Durkheim was interested in suicide primarily because he wanted to b) show that what was thought to be a personal act was patterned by social forces.
A lot of social factors may be the cause of a person’s decision to perform suicide. For example, a person that is a victim of bullying may decide to end his/her life because of sheer depression.
Answer:
b. to show that what was thought to be a personal act was patterned by social forces.
Explanation:
Emilie Durkheim chooses s.u.i.c.i.d.e as a social phenomenon and a concern of his time, since he sought to answer what conditions were there for a person to commit s.u.i.c.i.d.e:
The s.u.i.c.i.d.e rates he gathered would let him set Sociology as a trendy and yet scientific discipline.
Since the explanations of his time focused mostly on subjective observations on individuals from different contexts. s.u.i.c.i.d.e was explained more on the individual reasons rather than the structure in which they occurred.
Rather than explaining this act as a consequence of depression, Durkheim pinpointed the social factors, collecting statistics to show how certain groups were more likely to commit s.u.i.c.i.d.e
He found social traits like being Protestant and Caucasian, or being wealthy and unmarried had higher chances of solving to s.u.i.c.i.d.e
He then established Sociological approaches to identify s.u.i.c.i.d.e as a public or public health issue , that still makes governments get more concern today.
