A critical review of the theory of status integration considers methodological, procedural, and theoretical problems. First, difficulties in adhering to some of the test principles established by Gibbs and Martin seem to preclude a thorough test of the theory. Second, a number of unsolved practical problems arise when attempting to test the theory with available data: (a) the need to make post hoc explanations of aberrant findings, (b) numerous possibilities for spurious effects, (c) problems in defining categories such as age and occupation, (d) problems of matching the characteristics of suicides with those of populations, and (e) ambiguities beclouding the application of the rules for using the theory. Finally, a serious question is raised about the validity of the status integration measure as a criterion for Durkheim's concept of social integration. The theory of status integration was proposed in 1958 by Gibbs and Martin and since then virtually no sociological study of suicide has lacked a reference to it.1 There have been critics, however: for example, Chambliss and Steele, Douglas, Hagedorn and Labovitz (a,b), and Li. This paper assesses the theory from three points of view: methodological, procedural and theoretical. The theory, derived from Durkheim, was designed to be tested against official, recorded information, and Gibbs and Martin have stipulated conditions under which these data are appropriate. The purpose here is to determine whether their stipulations would allow an empirical test of the theory. Further, a specimen study has been constructed, using data as suitable for testing the theory as are obtainable. Gibbs and Martin make only the modest claim that status integration theory can predict the rank order of suicide rates among appropriately defined groups, but simple