Sociology Theory: The Rules Of Sociological Methods

Shayon Hewitt
Durkheim Paper
Sociology Theory
Lehman College

Emile Durkeim made many constributions to sociology. He insisted that sociology must study the causes and fuctions of social facts. After reading “The rules of Sociological Methods” his constributions and idology became translucent. In the first half of this paper I will be attempting to properly define social facts, give examples of social facts and explain what does not cause social facts. In the other half I will be using an article entitled “Age at First Birth, Parity, and Post-Reproductive Mortality among White and Black Women in the US, 1982–2002”, that supports report research by Naomi Spence, a professor at Lehman college and Issac W Eberstein to demonstrate Durkeim’s rules.

Durkheim believed that social facts were things “sui generis”. They are “the effect or creation of human activities, actions or agency but they are not intended; they are not the product of conscious intentions - they are the unanticipated consequence of human behavior/agency.” Social facts are extrenal not internal because they are things that are outside of us, not inside the human body. It is the way we act and think. Therefore, social facts are not tangebale items or located in our DNA.
Social facts have the ability to change our beliefs and consciousness. Some examples of modern day social facts would be laws, beliefs, and status. According to Durkheim “we can identify social facts by establishing whether or not they are sanctioned. If the context within which individuals act takes notice of whether or not individuals behave in established ways, following instituional injunctions, and rewards or punishes according to whether or not individuals are compliant, then we can be sure that we have identified a social

Then used several tables to show their finding. The fist table was a table that showed the means or proportions of all study variables by race. The second table showed Log odds coefficients of parity on post-reproductive mortality, controlling for different stages of the life course for white women. The third table was Log odds coefficients of parity on post-reproductive mortality, controlling for different stages of the life course for black women. The fourth table was a table that represented the age specific probability of death by timing of first birth for black mothers. The fifth table was a table that represented the age specific probability of death by timing of first birth for white mothers. The sixth table was a log odds coefficients of reproductive patterns on post-reproductive mortality by race, controlling for different stages of the life course for white mothers. While the last table was a log odds coefficients of reproductive patterns on post-reproductive mortality by race, controlling for different stages of the life course for black