DURKHEIM

Durkheim and Education

Durkheim and Education

Introduction

David Emile Durkheim was born on 15th April, 1858. He led an entirely secular life and was the first professor of sociology in France. Apart from being a French sociologist he is as the father of sociology, and regarded as the chief architect of contemporary social science. Throughout his life he wrote many sociologist studies on different subjects such as suicide, religion and a number of societal aspects; also, he gave a number of lectures. According to Durkheim the society's notion of an exemplary man influence the focus of education. Education perceived by Durkheim as an instrument for youth's socialization. He was of the opinion that there are two types of beings social being and individual beings, and in molding the social being type a key role performed by education. This comprised of traditions, norms, religious beliefs, norms and cultural beliefs.

In 1893, Durkheim's first work “The Division of Labor in Society” published in which he explained how social order preserved in societies which comprised of two entirely different form of solidarity that were organic and mechanical. In 1895, he published his “Rules of the Sociological Method”, and established the fist department of sociology in Europe at the Bordeaux University. Promoting hypothetico-deductive model and epistemological realism Auguste Comte's positivism refined by Durkheim.

Durkheim has three goals throughout his career first of which was to ascertain sociology as a new discipline in academic. Secondly, to evaluate how societies could retain their coherence and integrity in the contemporary era. Finally, he seemed to be concerned with scientific knowledge's practical applications.

Additionally, Emile seen as a pivotal supporter of structural functionalism and gave a structural perspective in both anthropology and sociology. He considered sociology to be a science of institutions whose aim was to discover social facts that were structural in nature, and sociology to be purely holistic. Until his death in 1917 Emile Durkheim seen as a dominant force in the French intellectual life (Strenski, 2010).

Discussion

Durkheim's observation- Demand for a new approach to education

As the society builds the systems, therefore, Durkheim was of the view that the underlying changes in society reflected by the systems of education prevailing in the society, which reproduces society's values, norms and beliefs that collectively held through the institutions in the society. If the systems of education were not the mirrors of the society, then the changes in the society would not be possible.

Durkheim's perspective was that the problems and challenges of the day had only one answer that was education; also he seemed to be concerned of the radical individualism which was transforming through special labor and industrialization. According to him the shared experience and social cohesion that were lacking in a mechanized and fragmented world would be offered by the schools. The task of responding to unexpected conditions of the modernity through education taken up by the contemporary theorist Emile Durkheim. As a favorable outcome of the modern age, the individual freedom and rights persuaded Durkheim.

Comparing social and educational institutions Durkheim concludes that there is ...