Know how Durkheim applied the sociological imagination in his research on suicide.
Durkheim developed a highly original theory about the relationship between suicide and social factors. He was not concerned with the personalities of individual suicide victims, but rather with suicide rates and how they varied from country to country. Durkheim went much deeper into his study on suicide and he refused to accept unproved explanations regarding suicide, including the beliefs that inherited tendencies or cosmic forces caused such deaths. Instead, Durkheim focused on social factors, such as the cohesiveness or lack of cohesiveness of religious, social, and occupational groups. Durkheim concluded that the suicide rates of society reflected the extent to which people were and were not integrated into the group life of the society.