Durkheim, Émile

Durkheim, Émile (1858-1917), French social theorist, who was one of the creators of modern sociology.

Durkheim was born at Épinal, in the Lorraine region of France. He decided against following the family tradition of becoming a rabbi and saw his vocation as developing sociology. He defined sociology as “the science of institutions, their genesis and functioning”. He understood by the concept “institution” a set of beliefs and practices that had become normative (obligatory) and that were focused on a recurrent or continuous social concern—for example, the institutions of the family, education, religion, or the law. After graduating from the elite École Normale Supérieure (Paris) in 1882, he had a brief spell teaching philosophy in secondary schools. In 1887 he was appointed to teach social sciences and pedagogy at the University of Bordeaux, where he introduced the first course in sociology in France. At the age of 35 he took his doctor’s degree at the University of Paris, with a dissertation on the division of labour in society. In 1902 he became professor at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). He founded one of the first sociology journals in the world, L’Année sociologique, in 1898.

Durkheim’s contributions to sociology mirror the problems, issues, and disputes of his time, but they also have a lasting significance. Questions about social development, the scientific status of sociology, methods of social research, the need for precise research rather than sweeping generalizations, the relation of values to sociology, social aspects of economic life and of law, social control and solidarity, primitive and civilized mentalities, social characteristics of cognition and knowledge, group psychology, professional ethics, democracy and the state, problems of education—these were all topics to which he made an enduring contribution.

His most famous works are: The Division of Labour in Society (1893; trans. 1933), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895; trans. 1938), Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897; trans. 1951), and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912; trans. 1915). According to his rules of sociological method, sociology studies “social facts” that are distinguished by being external to the individual and exercising constraint over individual behaviour. In The Division of Labour in Society, he argues that societies have evolved from a simple form, in which there was mechanical solidarity based on low specialization of roles and functions, to complex societies with organic solidarity deriving from the interdependence of specialized roles. His study of suicide explained differences in rates of suicide for different countries, regions, and groups in terms of the degree of social and moral integration they possessed. Too low a degree of integration might be due to a lack of shared norms (“anomie”), or too much individualism and a lack of integration into social relationships (“egoism”). In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he used examples from totemic religions among Australian and American Aborigines to show how the most fundamental “collective representations” (concepts, symbols, and beliefs) reflect past and present social organization. Certain “sacred” collective representations, such as the totem, serve the function of giving members of society a common identity and excite allegiance.

Some of his other works, published posthumously, are: Education and Sociology (1922; trans. 1956); Sociology and Philosophy (1924); Moral Education (1925; trans. 1961); Socialism (1928); The Evolution of Educational Thought (1938); Leçons de sociologie, physique des moeurs et du droit (1950; trans. Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, 1957); Pragmatism and Sociology (1955; trans. 1983).