Durkheim

Question 1

altruistic suicide

Answer 1

results from tightly regulated social conditions in which the loss of close comrades, or an individual’s loss of honor in the community, makes suicide obligatory.

Question 2

anomic suicide

Answer 2

results when society experiences a major disruption that uproots the established norms.

Question 3

collective conscience

Answer 3

a society’s collectively shared beliefs and sentiments; has authority over social conduct.

Question 4

collective representation

Answer 4

the symbols and categories a society uses to denote its commonly shared, collective beliefs, values, interpretations, and meanings.

Question 5

contract

Answer 5

society’s legal regulation of the obligations it expects of individuals in their relations with one another; its regulatory force comes from society.

Question 6

division of labor

Answer 6

the separation of occupational sectors and workers into specialized spheres of activity; produces, for durkheim, social interdependence.

Question 7

egoistic suicide

Answer 7

results from modern societal conditions in which individuals are excessively self-oriented and insufficiently integrated into social groups/society.

Question 8

functionalism

Answer 8

term used (often interchangeably with “structural functionalism”) to refer to the theorizing of durkheim (and successor sociologists, e.g., Parsons) because of a focus on how social structures determine and are effective in, or functional to, maintaining social cohe- sion/ the social order.

Question 9

interdependence

Answer 9

ties among individuals; for durkheim, the individualism required by the specialized division of labor creates functional and social interdependence.

Question 10

mechanical solidarity

Answer 10

social bonds and cohesion resulting from the overlapping social ties that characterize traditional societies/communities.

Question 11

moral community

Answer 11

any group or collectivity unified by common beliefs and practices and a shared solidarity.

Question 12

sui generis reality

Answer 12

the idea that society has its own nature or reality – its own collective characteristics or properties, which emerge and exist as a constraining force independent of the characteristics of the individuals in society.

Question 13

moral density

Answer 13

he density of social interaction associated with encountering and interacting with a multiplicity of diverse others in modern society.

Question 14

moral individualism

Answer 14

individuals (as social beings) inter- acting with others for purposes other than simply serving their own selfish or material interests.

Question 15

organic solidarity

Answer 15

social ties and cohesion produced by the functional and social interdependence of individuals and groups in modern society.

Question 16

social facts

Answer 16

external and collective social forces (structures, practices, norms, beliefs) regulating and constraining the ways of acting, thinking, and feeling in society.

Question 17

social integration

Answer 17

degree to which individuals and groups are attached to society. Individuals are interlinked and con- strained by their ties to others.

Question 18

social solidarity

Answer 18

social cohesion resulting from shared social ties/bonds/interdependence.

Question 19

sociology of knowledge

Answer 19

demonstrates how the organization and content of knowledge is a social activity contingent on the particular socio-historical circumstances in which itis produced.