During the 19th century, the field of social sciences has been introduced with the revolutionary ideas of a French social theorist in the person of Emile Durkheim, author of the well-known discourse on social integration and solidarity, "Suicide: A Study in Sociology." In this discourse, Durkheim illustrates suicide as a phenomenon where the process of social integration and disintegration is evident. Using the scientific method tradition in studying this phenomenon, Durkheim posits that "social structures of high intensity prevent the individual from killing him/herself" (Collins, 1994:184). He uses both sociology and
             anthropology in illustrating this point, and other viewpoints regarding the issue of social integration and disintegration in his discussion of the suicide phenomenon. In proving his stance that social solidarity plays an essential role as a process that encourages people to integrate themselves and be included within groups in the society, he proposes the Law of Social Gravity, which centers on social integration, solidarity, and interaction of people in the society.
             Using the framework of Durkheim's Law of Social Gravity in the context of the suicide phenomenon, this paper discusses the relevance of the social theorist's discourse about society and social dynamics and its relationship with the individual. More specifically, this paper studies the relationship of Durkheim's sociological theories in discussing the issues of gang behavior of the lower class youth and drug behavior among the middle-class youth, two examples of social integration and disintegration in the society, respectively. By stating that social ties play an important role in integrating an individual in the society, Durkheim proposes the Law of Social Gravity to illustrate concretely his point. Since Durkheim wants to present a scientific way of discussing a social phenomenon, he uses "social morphology," where "structural relationships among peo...