{{Infobox Scientist
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|name              = Émile Durkheim 
|image             = Emile_Durkheim.jpg   
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|caption           = Émile Durkheim
|birth_date        = 
|birth_place       = Épinal, France
|death_date        = 
|death_place       = Paris, France
|residence         = 
|citizenship       = 
|nationality       = French
|ethnicity         = 
|fields            = Sociologists
|workplaces        = 
|alma_mater        = École Normale Supérieure
|doctoral_advisor  = 
|academic_advisors = Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
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|notable_students  = 
|known_for         = 
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|influences        = 
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|religion          =
|signature         =  
|footnotes         = 
}}
'''Émile Durkheim''' (; French social science. During his lifetime, Durkheim gave many lectures, and published numerous sociological studies on subjects such as education, crime, religion, suicide, and many other aspects of society. He is considered as one of the  founding fathers of sociology and an early proponent of solidarism.

==Biography==
===Early years===
Émile Durkheim was born in the eastern French province of Lorraine on April 15, 1858. He came from a long line of devout French Jews; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been rabbis. At an early age, he decided not to follow in his family's rabbinical footsteps. Durkheim himself would lead a completely secular life. Much of his work, in fact, was dedicated to demonstrating that religious phenomena stemmed from social rather than divine factors. While Durkheim chose not to follow in the family tradition, he did not sever ties with his family or with the Jewish community. Many of his most prominent collaborators and students were Jewish, and some were blood relations.

A precocious student, Durkheim entered the Montesquieu.<ref></ref>  At the same time, he read humanistic studies uninteresting, and he finished second to last in his graduating class when he aggregated in philosophy in 1882.

===Middle years===
There was no way that a man of Durkheim's views could receive a major academic appointment in Paris, and so after spending a year studying sociology in Germany he traveled to Bordeaux in 1887, which had just started France's first teacher's training center. There he taught both pedagogy and social science (a novel position in France). From this position Durkheim reformed the French school system and introduced the study of social science in its curriculum. However, his controversial beliefs that religion and morality could be explained in terms purely of social interaction earned him many critics.

The 1890s were a period of remarkable creative output for Durkheim. In 1893 he published ''its development. Durkheim's interest in social phenomena was spurred on by politics. France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War had created a backlash against secular, republican rule and many considered a vigorously nationalistic approach to rejuvenate France's fading power. Durkheim, a Jew with a sympathy towards socialism, was thus in the political minority, a situation which galvanized him politically. The Dreyfus affair of 1894 only strengthened his activist stance.

In 1895 he published ''L'Année Sociologique'' in order to publish and publicize the work of what was by then a growing number of students and collaborators (this is also the name used to refer to the group of students who developed his sociological program). And finally, in 1897, he published ''Suicide'', a case study which provided an example of what the sociological monograph might look like. Durkheim was one of the founders in using quantitative methods in criminology during his suicide case study.

===Later years===
In 1902 Durkheim finally achieved his goal of attaining a prominent position in Paris when he became the chair of education at the Sorbonne. Because French universities are technically institutions for training secondary school teachers, this position gave Durkheim considerable influence - his lectures were the only ones that were mandatory for the entire student body. Despite what some considered, in the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair, to be a political appointment, Durkheim consolidated his institutional power by 1912 when he was permanently assigned the chair and renamed it the chair of education and sociology. It was also in this year that he published his last major work, ''Elementary Forms of the Religious Life''.

World War I was to have a tragic effect on Durkheim's life. Durkheim's leftism was always patriotic rather than internationalist &mdash; he sought a secular, rational form of French life. But the coming of the war and the inevitable nationalist propaganda that followed made it difficult to sustain this already nuanced position. While Durkheim actively worked to support his country in the war, his reluctance to give in to simplistic nationalist fervor (combined with his Jewish background) made him a natural target of the now-ascendant French right. Even more seriously, the generation of students that Durkheim had trained were now being drafted to serve in the army, and many of them perished as France was bled white in the trenches. Finally, Durkheim's own son died in the war &mdash; a mental blow from which Durkheim never recovered. Emotionally devastated and overworked, Durkheim collapsed of a stroke in Paris in 1917. He recovered over several months and resumed work on ''La Morale''.

Durkheim died from exhaustion on November 15, 1917, at the age of 59. He lies buried at the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

==Theories and ideas==
===Social facts===

Durkheim was concerned primarily with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. In order to study social life in modern societies, Durkheim sought to create one of the first functionalism. Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts. Thus unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, he focused not on what motivates the actions of individuals (methodological individualism), but rather on the study of ''social facts'', a term which he coined to describe phenomena which have an existence in and of themselves and are not bound to the actions of individuals. He argued that social facts had an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that composed society and could only be explained by other social facts rather than, say, by society's adaptation to a particular climate or ecological niche.

===Division of labour===

In his 1893 work The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim examined how social order was maintained in different types of societies. He focused on the division of labor, and examined how it differed in traditional societies and modern societies. Authors before him such as Herbert Spencer or Otto von Gierke had argued that societies evolved much like living organisms, moving from a simple state to a more complex one resembling the workings of complex machines. Durkheim reversed this formula, adding his theory to the growing pool of theories of social progress, social evolutionism and social Darwinism. He argued that traditional societies were 'mechanical' and were held together by the fact that everyone was more or less the same, and hence had things in common.</br> 

In modern societies, he argued, the highly complex division of labor resulted in 'organic' solidarity. Different specializations in employment and social roles created dependencies that tied people to one another, since people no longer could count on filling all of their needs by themselves. In 'mechanical' societies, for example, subsistence farmers live in communities which are self-sufficient and knit together by a common heritage and common job. In modern 'organic' societies, workers earn money, and must rely on other people who specialize in certain products, such as groceries, clothing, to meet their needs. </br>

Durkheim also made an association of the kind of solidarity in a given society and the preponderance of a law system. He found that in societies with mechanical solidarity the law is generally repressive: the agent of a crime or deviant behavior would suffer a punishment, which in fact would compensate collective conscience neglected by the crime; the punishment acts more to preserve the unity of consciences. On the other hand, in societies with organic solidarity the law is generally restitutive: it aims not to punish, but instead to restitute normal activity of a complex society.
The rapid change in society due to increasing division of labor thus produces a state of confusion with regard to norms and increasing impersonality in social life, leading eventually to relative normlessness, i.e. the breakdown of social norms regulating behavior; Durkheim labels this state anomie. From a state of anomie come all forms of deviant behavior, most notably suicide.</br>

Durkheim developed the concept of anomie later in Suicide, published in 1897. In it, he explores the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, explaining that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. According to Durkheim, people have a certain level of attachment to their groups, which he calls social integration. Abnormally high or low levels of social integration may result in increased suicide rates; low levels have this effect because low social integration results in disorganized society, alienation and loneliness in the individual, causing people to turn to suicide as a last resort, while high levels cause people to kill themselves to avoid becoming burdens on society, or because the social pressure becomes too great and oppressive. According to Durkheim, Catholic society has normal levels of integration while Protestant society has low levels. This work has influenced proponents of control theory, and is often mentioned as a classic sociological study.<br>

Finally, Durkheim is remembered for his work on 'primitive', all non-Western societies, people in books such as his 1912 volume Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and the essay Primitive Classification that he wrote with Marcel Mauss. These works examine the role that religion and mythology have in shaping the worldview and personality of people in extremely, to use Durkheim's phrase, 'mechanical' societies. In Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Durkheim develops a theory of religion which is based on Collective Effervescence.

==Education==
Durkheim was also interested in education. Partially this was because he was professionally employed to train teachers, and he used his ability to shape curriculum to further his own goals of having sociology taught as widely as possible. More broadly, though, Durkheim was interested in the way that education could be used to provide French citizens the sort of shared, secular background that would be necessary to prevent ''anomie'' in modern societies. It was to this end that he also proposed the formation of professional groups to serve as a source of solidarity for adults.

Durkheim argued that education has many functions:

# To reinforce social solidarity
#* History: Learning about individuals who have done good things for the many makes an individual feel insignificant.
#* 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". It trains young people to fulfill roles.
# To maintain division of labour.
#* School sorts students into skill groups, encouraging students to take up employment in fields best suited to their abilities.

===Crime===

Durkheim's views on crime were a departure from conventional notions. He believed that crime is "bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life" and serves a social function.  He stated that crime implies, "not only that the way remains open to necessary change, but that in certain cases it directly proposes these changes... crime [can thus be] a useful prelude to reforms."  In this sense he saw crime as being able to release certain social tensions and so have a cleansing or purging effect in society. He further stated that "the authority which the moral conscience enjoys must not be excessive; otherwise, no-one would dare to criticize it, and it would too easily congeal into an immutable form. To make progress, individual originality must be able to express itself...[even] the originality of the criminal... shall also be possible" (Durkheim, 1895).

=== Punishment ===
Durkheim was a strong advocate of morality in society. He believed that having good strong morals would prevent individuals from 'disintegrating'. Disintegration would happen if the collective conscience became weak. The collective conscience was a term coined by Durkheim which meant that individuals shared common beliefs and sentiments. Without this consensus or agreement on fundamental moral issues, social solidarity would be impossible and individuals could not be bound together to form an integrated social unit. In order to prevent society from disintegrating Durkheim believed that punishment was necessary. Punishment is 'a passionate reaction of graduated intensity to offences against the collective conscience' <ref>Hart, H.L.A. (1967) Social Solidarity and the Enforcement of Morality</ref>. Unlike conservatives who believed that the harshest possible punishment should be enforced to make men moral and preserve the status quo, Durkheim believed that only the necessary relevant amount of punishment was needed to threaten men to remain moral. Therefore, he believed that punishment was necessary in order to promote social cohesion and bind individuals together.

=== Law ===
Beyond the specific study of crime, criminal law and punishment, Durkheim was deeply interested in the study of law and its social effects in general. Among classical social theorists he is one of the founders of the field of sociology of law. In his early work he saw types of law (characterised by their sanctions) as a direct reflection of types of social solidarity. The study of law was therefore of interest to sociology for what it could reveal about the nature of solidarity. Later, however, he emphasised the significance of law as a sociological field of study in its own right. In the later Durkheimian view, law (both civil and criminal) is an expression and guarantee of society's fundamental values. Durkheim emphasised the way that modern law increasingly expresses a form of moral individualism - a value system that is, in his view, probably the only one universally appropriate to modern conditions of social solidarity.<ref></ref> Individualism, in this sense, is the basis of human rights and of the values of individual human dignity and individual autonomy. It is to be sharply distinguished from selfishness and egoism, which for Durkheim are not moral stances at all. Many of Durkheim's closest followers, such as Marcel Mauss, Georges Davy, Paul Fauconnet, Paul Huvelin, Emmanuel Levy and Henri Levy-Bruhl also specialised in or contributed to the sociological study of law.

=== Suicide ===

thumb|125px|right|Émile Durkheim
'''Émile Durkheim''' (socioloog in Europa worden beschouwd, en heeft zich als wetenschapper vooral bezig gehouden met het probleem van de sociale cohesie, één van de hoofdvragen in de sociologie. 

==Levensloop==
Durkheim werd geboren in Epinal, een dorpje in de Noord-Franse Vogezen.  Als telg van een streng joodse familie, wilde hij oorspronkelijk net als zijn vader godsdienst bleef hem zijn leven lang fascineren. Hij schreef er een studie over (''Les formes élémentaires de la vie réligieuse'', 1912) die door velen als zijn meesterwerk beschouwd wordt. 

Durkheim studeerde filosofie aan de Bordeaux, waar hij sociologie en pedagogiek doceerde. In de periode tussen 1887 en 1902, het jaar waarin hij hoogleraar werd aan de Sorbonne in Parijs, zette hij zich vooral in voor de erkenning van de sociologie als academische discipline. Die erkenning kreeg hij uiteindelijk in 1913, toen hij officieel de eerste professor in de sociologie van Europa werd. Hij was een machtig man, en slaagde er onder meer in een soort Durkheimiaanse sociologie toe te voegen aan het curriculum van de opleiding tot leraar in zijn land. 

Durkheim had een zoon André, die hij het liefst in zijn voetsporen had zien treden. Zo zou het ook gegaan zijn, als de jongen niet was gesneuveld tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Naar verluidt is Durkheim dit verlies nooit echt te boven gekomen. Hij stierf in 1917 ten gevolge van een hartinfarct.

==Methodologie==
Als eerste officieel erkende socioloog in Europa, heeft Durkheim uiteraard een eigen methodologie en programmaverklaring voor de sociologie als wetenschap ontworpen. In zijn in 1895 verschenen ''les règles de la méthode sociologique'', stelt hij dat de sociologie zich bezig moet houden met het sociale als een eigensoortige werkelijkheid (''sui generis'').  Sociale feiten kunnen en mogen niet worden gereduceerd tot verschijnselen van een ander niveau, bijvoorbeeld tot biologische of psychologische fenomenen. Zoals een celbioloog het verschijnsel leven niet zoekt in de afzonderlijke atomen waaruit de cel bestaat, zo moet een socioloog de verklaring voor sociale feiten niet zoeken bij individuele personen. Sociale feiten dienen volgens Durkheim bijgevolg altijd verklaard te worden vanuit andere sociale feiten, en niet vanuit individuele gedragingen. Het dient echter gezegd te worden dat Durkheim zich zelf niet altijd hield aan zijn intentie. De overtuigingskracht van zijn werk zit vaak juist in het feit dat de lezer het verband kan zien tussen het sociale en het individuele.

==Belangrijkste publicaties==

===Sociale cohesie===
Net als andere klassieke sociologen (onder meer Max Weber en Georg Simmel), hield Emile Durkheim zich in de eerste plaats bezig met het fenomeen modernisering. Voor het bestuderen van dit verschijnsel, koos hij het vraagstuk van de sociale cohesie als uitgangspunt. In zijn eerste sociologische publicatie, ''De la division du travail social'' (1893), staat dan ook het begrip ''solidariteit'' centraal.

Durkheim maakte in dit werk onderscheid tussen twee vormen van solidariteit. Enerzijds vermeldt hij de "mechanische solidariteit", zo genoemd omdat ze een min of meer automatisch product is van een grote gelijkheid tussen mensen. In de premoderne samenlevingen, aldus Durkheim, was er weinig sprake van sociale arbeidsdeling. Het ''conscience collective'', ook wel "gemeenschappelijk bewustzijn" was er sterk ontwikkeld, en diende er als basis voor de samenhang van elk samenlevingsverband. 
In de moderne samenlevingen moet de '''mechanische solidariteit''' plaats maken voor een ander type solidariteit, door Durkheim "organische solidariteit" genoemd. Ze is gebaseerd op de afhankelijkheid die er tussen mensen ontstaat wanneer de sociale arbeidsdeling zo ver doorgedreven wordt, dat mensen onderling van elkaar afhankelijk worden voor het vervullen van verschillende taken. Het proces waarbij dat gebeurt noemt men in de sociologie taakdifferentiatie. Dat arbeidsdeling voor meer solidariteit zorgt is echter volgens Durkheim geen automatisme. Immers, wanneer deze te ver doorgedreven wordt, ontstaan er contraproductieve vormen van differentiatie. Dit noemt hij "anomische arbeidsdeling". Verder onderscheidt hij ook nog de "afgedwongen arbeidsdeling", een term die slaat op het bemachtigen van een bepaalde arbeidsplaats op basis van sociale positie, door iemand die daar gezien zijn capaciteiten geen aanspraak op kan maken.

Het besef dat anomische en afgedwongen arbeidsdeling wel degelijk een reëel gevaar betekenden voor de moderne samenleving, heeft ertoe geleid dat Durkheim in zijn latere werk niet meer terugkwam op de tweedeling mechanische vs. organische solidariteit, en in plaats daarvan ging zoeken naar hedendaagse equivalenten voor het collectief bewustzijn.

===Zelfmoord===
Ten tijde van de overgang van de premoderne naar de moderne samenleving, die onder meer gemarkeerd werd door de Franse Revolutie, heerste er in West-Europa zowat overal een angst voor het uiteenvallen van de samenleving. Een goede indicator daarvoor werd gezien in het hoge zelfmoordcijfer. Ook bij Durkheim vinden we daarvan sporen terug. 

In 1897 publiceerde hij ''Le suicide, étude de sociologie''. In dat boek wilde hij laten zien dat iets dat zo buitengewoon persoonlijk lijkt te zijn als het besluit een einde te maken aan het eigen leven, heel goed kan worden gezien vanuit een sociologisch gezichtspunt. Durkheim beschouwt het verschijnsel zelfmoord als een eigenschap van een bepaalde collectiviteit, en wil cijfermateriaal dat hij hoofdzakelijk bij andere onderzoekers heeft gevonden, nu in strikt sociologische zin verklaren (zie ook methodologie). 