Social Control and Youth Suicidality: Situating Durkheim’s Ideas in a Multilevel Framework

Relying on Durkheim’s theory of social integration, the authors examined the effect of individual- & structural-level social integration on adolescents’ suicidality. Using a sample of 6,369 respondents within 314 neighbourhoods, the assumptions that high levels of religious, familial, neighbourhood, & school integration are associated with fewer suicide attempts among youths were examined. Support was found for the traditional Durkheimian assumptions: specifically, the proportion of religiously conservative residents in a neighbourhood reduces youths’ risk of attempting suicide, as do individual level controls of school & parental attachments. Depression increased the risk of suicide attempts, but in places where religion is very important, this positive effect of depression is diminished. (94 refs.)