Flying Solidarity as an Introductory Lesson in Social Theory

Although students rely on social solidarity in their everyday lives, they generally fail to acknowledge its existence. An active learning class exercise, conducted within approximately 35 minutes, introduces sociology students to Emile Durkheim's concept of solidarity and the distinction between its mechanical and organic forms. Some groups of students perform the task of creating and flying paper airplanes under the pretense of organic solidarity, and other groups perform the same task under the pretense of mechanical solidarity. Through reflection on their experiences and discussion with members of other groups, students begin to identify nuances of each type of solidarity. An evaluation of this exercise indicates that those who participate in it can describe the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity and their respective associations with gemeinschaft and gesellschaft better than those exposed to a traditional lesson on the topic can.