Durkheim 's Study On Suicide During The Industrial Revolution

Suicide is complex and has many varied risked factors. Attempts are most common between the ages of 16-18 [2]. Females are more likely to attempt and contemplate suicide, but males are more likely to complete suicide attempts [2]. Native Americans suffer from the highest rates of suicide [2]. Besides the secular characteristics of suicide, there are some

Among American civilians, whites have historically and significantly led the way in the rates of suicides. Although leveling off after the 1990’s, the rate of white suicides has still been almost twice as much as minority groups. It has also been shown that males commit suicide significantly more than females.

The importance of social factors over the individual can also be seen in Durkheim’s work on suicide (Stones, 2008). Suicide was explained in terms of two independent variables, integration in society and regulation by society. Low levels of integration led to egoistic suicide, while low levels of regulation led to anomic suicide. Durkheim cited egoism and anomie as the main causes of suicide in the modern world; a world which he believed showed less interaction and people thinking more about themselves than others. As a result, people are less bound to one another, there is less community and social control is weaker (Stones, 2008). Durkheim applied his

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks)

Suicide was seen as a just way to die if one was faced with unendurable suffering - be it physical or emotional”. Throughout time, suicide has been viewed and dealt with in countless ways. Recently in America, the problem has grown increasingly. In the past decade, suicide rates have been on the incline; especially among men. According to the New York Times (2013), “From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent… The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000”. A 30 percent increase with an average of 19 more male suicides than female suicides is certainly an issue for both genders, and an epidemic for men. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (n.d.), found that in 2010, 38,364 suicides were reported, with 78.9% being men. The economic recession, unemployment, and various other factors are speculated to be responsible for this incline in male suicide. As of 2010, an estimated 30,308 men ended their own lives, and it seems as if there is a great risk of that number increasing each year.

Over the past decade suicide rates have been either stagnant or have been decreasing over all of the demographics of people. One demographic of people's suicide rate, on the other hand, has risen at a substantial rate. Scientists and researchers have just started studying this trend and have yet to draw one specific reason on why middle aged white males suicide rates are climbing. The suicide rate for this demographic of people has just surpassed the deaths by automobile accidents. This recent epidemic has got many researchers and scientists asking the question of “why?”.

Among NA/AN adults, this rate is 75% higher than that of the general population. Suicide is not isolated to NA/AN adults – among NA/AN youth, the rates of death due to suicide are double the general population, and NA/AN teens experience the highest rate of suicide of any population group in America. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among NA/ANs aged 15 to 24. On a standardized survey, fifteen percent of students in schools located on Native American reservations in 2010 reported having attempted suicide in the prior year. Among youth, the most common reasons for attempting suicide were feelings of hopelessness or despair, bleak future prospects, domestic trouble, and bullying. There is concern among some mental health professionals that suicide is having a contagion-like effect in some communities and schools – feeling neglected, youth can be attracted to the displays of mourning that follow a death; and once they hear about the method of suicide, they imitate it. Sadly, in some communities, suicide attempts have become commonplace and a normal part of daily

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “90 percent of the 30,000 people who die annually by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness and/or substance abuse disorder” (2010). Like many young and adult Native Americans, they go through extreme poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, hunger, alcoholism, and domestic violence. In addition, peer pressure and every type of bullying imaginable drowns them with negativity and excess trauma. The way that they cope with all the stress is by simply shutting everything down, not facing it, and eventually ending their lives the easy way. According to Time Magazine, “Suffocation was the most common method used for this group” (2015). Youth suicide rates vary from tribe to tribe and may consist of higher percentages than

From the many theorists that we have read so far where they argued on the way that people think, shapes important features of the social world. That includes both theorists Durkheim and Weber who argue something along those lines; both theorists focus on the moral binding dimensions of ways of thinking. Durkheim sees that arguments revolve around shared representations. By contrast, Weber sees arguments being revolved around a certain idea of Protestantism. Durkheim and Weber use notions of broadly moral ways of thinking in social explanation.

Durkheim does not see egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism as types of suicide, but types of social structure that highlight the presence or lack of integration and regulation. It must be stressed that this excess/lack of integration and regulation are not seen as direct causes of suicide, rather Durkheim sees a number of voluntary deaths in society as inevitable; integration and regulation are merely prophylactic to suicidal impulses, which when taken to excess or dramatically reduced, fail to act as a preventative, and so suicides occur. This clarification is an important strength of Durkheim’s theory: it allows the biography of the individuals who kill themselves to vary, while still explaining underlying pressures/lack of to explain their deaths, and the varying suicide rates between groups.

Durkheim did not feel satisfied with individualized explanations for suicide such as alcoholism or depression. He felt there needed to be a stronger explanation and sought to explain how suicide was truly brought about through social forces. He constructed a coordinate system that contained social integration (how well you are connected with society) on the y-axis, and social regulation (what you expect daily from the world) on the x-axis. You need to maintain a position somewhere near the middle of the two to have a low risk for suicide. This graph led him to four different types of suicide. Egoistic suicide occurs when an individual is not very connected to society. Altruistic suicide is the opposite, where an individual is too integrated.

The pattern which can be identified when looking at the differences in health and illness when comparing mortality rates and geographical location, in that those from London are less likely to commit suicide as a result of a mental health issue than those from then North East of England. Statistics have shown that individuals from the North East had a suicide rate of 13.8 deaths per 100,000, although individuals from London had a suicide rate of 7.9 per 100,000 of the population. This is because individuals from the North East are more likely to suffer from mental health issues such as depression, due to their lifestyle or rates of unemployment. The key perspective which would be used in order to explain the differences in health would be Marxism.

While discovering theories and research by sociologist Emile Durkheim, I was able to see a clear connection to how these theories could be applied to the amount of suicides to those of first nation decent. Considering citizens from first nations groups have been estimated to be eleven times more likely to commit suicide, there are underlying factors of why this may be. Durkheim’s theory states that suicide is a sociological issue and as we have seen there are many ways society could affect ones emotional state.

Suicide, to Durkheim, is “an exaggerated form of ordinary practices,” and they arise from “comparable states of mind” in people, with the only difference between daily and suicidal behavior being the “chance of death” (Durkheim 20-21). Durkheim spends the majority of the work dissecting the “apparent motives” for suicide (Durkheim 151) and observing the varieties of suicide, a feat made difficult by the inaccurate reporting and misunderstandings of investigators. Thus, to understand the types of suicide, we must “reverse the order of our research” for “There can only be as many different types of suicide as there are differences in the causes from which they derive,” (Durkheim 149). He says “if they were all found to have the same essential characteristics, they would be grouped in one class” but “observations that we would need to have are more or less impossible obtain” (Durkheim

Millennials now a days, has a high rate in experiencing depression and sometimes they think the only way to escape is killing their self. According to the study, suicide is the second leading cause of death in young people. A major cause of suicide is mental illness, very commonly depression. People who has suicidal feeling are overwhelmed by painful emotions and see suicide as only way out. They think suicide is the only solution to solve their problems.