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DRAFT COPY. DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Teaching the Democratic Virtue of Tolerance:
Constructing an Enriching Classroom Environment.
Lauren Holland, Professor
With Jessica Taverna and Melissa Goldsmith
Introduction
Political tolerance (or the willingness to allow the expression of ideas and extend
rights and liberties to people with whom one disagrees) is essential in a democratic
system such as the United States where procedural fairness is a paramount principle.
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(Sandel,1982). Procedural fairness means that the privileges and obligations of
citizenship are widely available, even to groups and individuals whose opinions and
practices offend the conscience of some but not the physical security of us all. Yet, the
levels of political tolerance in America are today and have in the past been dangerously
low. Scholarly studies of political tolerance identify three variables as having direct
explanatory value. (Sullivan, et al., 1982). According to Sullivan et al., individuals who
register high levels of commitment to democratic norms (such as free speech, minority
rights and legal equality), low levels of fear towards “least- liked” groups, and high levels
of self-esteem, also exhibit high levels of tolerance.
Although levels of educational attainment are discounted as having direct
explicatory value in empirical studies of political tolerance, the content of education has
been recognized as beneficial. (Avery, 1992; Godwin, et al., 2001). While students enter
the university or college with predispositions to be or not to be tolerant, these “standing
decisions” are amenable to change through schooling. (Marcus, et al., 1995). More
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