Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the usefulness of different sociological approaches to suicide.

Suicide can be defined as an intentional act of killing oneself, it is thought that the study of suicide would be more appropriate to be studied by psychologists since the main reason of suicide is the consequence of mental illness. However, a positivist sociologist, Emile Durkheim rejected this view. He believes that suicide has social causes and is a social fact that has predictable patterns. Nonetheless, this is a controversial topic and there are many other sociologists who have contributed to the study by offering their own points of view of how to categorising and interpreting data. We shall discuss their different approaches further in this essay.
As it is said, Durkheim rejects the psychological theories of suicide; evidently he shows that while Jews had higher rates of mental illness than Protestants, they had lower suicide rates. In Durkheim’s view, our behaviour is constrained by social facts – according to Steven Lukes, they are greater and out of reach of individuals and they shape our behaviours. These social facts vary in different groups and societies, explaining the differences in suicide rate. There are two social facts that determine the rate of suicide: social integration, which is the extent to which individuals experience a sense of belonging to a group and obligation to its members. They feel a strong bond and duty towards others. The other is moral regulation: the extent to which individuals’ actions and desires are kept in check by norms and values. From these two social facts, he divides suicide into 4 types: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic.
Before going into details of these 4 types of suicide, it is important to note that different societies have different levels of integration and regulation. So in modern