Explore durkheims contribution to sociological theory essay

Research papers Tagged With: To demonstrate that society can be analysed scientifically, he wrote perhaps his best known work, on suicide. The work of Durkheim is now conventionally described as a Functionalist approach to society whereby society is seen as a unity of integrated working parts.

Download Essay Get Full Essay Get access to this section to get all the help you need with your essay and educational goals. To demonstrate that society can be analysed scientifically, he wrote perhaps his best known work, on suicide.

The work of Durkheim is now conventionally described as a Functionalist approach to society whereby society is seen as a unity of integrated working parts.

The functionalist believes that each part of the whole has a part to play in maintaining the continued existence of the whole, or Society. This biological analogy allows a functionalist, such as Durkheim to make explicit their holistic approach to the study of social phenomenon. Two further points are made using this analogy.

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This means that for the functionalist each part of the whole is considered a microcosm of the whole. Society is seen as resting on a consensus of aims and values. According to Durkheim society comes in two forms, internal, and external.

If society does not conform to the internal society, then social isolation, ridicule, and other forms of punishment could occur. Examples of forces that maintain the internal society are the Religion, the Education and Legal systems.

External to society is the actual pressure from the community to conform to the collective, that is ways of thinking, acting, and feelings are external to society. These facts are recognisable through the power that the external persuasion has, which can be exercised over an individual.

In his early works, Durkheim contributed greatly to sociological theory in his definition of social facts. His views later changed, and he stressed that social facts become competent guides and controls of conduct only to the extent that they become internalised by individuals while continuing to exist outside of them Coser Social facts contain several characteristics, one of which is constraint.

This is the ability to condition an individual to conform to society, for example, a person will receive a traffic ticket, if they go over the speed limit. The ticket is the act of constraint, because it is used as a way to force the person to adhere to the law that has been imposed.

A final characteristic included in social facts is externality, which constitutes a reality of sui-generis outside of any individual. A case in point, when a child is born, it is born without any constraints. Among others, cleanliness, obedience, and respect are imposed on the child from the time they are born.

These are social facts that are external to the child. Social phenomena arise, Durkheim argued, when interacting individuals constitute a reality that can no longer be accounted for in terms of the properties of individual actors.

Durkhiem was concerned with the characteristics of groups and structures rather than with individual attributes. He focused on such problems as the cohesion or lack of cohesion of specific religious groups, not on the individual traits of religious believers.

He showed that such group properties are independent of individual traits, and must therefore be studied in their own right. Durkheim is perhaps most renowned for his contribution to sociological theory on suicide. He links the apparently individual act of suicide with the social structures and institutions of wider society.

Thus a collective tendency to suicide was discovered. Of equal importance to his methodology, Durkheim drew theoretical conclusions on the social causes of suicide.

He proposed four types of suicide, based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces, social integration, and moral regulation. Egoisitic suicide he argued resulted from too little social integration.Durkheim’s other important contribution to sociological theory, was his work on social values and alienation, and his Functionalist approach to social phenomena, and the division of labour.

The work of Durkheim is now conventionally described as a Functionalist approach to society whereby society is seen as a unity of integrated working parts.

Explore Durkheim’s contribution to sociological theory Essay Sample. Emile Durkheim was born in France, and is widely regarded as the ‘founding father’ who put sociology on a professional footing in France in particular, and paved the way for this professionalisation to occur across the rest of Europe.

Émile Durkheim Critical Essays. His most influential contribution to social theory is his concept of the social fact, which he defines as "ways of . Explore Durkheim's contribution to sociological theory. Emile Durkheim was born in France, and is widely regarded as the 'founding father' who put sociology on a professional footing in France in particular, and paved the way for this professionalisation to occur across the rest of Europe/5(4).

Explore Durkheim’s contribution to sociological theory Essay Sample. Emile Durkheim was born in France, and is widely regarded as the ‘founding father’ who put sociology on a professional footing in France in particular, and paved the way for this professionalisation to occur across the rest of Europe.

Explore Durkheim's contribution to sociological theory Emile Durkheim was born in France, and is widely regarded as the 'founding father' who put sociology on a professional footing in France in particular, and paved the way for this professionalisation to occur across the rest of Europe.