Final answer:
Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who lived from 1858 to 1917. He made foundational contributions to sociology, establishing it as an academic discipline and emphasizing the role of social forces in individual behaviors such as differences in self harm rates.
Step-by-step explanation:
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) was a pioneering French sociologist who played a crucial role in establishing sociology as a formal academic discipline. He lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of great sociological and intellectual development. Durkheim's significant contributions include founding the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895 and publishing his influential work, The Rules of the Sociological Method in the same year.
Durkheim theorized how societies transform from a primitive state to a capitalist, industrial one, as reflected in his work, The Division of Labor in Society (1893). He is well-known for his functionalist perspective, emphasizing the interconnectivity of society's elements and the concept of the collective conscience. In his research, he distinguished the influence of social causes, such as religious differences, on phenomena like self harm rates, rather than attributing them to merely psychological reasons. His groundbreaking study, Sucide (1897), exemplified his method of attributing social phenomena to social and religious forces.