Still Another Look at Status Integration and Suicide

In a recent paper Schalkwyk, Lazer, and Cumming used data on British Columbia in a critique of the theory of status integration and suicide (Gibbs and Martin, a). Their conclusions raise serious questions about the theory, one conclusion being: "the magnitude of the correlations derived from the predictions are neither consistently significant nor meaningful' (1078). They go beyond findings to characterize the postulates of the theory as ambiguous and to assert that "assumptions introduced to support interpretations in favor of the theory are often suspect" (1078). Even the status integration measure is not to their liking, being at one and the same time "unclear" but alien to what Durkheim meant by social integration (1077, 1079)

Library science · Sociology · Academic Freedom and Politics · Computer Science

• Old age in a changing society

  Zena Smith Blau•Old age in a changing society•1973

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• Growing old

  Elaine Cumming•Growing old•1979

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• The coming crisis of western sociology

  Alvin W Gouldner•The coming crisis of western…•1971

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• A Problem in Testing the Theory of Status Integration

  Jack P Gibbs, Walter T Martins et al.•Social Forces•1974

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