Paradigms are underlying intellectual assumptions that scientists make about their subject matter. In sociology, four distinct paradigms have emerged: social order, social conflict, social meaning, and social exchange. The first three paradigms evolved from the need for specific programs for social change. The last, social exchange, seeks to explain common behavior that leads to social order. All four paradigms deal with the relationship between individuals and society.
The social order paradigm was developed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Durkheim considered the underlying sources of support for the dominant institutional patterns of society: society's collective beliefs and values. He understood social order to be that which holds society together. Durkheim was concerned with social solidarity and integration. Further, he insisted that the scientific method could be applied to social issues based on data about the society or the social structure itself: "Durkheim thought, sociology, unlike philosophy, could guide public policy and moral education through scientific analysis of social conditions and, he hoped, the inductive derivation of social laws" (Unit 2, 2-7).
Durkheim believed in the concept of social fact, social phenomena that could be distinguished from purely individual phenomena. Social facts are phenomena that are external to the individual. Such facts include language, monetary systems, professional norms, etc. Although many of these social facts are eventually internalized by the individual through the socialization process, the individual initially confronts social facts as an external reality. For instance, a person who joins a new organization is confronted with customs and norms that he or she may not fully understand or appreciate. Such social facts exert a constraint over the individual. Using the above example, if the individual did not conform to the customs and norms of the new orga...