collective representations
The ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity and that are not reducible to individual constituents. They are central to Émile Durkheim's search for the sources of social solidarity. ...
Émile Durkheim
(1858–1917)French sociologist and one of the founding fathers of modern sociology.After he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Durkheim taught sociology first at the University of ...
Gemeinschaft
Usually taken in tandem, these German terms generally refer to Ferdinand Tönnies's ‘community’ and ‘society’ couplet, although the latter is sometimes also translated as ‘association’ (see Tönnies, ...
social facts
Emile Durkheim's term for the enduring aspects of social life that shape or constrain individual action. In The Rules of Sociological Method (1895, 1964), Durkheim used the concept to clarify ...
