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After documenting Tarde's neglect and placing him in the 19th-century sociological context, this paper argues that his concept of "imitation" was important because social learning (writ small) or culture (writ large), a non-genetic form of heredity, means that a distinct cultural evolutionary process including variation and selection resulting in descent with modification is inevitable. Beginning in the last half of the 20th century there was a flowering of theorizing and research about cultural evolution across the humanities and social sciences and eventually about culture in general in sociology. Unfortunately, what should have been recognized as Tarde's role as a forefather of these has only occasionally been recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the Durkheimian approach to the 'ideal' delineates a possible way of straddling the dilemma between the normative orientation of 'powerful knowledge' accounts and the critical orientation of 'knowledge of the powerful' accounts. It argues that the normative aims are embedded in the fabrics of the sociological description with which the Durkheimian notion of 'elementary form' is concerned. To see where this enterprise can lead, this paper turns to the sociology of education of Bourdieu and Bernstein. Both draw on Durkheim's writings on primitive classifications in education and society, working towards uncovering the regularities of the world of knowledge classifications. Keeping in line with Bourdieu and Bernstein, this paper argues that one has to make the same refusal to the advocates of an abstract ideal of educational knowledge that is dissociated from its social conditions of historical realization in pedagogic contexts, and to the advocates of a cynical relativism of ideal that rejects any necessities socially established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re‐examines a key feature of Emile Durkheim's sociology of knowledge from a critical realist perspective. It is argued that Durkheim's attempt to establish a social basis for the categories in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life should be understood along ontological rather than epistemological lines. This brings to light new problems with the argument which, however, can be brought fruitfully into contact with the more recent social psychological literature on collective intentionality. This yields insights into future lines of inquiry into social cognition and theories of human conceptualizing capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As institutions of higher education have become more diverse over the past several decades, building a strong sense of community in the classroom has emerged as a core moral and pedagogical imperative to make students from all backgrounds feel welcome and promote their academic success. In this paper, I argue that the pedagogy underlying the impetus for community building in the classroom is premised on a problematic understanding of the type of bonds that connect students in a genuinely diverse classroom. In Durkheimian terms, these bonds are more akin to organic solidarity (bonds by virtue of mutual reliance) than mechanical solidarity (bonds by virtue of shared cultural and moral beliefs). Instead of community building, I propose deliberative interdependence as a more effective model for generating collaborative learning in diverse classrooms. I illustrate how to apply this model through innovative learning and assessment methods and draw on student course evaluations to document their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]