Teaching Tolerance in a Globalized World

Diversity in education is no longer a phenomenon specific to restricted cultural contexts. In contemporary times, increasing diversity1 of student populations is a global educational trend (Hastedt 2016; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2015). The discourses on diversity in educational settings are mainly focused on the relatively recent rapid influx of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, coupled with issues of increasing intolerance, social exclusion and feelings of alienation and extremism among young people. Nevertheless, these sources of difference intersect with other dimensions and identities such as gender, socioeconomic status, religion, disability and sexual orientation, creating complex challenges for schooling. Educational systems are often overwhelmed by issues of equality and the inclusion of diverse populations, while simultaneously striving to achieve excellence and prepare young people for active and efficient participation in the labor market and society. Many policy actions tend to focus primarily on topics such as enhancing the academic outcomes of immigrant students, mainstream language acquisition or ethnic mixing. Less attention is being paid to curricular aims and activities directed at creating inclusive classrooms that can embrace diversity and nurture attitudes of mutual tolerance among youth. This is only recently becoming the focus of attention within educational practice. Holding attitudes of tolerance toward other groups is a fundamental feature of a mature citizenship in democratic societies (Almond and Verba 1963; Sherrod and Lauckhardt 2009). Yet tolerance is certainly a controversial, multifaceted and complex concept (Forst 2003; Green et al. 2006; Mutz 2001; Van Driel et al. 2016). While in a broad sense, tolerance can be understood as respect, acceptance and appreciation of diversity (Unesco 1995; Van Driel et al. 2016), in educational settings, tolerance is often conceptualized in relation to civic and intercultural competences and in terms of positive attitudes toward equal rights for different groups (Green et al. 2006). Attitudes of tolerance may take various forms, depending on their underlying conceptualization and the groups involved. Weldon (2006), for example, distinguished between political and social tolerance (see also Quintelier and Dejaeghere 2008). Political tolerance concerns granting democratic and political rights to different groups in society while social tolerance refers more to the evaluation of direct contact with people from out-groups (e.g. inter-ethnic friendships). Other scholars (Forst 2003; Green et al. 2006; Mutz 2001) draw attention to the distinction between different types of tolerance according to the differing contexts and the “subjects of toleration”. In this respect, individuals may experience and exhibit attitudes of tolerance concerning a wide range of groups based on, among other factors, ethnicity, immigrant status, gender, and lifestyle choices. Moreover, conceptualizations of tolerance may often include differing perspectives. For example, one perspective is oriented to the rejection of social groups and another oriented to the respect or acceptance of other social groups (Freitag and Rapp 2013). These approaches are not necessarily in opposition (Van Zalk and Kerr 2014), but rather are different dimensions of the development of recognition of social rights and liberties (Rapp and Freitag 2015). On the one hand, the rejection approach is focused on the negative attitudes toward difference, such as intolerance or prejudice. On the other hand, the acceptance approach is focused on the development of democratic principles and its application to all sociopolitical groups (Freitag and Rapp 2013). Researchers and educational practitioners have long been concerned with identifying factors and conditions that have the potential to help schools and teachers promote tolerance (Côté and Erickson 2009; Rapp and Freitag 2015; Van Driel et al. 2016). However, the body of existing research is largely dominated by individual-level theoretical explanations (e.g. Allport’s 1954 contact hypothesis; the social identity perspective advanced by Tajfel and Turner 1979) emerging largely from social-psychological research (Quintelier and Dejaeghere 2008; Weldon 2006). Research that has the potential to take into account the multiple contexts shaping tolerance, as well as individual- and societal-level explanations, is still largely needed. International large-scale assessments (ILSA) such as the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), have the potential to tremendously improve the study of tolerance in youth2 by providing the opportunity to analyze differing explanatory mechanisms in a multitude of multi-leveled contexts. Existing secondary analyses of ICCS 2009 and its predecessor, the 1999 Civic Education Study (CIVED), have already made important contributions to the field. With minor exceptions (Caro and Schulz 2012), most studies (Barber et al. 2013; Elchardus et al. 2013; Isac 2015; Isac et al. 2012; Janmaat 2014; Torney-Purta et al. 2008; Torney-Purta and Barber 2011) operationalize tolerance in terms of positive attitudes toward immigrants or, applying Weldon’s (2006) conceptualization, in terms of political tolerance toward immigrants. Taken together, these findings have pointed to the importance of different explanatory mechanisms. The factors identified by these studies concern characteristics of schools, classrooms and educational systems, but also individual student traits and background. The work of Torney-Purta et al. (2008), for example, was among the first in a consistent body of research to show the importance of open class and school climates for promoting more positive attitudes toward immigrant rights. Other research (Isac et al. 2012; Janmaat 2014) has shown that heterogeneous class and school contexts (e.g. the proportion of immigrant students in a school or the opportunity to interact with immigrant peers) are linked with more positive attitudes among non-immigrant students toward immigrants in general. Moreover, studies with a particular focus on country and educational system characteristics put forward macro-level explanations of tolerance. These studies (Barber et al. 2013; Elchardus et al. 2013; Janmaat and Mons 2011) highlight the role of sociocultural country characteristics (e.g. levels of economic and democratic development, policies toward immigrants) and features of educational systems (e.g. public steering and levels of differentiation within educational systems). These studies highlight the relevance of studying tolerance in context. In addition, many studies (see e.g. Isac 2015; Torney-Purta et al. 2008) have shown consistent individual differences in political tolerance. Female students, students with more civic knowledge, higher educational expectations and a higher socioeconomic status tend to have more favorable attitudes toward immigrants. Such work indicates the importance of the individual student’s background in relation to tolerance. The existing research on the topic of tolerance among youth based on analyses of the CIVED 1999 and ICCS 2009 data provides valuable indications concerning potentially relevant factors at the student, classroom/school, and country levels. These factors are generally expected to be positively related to the tolerance levels of young people. Yet, some important knowledge gaps remain in the field and these IEA studies can provide further opportunities for data analysis relevant for a large number of educational systems worldwide. For example, and partially due to a lack of data, most previous studies have largely conceptualized tolerance in a somewhat narrow framework (e.g. focusing preponderantly on tolerance toward some groups like immigrants). Moreover, the majority of studies have looked at average relationships across countries and focused mainly on direct effects of differing explanatory factors. This report aims to fill some of these gaps by taking into account: (a) broader conceptualizations of tolerance, including attitudes toward the rights of three different social groups: immigrants, ethnic groups and women; (b) the potential relationships between these types of outcomes; (c) the strength of relationships within different levels (individual, school, educational system level); (d) the complexity of direct and indirect (e.g. mediation, moderation) relationships; and (e) the variation of these relationships among countries (common and country-specific, differential effects3 ). Therefore, this volume presents five empirical studies that aim to address some of the gaps in the literature mentioned above. Each of the studies tries to take into account the hierarchical layers of relationships (by controlling for relevant factors at each level) but give in-depth attention to a particular level of analysis. The combined results aim to provide additional evidence regarding factors and conditions that have the potential to help schools and teachers promote tolerance.