The Two Durkheims: Founders and Classics in Canadian Introductory Sociology Textbooks

Abstract

For contemporary Durkheim scholars, the presentation of Durkheimian sociology in introductory textbooks is notoriously flawed. In this article, we examine the presentation of Durkheim’s work in popular English-language Canadian sociology textbooks. We show that textbooks present two distinct “Durkheims.” First, they characterize him as a founder of the discipline and the sociological project of challenging common-sense explanations of social life. Second, Durkheim appears as the father of structural functionalism who advocates a conservative, integrating vision of society. We argue that to understand why these two versions of Durkheim persist in sociology textbooks, we must appreciate the symbolic place of classical authors in the discipline. The two “textbook Durkheims” endure because they operate as symbols for both the coherence and divisions of the discipline. We suggest that integrating contemporary Durkheimian scholarship into textbooks would require revising conventional textbook approaches of sorting classical authors as founders of contending sociological perspectives.

Toward a Historical Sociology of Canonization: Comparing the Development of Sociological Theory in the English-, German-, and French-Language Contexts since the 1950s

“…Following previous studies [Alway 1995; Collins 1997; Platt 2008; Mallory and Cormack 2018; McDonald 2019], our primary data consists of theory textbooks. Textbooks act as disciplinary controls ensuring students encounter favored ideas, texts, or visions over others [Bourdieu 1988; Heilbron 2004; Lenoir 1997].…”

“…For this reason, empirical efforts to determine not only which theorists constitute the canon, but also its evolving size and structure, have often focused on course syllabi, readings, and textbooks. Research has examined textbooks [Alway 1995; Connell 1997; Deegan 2003; Hall 1988; 2000; Hamilton 2003; Harley 2008; Manza, Sauder, and Wright 2010; Mallory and Cormack 2018], syllabi [Guzman and Silver 2018; Grauerholz and Gibson 2006], online course catalogues [Döpking 2016], and compendia [Barlösius 2004; Holzhauser 2021]. Others have supplemented examinations of “the objective canon” with surveys to capture “the subjective canon” [Parker 1997; Lengermann and Niebrugge 2006; Gerhards 2014].…”

“…As an empirical topic, canonization has been a subject of much debate that hinges mainly on extensive historical analyses and normative argumentation [Collins 1997; Connell 1997; Curato 2013; Go 2020; Guillory 1987; Mouzelis 1997] as well as on a handful of empirical studies [Alway 1995; Connell 1997; Mallory and Cormack 2018; Hamilton 2003; Parker 1997; Lenger, Rieker, and Schneickert 2014; McDonald 2019]. This research has produced valuable results, including a deeper understanding of the complexities accruing to concepts such as “classics” or “founders,” of rich narrative typologies, and of intriguing hypotheses about the continuities, variations, and changes in the disciplinary centrality of key ideas, authors, and texts, as well as a deeper understanding of the complexities accruing to concepts such as “classics” or “founders.” Nevertheless, this empirical literature remains limited.…”

How Do Sociologists Know What They Know? An Examination of Sociology Textbooks for Evidence of Sociological and Scientific Thinking

“…Other limitations of the Amazon sales ranking are that open education resources and self-published textbooks will not appear. Popularity via sales may skew the sample towards books adopted by larger universities (Mallory and Cormack 2018) and does not indicate quality (Babchuk and Keith 1995).…”

Contractual thought and Durkheim’s theory of the social: A reappraisal

“…And yet, Stedman Jones (2001) points to ‘the persistence of this myth’ that Durkheim is ‘a theorist of order’ (p. 22; cf. Mallory and Cormack, 2018). Furthermore, although recent scholarship has revisited the connections between Durkheim and Rousseau (Fernandes, 2008; Rawls, 2009), and Durkheim and Spencer (McKinnon, 2010; Offer, 2015), there has been little concerted attention to Durkheim’s accounts of Hobbes or to how Durkheim distinguishes these three major contractual thinkers.…”