Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education

Emile Durkheim, whose writings still exert a great influence over sociological thought, has often been called the father of the sociology of education. He lectured extensively on the subject, and was convinced of its necessary place in social theory. But his work cannot be fully understood unless it is realized that he had an overriding concern form morals. He saw the relationship between morals and education as almost that of theory to practice, yet he never wrote a systematic work on the subject of morals, although for some time he planned such a book and managed just before he died in 1917 to write the opening introduction. This collection of Durkheim’s work on morals and education brings together many items translated into English for the first time. A wide selection of articles, reviews and discussions has been included in this book, covering such subjects as, defining morals, the science of morality, moral facts, relativism, the relation of science to morality; and in education, problems of definition, childhood, sex education, Rousseau’s ‘Emile’, teaching secular morality and the effectiveness of moral doctrines. The book also included an introduction to each of the two sections, as well as bibliographies which deal with Durkheim’s own works on morals and education, together with those covering references to his writing on these subjects written by others.