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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Describe various characteristics of a ‘social fact’. How is rate of suicide a social fact according to Durkheim?

  • UPSC 2024
  • Sociological Thinkers

Émile Durkheim defined sociology as the science of social facts: "every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint", general throughout a society and existing in its own right (The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895). Suicide (1897) applied this idea to the most private of acts.

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What the full answer covers

  • Characteristics of a social fact
  • Why the suicide rate is a social fact
  • Limits
  • Conclusion

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