Question

Write a theory application/explanation about durkheim division of labor

Answer 1

The “division of labor” is a concept referring to the way a society or social group organizes itself internally, but it is also used in contemporary terms to refer to Émile Durkheim’s seminal text on the subject, The Division of Labor in Society, originally published in 1893. In Durkheim’s analysis, the division of labor manifests in advanced societies such that professional groups do the work of separate sectors, and the group itself functions, it was assumed, more efficiently than if every individual had to perform every act on his or her own. The division of labor is not only the mark of an advanced society for Durkheim; he argues also that it is the very nature of social interaction, inherent in the workings of every social group and even in animal species. He suggests that the division of labor, or the separation of an organic whole into organized parts, is close to a biological imperative that enables the coherence and cohesion of a social order. Writing in the late 19th century, Durkheim does not dispute the evolutionary character of social groups, however; what differentiates different kinds of societies is the kind of division of labor they present. A primitive, or less differentiated, society relies on its relative internal sameness to produce what he calls mechanical solidarity; an advanced, or more individuated, society creates (through the difference between not only individuals but also between different subgroups, or occupational groups, within the larger social order) what he calls organic solidarity, in the sense that it may more naturally form an organic whole.