The text of 

Suicide offered an examination of how suicide rates at the time

differed across religions. Specifically, Durkheim analyzed differences between
Protestants and Catholics. He found a lower rate of suicide among Catholics and
theorized that this was due to stronger forms of social control and cohesion
among them than among Protestants.

Additionally, Durkheim found that suicide was less common among women than
men, more common among single people than among those who are romantically
partnered, and less common among those who have children.

Further, he found that soldiers commit suicide more often than civilians and that
curiously, rates of suicide are higher during peacetime than they are during wars.

Based on his gleanings from the data, Durkheim argued that suicide can be a
result not only of psychological or emotional factors but of social factors as well.
Durkheim reasoned that social integration, in particular, is a factor.

The more socially integrated a person is—that is, the more he or she is connected
to society, possessing a feeling of general belonging and a sense that life makes
sense within the social context—the less likely he or she is to commit suicide. As
social integration decreases, people are more likely to commit suicide.

 Altruistic suicide is often a result of excessive regulation of individuals

by social forces such that a person may be moved to kill themselves for the
benefit of a cause or for society at large. An example is someone who
commits suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause, such as the
infamous Japanese Kamikaze pilots of World War II, or the hijackers that
crashed the airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a
field in Pennsylvania in 2001. In such social circumstances, people are so
strongly integrated into social expectations and society itself that they will
kill themselves in an effort to achieve collective goals.
 Egoistic suicide is a profound response executed by people who feel
totally detached from society. Ordinarily, people are integrated into society
by work roles, ties to family and community, and other social bonds. When
these bonds are weakened through retirement or loss of family and friends,
the likelihood of egoistic suicide increases. Elderly people, who suffer these
losses most profoundly, are highly susceptible to egoistic suicide.
 Fatalistic suicide occurs under conditions of extreme social regulation
resulting in oppressive conditions and a denial of the self and of agency. In
such a situation a person may elect to die rather than continue enduring
the oppressive conditions, such as the case of suicide among prisoners.
Sociological imagination

To put it simply, sociological imagination is an ability to connect personal challenges to

larger social issues. However, a simple definition is not enough to explain a modestly
complex idea like sociological imagination. What kind of personal challenges or social
issues? How do they connect? 

Exploring a brief summary of sociological imagination can help introduce the concept in
a more meaningful way; it can also be an important step towards understanding how
sociological imagination is useful to the personal and professional lives of those who
develop this particular skill.

The father of sociological imagination, C Wright Mills, founded this field of thinking in
the mid-20th century. At the time he wrote, “Neither the life of an individual nor the
history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” Just the same, it’s
also important to put Mills’ theories into context. 

Mills’ contemporaries in sociology tended to focus on understanding systems rather

than exploring individual issues. (For example, structural functionalism.) But Mills
argued that thinking of society as just a series of systems was not quite accurate. And
equally important, it ignored the role of the individual within those systems.

He believed that looking at a balance between systems and the individuals within them
was essential to understanding their collective relationship, as well as the social
structures that arise out of conflict between various groups. This perspective also helps
enable sociologists to do more than observe, but to expose social injustice, and act and
change the world.

And that’s important because without sociological imagination, all of our common sense
ideas are drawn from our limited social experiences. Sociological imagination is a
framework for viewing the social world that exceeds those limitations; an ability to
develop understanding how biography is the consequence of historical processes, and
unfolds within a bigger context in society. As such, sociological imagination requires us
to separate ourselves from the familiar reality of our personal circumstances, and view
social issues from a broader context.