Why did Durkheim choose to study suicide

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Why did Durkheim choose to study suicide?

• To demonstrate the potential of sociology
• To deliver on the claims of Rules of the Soc.
  Method
• To identify solutions to social problems

2
Why did Durkheim think he could study suicide
sociologically?

• He focused on suicide rates
• Suicide rates were social facts

stability over timesystematic variationa
long-term trend
3

• What was Durkheims central argument in Suicide
  A Study in Sociology?
• what is his dependent variable?
• what are his independent variables?

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Low Egoism
Egoistic Suicide
Low Anomie
HighFatalism
Social Integration
Moral Regulation
Anomic Suicide
Fatalistic Suicide
High Altruism
Altruistic Suicide
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Egoistic Suicide What is it?
Predictions Catholics vs. Protestants Jews vs.
Christians Married vs. Single People Couples with
vs. Couples w/out Children Peacetime vs. Wartime
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Altruistic Suicide What is it?

• declining or rising in modern society?
• Where is it mainly found?
• What is its most common contemporary
  manifestation?

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Anomic Suicide

• What is anomie?
• What does Coser mean when he says Anomie does
  not refer to a state of mind, but to a property
  of the social structure?
• Where did Durkheim see anomie as chronic? Why?
• Predictions economic depression or economic
  boom? Poor people or rich?

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What does Durkheims theory of suicide tell us
about how he conceived the relationship between
society and the individual? (The excerpted Lewis
Coser piece is useful for thinking about this
subject)
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• Man..became fully human only in and through
  society. (Coser)
• Durkheim argues in effect that that the
  relationship of suicide rates to social
  regulation and social integration is
  curvilinear. (Coser)
• Throughout his life he attempted to establish a
  balance between societal and individual claims.
  (Coser)
• Which set of claims did he feel was not given its
  due in his day?

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How would Durkheims theory explain.

• Why male suicide rate is twice the female
  suicide rate
• what time of day suicides occur
• Why the suicide rate rises for six months and
  then declines for six months

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Practical Implications
The need for new forms of social integration not
the family not the church not the state Durkheim
looked to occupational communities
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In a globalizing world, the issues of social
integration and moral regulation are more central
than everboth at national and at global levels