constrained
by the collective conscience, this side of human beings may
lead to the condition that Durkheim labels as “anomie.”
 COLLECTIVE

THE ARENA OF

MORAL CONFORMITY
INDIVIDUAL
INSATIABLE
APPETITES

THE

IN-GROUP

CONSCIENCE
OU T
S ID E T HE

LAW
 Suicide (1897)
• Suicide defined as the act of severing social relationships.
• Durkheim’s goal was to show that an individual act is actually the result of
social factors, thus the relevance of the sociological perspective.
• A key was the degree of social integration: the integration of a group of
people into the mainstream of society.
• Observed that abnormally high or low levels or social integration may
result in increased suicide rates.
• He explored the differing suicide rates among differing social groups.
• Results he found include:
– Suicide rates are higher for widowed, single or divorced people rather than
those who are married.
– Rates are higher for those who have no children rather than those who do .
– Rates are higher among Protestants than Catholics.
– Coroners in a Catholic country are less likely to record a suicide as the reason
of death because in Catholism it is a sin.
 Key Concepts in Suicide
Suicide was a Social Fact
Suicide was to be explained by another Social Fact

Anomic Division of Labor (leftover from “Division of Labor”)

Integration
Regulation

Defined Four Types of Suicide:

Altruistic
Egoistic
Anomic
Fatalistic

Anomie
 Suicide as a Social Fact
Suicide rate is a social fact–
social cause/social effect

Rates are stable across time

Durkheim found low rates of

suicide:
When religious integration is
high (Catholics < Protestants)
When domestic integration is
high (Married < Unmarried)
When political integration is
high (Rural < Urban)

Example of US suicide rate:

fairly stable over time.
 Durkheim’s Argument in Suicide
 Unlike animals, human desire is “unlimited,” – there is no internal check on
needs and desires.
 The “passions… must be limited,” but this must be done by some force
exterior to the individual.
 This exterior force must be the community (collective conscience) because
it is the “only moral power superior to the individual, the authority of
which he accepts.”
 Regulation through collective conscience is required to ensure that people
will accept their position in life, because true social equality is impossible.
 Anomie occurs when societies break down or “pass through some
abnormal crisis,” people are “not adjusted to the conditions forced on
them,” and social bonds/collective conscience fail to do work of regulating.
 The Division of Labor in Society
and Anomie
 How can we be more bonded to one another when we are further
splintered by division of labor and specialization?

 Rules emerge from the DOL because it sets up definite ways of acting that
are repeated on a daily basis, turning into regular, stable habit. “Then the
habits, as they grow in strength, are transformed into rules of conduct.”

 This produces a real form of solidarity, interdependence built on shared,

regular expectations (duties, rights, obligations) that are built up and
extended across time.

 “If the division of labor does not produce solidarity, it is because the
relationships between the organs are not regulated; it is because they are
in a state of anomie.”
 ANOMIE
-a lack of regulation occurring with breakdown
of (mostly economic) order in modern life-

 Anomie is a constant feature of modern life

 “Since this disorder is greatest in the economic world, it has most of its
victims there.”

 Industrial and commercial functions have the greatest number of suicides

– and – “the possessors of most comfort suffer most.”

 Durkheim’s general argument:

When economic order is functional, it “reins in individual
passions” by setting limits on desires and socializing people to
be comfortable in their position
 Suicide
• Suicide may be caused by weak social bonds.
• Social bonds are made up of social integration and
social regulation.
• Durkheim’s 4 types of suicide:
 Egoistic Suicide: Individual is weakly integrated into a
society so ending their life will have little impact on the
rest of society.
 Altruistic suicide: Individual is extremely attached to
the society and because of this has no real sense of
autonomy. But alternatively, a freely chosen act of self-
sacrifice.
 Anomic suicide: a weak social regulation between
society’s norms and the individual, most often brought
on by dramatic economic or social changes.
 Fatalistic suicide: Social regulation is completely
imposed upon the individual. With no hope of
countering the oppressive discipline of the society
the only way to escape is to take one’s own life.
SUICIDE TYPES, ala Durkheim & Allen (& Berger):

GROUP ATTACHMENT BEHAVIOR REGULATION

(SOCIAL INTEGRATION) (MORAL REGULATION)
Shared Social Sentiments External Constraints
(“society in man”) (“man in society”)

HIGH or FATALISTIC
ALTRUISTIC
STRONG
(collectivistic) (hopelessness)

LOW or
WEAK EGOISTIC ANOMIC
(individualistic) (meaninglessness)
 Altruistic Suicide – Excessive Integration

Jonestown
Massacre, 1978
Kamakazi pilots, 1945
Suicide bombers, 2013
Egoistic Suicide – Low Integration
 Anomic Suicide
– Low Regulation

Anomic Suicide –
Low Regulation
 Fatalistic Suicide – Excessive Regulation

1838 issue of American Anti-Slavery Almanac, which illustrated

a passage from Charles Ball’s “Slavery in the United States”
(New York, 1837) that describes Ball’s encounter with the slave
Unnamed slave woman, who on Dec. Paul. Paul had “suffered so much in slavery, that he chose to
19, 1815, jumped out of the garret encounter the hardships and perils of a runaway.”
window of a three-story brick house
and survived.
 COMPARATIVE RATES OF ANOMIC SUICIDE
HIGHER LOWER
compared across cells
Men Women
Protestants Catholics
Catholics Jews
Urban Rural
Durkheim Single Married
Married w/o Married c
Children Children
Officers Enlisted Personnel
Military in Peace Military in War
Adolescents Adults
Native-Americans Euro-Americans Modern Day
Middle Aged Elderly
 Anomic or Fatalistic Suicide?

We are broke. Last April I was

worth $100,000. Today I am
$24,000 in the red.
 Elementary Forms of Religious Life
• Thought religion was a form of social cohesion,
which holds complex societies together.
• Saw totemism as the original form of religion,
because it was the emblem for the social group,
the clan.
• Believed that the function of religion was to make
people willing to put the interests of others ahead
of themselves.
• The model for relationships between people and
the supernatural was the relationship between
individuals and the community.
– “God is society, writ large.”
• Saw religion as a mechanism that protected a
threatened social order.
 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Key Concepts
 Definition of Religion
 Totemism
 Sacred V. Profane
 Collective Effervescence V. Collective Conscience
 Collective Representations
 Use of the evolutionary metaphor –
and functionalist view of religion
 Religion: The Origins of Collective Conscience
• RELIGION: “A unified system of beliefs and practices relating to sacred
things … which unite into one single moral community called a church all
those who adhere to them.”
• Durkheim studies religion as the fundamental institution of social life, upon
which the collective identity is structured.
• Religion unites members through the creation of a collective conscience.
All religious expression is founded on the identification of members to a
group.
• Shared religious beliefs and values also reinforce the strength of the
collective conscience.
Why did Durkheim study “primitive”
society to understand religion?
– Early development can be observed, and
change traced over time. (Evolutionary
model)

– Durkheim looked for “the elements which

constitute that which is permanent and
human in religion; they form all the objective
contents of the idea which is expressed when
one speaks of religion in general” (182).
 Why did Durkheim study “primitive”
society to understand religion?
• Simplicity allows for analysis of “essential” features.
• “Everything is common to all. Movements are
stereotyped; Everybody performs the same ones in
the same circumstances, and this conformity of
conduct only translates to the conformity of
thought” (from Elementary Forms).
• These societies are different enough from our own
experience that we are able to see important
features.

Totemism
 Sacred V. Profane

• Religion is defined by the cultural

distinction between the sacred and
profane.
• Sacred – objects extraordinary and
set apart
• Profane – everyday, ordinary objects
• Notions of the sacred are given
external representation through
objects or symbols, called collective
representations.
Durkheim’s Model of Sense of
religious evolution Crowd stimulation, common
heightened sentiments
Temporary emotions, and that are
Interaction collective external
gatherings
escalates contagion occur and
occur
constraining

Psychological need to
represent “mana” with a
material object Totems
“Mana” is
promote a
Powers are symbolized
Structural need sense of
attributed by the totem
for clan solidarity unity and
to “mana” and by sacred
solidarity
objects of the
Cultural need for among
totem
resulting permanent members
groups
 Collective
Effervescence
Effervescence is when we feel we are a part of
something bigger than ourselves:
“Vital energies are over-excited, passions more active,
sensations stronger… A man does not recognize himself;
he feels himself transformed, and consequently he
transforms the environment
that surrounds him.”

Is this --
The Collective Conscience?
 Collective
Effervescence

Effervescence occurs when we collectively share an

ecstatic experience. In Greek ek-stasis literally
means stepping outside reality as commonly
defined.
We might say we are
“besides ourselves”

Is this --
The Collective Conscience?
 Religion and Collective Conscience
• These social categories shape how we think and orient
ourselves to world: time, space, quality . . .

• Establish our basic categories of thought!

– “If men did not agree upon these essential ideas at every
moment… all contact between their minds would be
impossible, and with that, all life together. Thus societies
could not abandon the categories to the free choice of the
individual without abandoning itself.”

• Collective conscience guides human action!

– “We have the feeling that we cannot abandon them if our
whole thought is not to cease being fully human.”
 Function of Religion?
Religion is a way of expressing and reaffirming shared social
beliefs, a functional element of society.

“There can be no society which does not feel the need of

upholding and reaffirming at regular intervals the collective
sentiments and collective ideals… This moral remaking cannot be
achieved except by the means of reunions, assemblies, and
meetings where individuals reaffirm their common sentiments.”
 Elementary Forms of Religious Life
• In the past, religion had been the cement of society - the means
by which men had been led to turn from the everyday concerns
in which they were variously enmeshed to a common devotion
to sacred things.
– “A religion is a unified system of beliefs…relative to sacred
things…beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral
community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”

• Condensed religion into 4 major functions:

– 1) Disciplinary: forcing or administrating discipline
– 2) Cohesive: bringing people together, a strong bond
– 3) Vitalizing: to make more lively or vigorous, vitalize, boost spirit
– 4) Euphoric: a good feeling, happiness, confidence, well-being
Durkheim’s Legacy
• Durkheim helped make the study of sociology
mainstream. Sociology today has gained
tremendous popularity in Europe, the US, and
across the world.
• Many of Durkheim’s students pursued his ideas in
their own studies.
• Founded the academic journal, L'Annee
Sociologique.
• In recent decades, Durkheim’s philosophies have
been more influential in the US and Britain than in
France, his native country.
• Durkheim’s ideas influenced several major
theoretical movements in the twentieth century.
– His work was strongly present in the emergence of
‘structuralism’ through the work of Jean Piaget and
Claude Levi-Strauss.
Small Group Discussion: Other Institutions
as “Religions”

– Pick another social institution (ex. Education) and apply

Durkheim’s theory of the elementary forms of religion to
it.
– What are some examples of the sacred and the profane
in your institution? (Beliefs, values, cultural objects, etc.)
– Describe the group that it defines – Whose collective
conscience does the institution reinforce?
– What are some important collective representations of
the “religion?”
– Describe the positive and negative rituals associated with
the institution– how do members reaffirm their
membership?
 Discussion Questions
• From Durkheims Suicide, one of the four types of suicide was
altruistic suicide. Under this type people saw the social world as
meaningless and would choose to sacrifice themselves for the
greater ideal. What are some examples you can think of that have
happened in the world where people may have committed suicide
for this purpose? Did they believe that they were doing the right
thing? Did others consider it the right thing?

• Durkheim considered himself to be a functionalist. Functionalism is

the view that society is a system of interdependent parts whose
functions contribute to the stability and survival of the system. Do
you agree with this theory or do you disagree? Why or why not?
 Discussion Questions
• Durkheim said that one of the ways to maintain the division of labor,
schools should sort students into skill groups, encouraging students to
take up employment in fields best suited to their abilities. For today’s
society do you think that this may be a good idea? Should this be the
schools responsibility or the students? What age is best for this to
happen?

• Durkheim believed that crime was merely a departure from

conventional notions and that it served as a function of society. Do
you agree with Durkheim that crime is a necessary part of society?
– Is an ideal society one in which there is no crime (meaning no reformation or progress in
ideas) or one in which crime does occur?
 Discussion Questions
• Durkheim believed that the division of labor was an essential part of society and that it evolved
‘spontaneously’ from human nature. Where else do you see examples of the division of labor, other
than in the workplace? Why do you think that the division of labor was crucial to success?

• Presentation by: Jennifer Summe, Stephanie Scholl, and Jess Webb