Tolerance

Tolerance is a standard promoted in schools to deal with differences between races, ethnicities, languages, sexual orientations, cultures, traditions, and religions. Tolerance has been described as both the least inclusive stance on difference that an individual or a community can take as well as the most inclusive due to the attitudes tolerance creates towards an open, ongoing dialogue about differences. The ideal of tolerance exists as the impetus for multicultural education in terms of curriculum and pedagogy. Tolerance in education claims to foster democratic ideals and encourage students to understand the multicultural world in which they live. Education for tolerance not only benefits students of the dominant culture, it also encourages equal access to the benefits of education for students of diverse backgrounds without requiring them to reject their culture.

Three views of tolerance are prominent in the educational literature: tolerance as cultural awareness; tolerance