Tolerance, an essential civic virtue in an Education for an active, complex and intercultural citizenship

Abstract

Over the past few years, the language of «civic virtues» has been recovered following the impulse of two political theories: communitarism and republicanism. Both of them have been proposed as an alternative to dominant liberalism. Among these virtues, tolerance is particularly relevant, considering the degree of pluralism and multiculturalism existing in present-day Western societies. Convinced that every individual should be formed as a citizen for public life, we needed a citizenship education for coexistence and intervention in the political arena to develop and encourage that virtue. We support an active, multiple or complex and multicultural citizenship. In order to achieve this aim, we propose to undertake a reflection on the meaning that the word «tolerance» should have at the beginning of the 21st century, based on relevant and recent works in Political and Ethical Philosophy. We are looking for a meaning that might provide answers to the problem of cultural diversity and a guide towards potential educational strategies. We present different educational approaches that could not only be useful within schools, but that could also involve the whole of society. Finally, we argue that educating for tolerance should be seen as part of a broader project that involves education for humanization and for emancipation.