Durkheim
2/3
Functionalism in sociology
The culture of poverty
Durkheim’s Suicide
What is due in the 1st Draft ?
Due 2/17 (contract: 2/10)

Workbook containing :
• 3 greats; 3 work sheets; Exercise #1
and some substantive research

A Draft consisting of :
• Abstract; Introduction; Review of
Literature; (Bibliography)
• Follow the format in the web-page on
the paper, and use the style of the
sociology journals.
Workbook





1. Three entries applying insights of Marx,
Durkheim and Weber to your topic.
2. The three discussion work sheets cover
some of the same ground.
3. Your Annual Review of Sociology article
may not be your main review article.
4. Your paper must refer to a contemporary
article, written since 2000, but this might
be different from either your Exercise #1 or
your main review article.
5. Your substantive research is connected
to the review of the literature.
Draft #1



Abstract: 200 – 300 words anticipating the main
line of your argument.
Introduction: 1-3 pp. stating the main issue.
Review of the Literature: a description,
discussion, and analysis of a stream of theory.
• At least one article should be current (post-2000).
• Your Annual Review article must be cited, but it does not
necessarily play a central role.
• The same goes for the literature cited by your journal of
record article.

Bibliography: Use standard form to list all works
you will be referring to in the paper.
Origins: the Chicago school




1.
2.
U.S. sociology began (1895-1940) from the
discovery that different neighborhoods had
different rates of social problems.
For example: rates of homicide, suicide, divorce,
illegitimacy, crime, academic failure, alcoholism,
juvenile delinquency.
They concluded that the differences were rooted
in the social structure; even when the people or
groups in the neighborhood were replaced by
others, the rates remained high (or low.)
There were 2 main explanations for these rates:
Class (Marx: poverty)
Norms (Durkheim: anomie)
Binocular vision





2 viewpoints allows 3D vision
There are functional and conflict theorists
working in virtually every subfield on
every topic in sociology.
Durkheim and Marx are the founding
theorists of these perspectives.
For many purposes, Weber is best viewed
as a combination of Durkheim and Marx.
Thus Durkheim and Marx are the 2 main
viewpoints to be clarified.
The Culture of Poverty


The “culture of poverty” and the
relation of culture to social structure is
a royal road into sociological theory
Poor neighborhoods often have broken
families and deviant culture.
• Is it that brutal conditions are brutalizing?
• Or that the culture produces the poverty?
+
Poverty
+
Culture of
Poverty
Durkheim and Marx



Durkheim was writing in the
generation after Marx and in reaction
to him.
Many of his ideas are those of
conservatives, particularly on the
issues of gender roles.
But Durkheim was not an ordinary
conservative, any more than Marx
was an ordinary liberal.
Both?




The two causal influences are not mutually
exclusive.
Nevertheless, important implications
follow from the question which is most
important most of the time.
They have been the focus of much theory
and research debate.
One importance of Durkheim’s theory was
to provide a way of conceptualizing the
breakdown of families and moral
regulation
The Culture of Poverty Today

W.J.Wilson is one of the most
important conflict theorists today.
• The Truly Disadvantaged (1987)
• When Work Disappears (1996)


His main argument is that job-flight
produces culture of poverty as an
adaptation: poverty culture of pov.
But he also argues that the culture is
self-maintaining: c. of pov poverty.
Simple (simplistic) differences
between Marx and Durkheim






Marx
Who gets what and
why?
Class and class
struggle.
Opposed interests
of different groups.
Measures of social
class, such as
income
Class class culture






Durkheim
What holds society
together?
Solidarity, norms
and integration.
Functional needs of
the society
Measures of family
and religious ties.
Culture
class
The liberal and the conservative
Durkheims
• The more liberal or radical Durkheim is evident
from :




His role in the Dreyfus Affaire
His analysis of The Division of Labor
Especially the “forced division of labor”
And his relations to Kant and to Marx in the Prefaces
• We will look as such issues on Wednesday
• The conservative Durkheim is an analyst of the
importance of family and religious solidarity
and of the effectiveness of a conventional,
small town moral system.
Durkheim’s most important
empirical study: Suicide




The prediction and explanation of
suicide.
Seeing the forest for the trees: rates
are social facts .
Suicide rates are social facts.
Durkheim argued that social facts
must be explained by other social
facts.
The concept of egoistic suicide





Some groups have consistently higher
rates.
Basic idea of egoistic suicide: lack of social
integration.
Eg. Men, singles, Protestants, peace time.
The concept of egoistic suicide is similar to
individualism, and Durkheim’s analysis
highlighted the importance of bonds to
solidary groups.
Similar to the Social Control theories of
juvenile delinquency and crime.
The concept of altruistic suicide




High rates in the military, Japan, India and
preliterate societies.
Basic idea: excess of social integration.
Sometimes the presence of solidarity and
solidary groups, rather than their absence
is viewed as the problem.
Possible extension to other areas.
• Bonds to the military
• Al Quaeda as a social bond
Anomie





Durkheim’s most important contribution to
sociology was the analysis of norms and
normative integration.
Talcott Parsons made that analysis the
basis of “structural-functionalism”.
Some groups that were neither too
bonded not to individualist had high
suicide rates because they had weak
norms.
The weakening of norms is called anomie.
Merton made the analysis of “structural
strain” leading to anomie the basis of
many theories of crime and delinquency.
The concept of anomic suicide



There are high suicide rates during periods
of prosperity, among the educated, among
professionals, in urban areas, among
those mobile geographically or socially.
Durkheim argued that these groups lack
normative (moral) regulation.
The weakening of normative systems is
called anomie, and it is one of the
fundamental concepts of functional
sociology.
The concept of fatalistic suicide

Fatalistic suicide is defined as suicide
resulting from an excess of normative
integration.
• Durkheim argued that it is rare in modern
society
• But there may well be contemporary
examples.

Intense moral commitment often leads to
group suicides.
• Massada, Thermopolae, Jonestown, Islamic
Jihad, Al Quaeda.
• E.g. religious conflicts often generate people
willing to die for their beliefs.
Implications of Durkheim’s analysis:

1.
2.
3.
Durkheim’s analysis of suicide had
several different kinds of
implications:
Methodological: “social facts”
Substantive: social and normative
integration.
Political-normative: the balance of
self and society
Methodological: “social facts”



One of the primary implications of
his analysis was complementary to
the Chicago school’s observation that
different neighborhoods had different
rates of social problems:
Durkheim argued that social facts
need to be explained by other social
facts.
The distinct rates in different social
positions or social structures cannot
be explained by psychology.
Social and Normative integration.




Many people prior to Durkheim had
stressed the importance of moral
values or of family and religious ties.
Durkheim showed how to get at
them rigorously and quantitatively;
their interconnection;
and their social structural roots that
are as real as a rock.
The balance of self and society




Durkheim believed that solidary groups
and social norms are what make humans
human.
But he believed that both group bonds and
normative ideals could be excessive as
well as inadequate.
He welcomed modern society and
individual freedom.
His central problem was the reconciliation
of freedom and diversity with norms