Abstract
Tolerance education aims to promote the culture of peace and acceptance of others for well-being and diversity management. Therefore, it is important to create learning environments, content, and facilities for tolerance education in line with the universal values in education. However, little is known about how the literature investigated and summarized the findings related to tolerance education. Therefore, this study conducts a systematic review about this topic, where 75 reviewed studies were analyzed according to the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) components. Findings highlighted that: (1) from the subject component, future research should involve more stakeholders, like parents and policymakers, when discussing tolerance education; (2) from the object component, tolerance education should not only focus on the physical environment, but also on the virtual environment; (3) from the tools component, limited digital tools and technology have been used to promote tolerance education; (4) from the community component, more investigation of tolerance education should be outside of school contexts; (5) from the rules component, more ICT training should be provided. The use of big data and learning analytics could be one of the potential methods to assess students in tolerance education; (6) from the labor division component, school family interaction role is very important to manage risks and diversities through tolerance education; and (7) from the outcomes component, tolerance education studies should go beyond simply investigating the awareness and attitudes of learners, and investigate, for instance, the behavioral changes of learners. Finally, recommendations were made under each CHAT component.
Keywords
Introduction
Tolerance Education
Education can improve social life through teaching ethical values, cultural differences, and tolerance. Williams (2004) stated that education has a vital role in improving individuals’ ethical standards and values to achieve a quality life. In this context, tolerance education is defined as developing young people’s skills for independent judgment, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning (UNESCO, 1994). Reardon (2004) further defined tolerance education as a kind of education to gain a culture of peace. Additionally, Heller and Hawkins (1994) described tolerance education as the process of teaching the values of respecting others’ beliefs and practices. Tolerance enables people to adopt a compassionate attitude across nations, genders, beliefs, and generations for managing diversities. Students who gain awareness that there may be differences between people in terms of race, religion, and social through education are convinced that they can accept it. Subsequently, teaching tolerance education in schools at an early age is needed (Bracy, 2011). Johnson and Johnson (2006) considered schools as institutions that could provide the necessary skills to solve conflicts through tolerance education, which contributes to peace on individual and societal levels.
Practices in Tolerance Education
Recent studies in the literature focused on methods, communication, strategies, and perspectives of teachers and students toward tolerance education. For instance, Winarni and Rutan (2020) concluded that cooperative learning is more effective than individual learning to enhance students’ tolerance levels. Kizi (2020) stated that it is important to use current contemporary educational environments in order to increase the tolerance of future teachers in the further development of international relations in education. It is crucial to foster professional competencies by increasing tolerance in social, ethnic, confessional, and cultural differences in professional activity.
Several studies focused on pedagogical dimensions and tolerance for professional development and school context. For instance, Yanusova and Lautkina (2019) emphasized the importance of tolerance education in communication. They investigated the relationship between the development of teachers’ communication skills and their level of tolerance in communication. Boghian (2016) also conducted a review on the level of teachers’ awareness related to tolerance education. The obtained findings suggested possible strategies for tolerance education. For instance, there is a difficulty in building pedagogy of tolerance in schools. Therefore, schools should take responsibility to educate to and through tolerance by integrating cultural and intercultural education. Langmann (2013) discussed the pedagogical practices and contents to determine the tolerance level of teachers and students while solving problems that arise in daily life. In this study, the areas and practices on teacher education and teachers’ work, multiculturalism, educational management related to education policy are considered for diversity. Gutu and Boghian (2019) gave insights on the bidimensional psycho-pedagogical approach to tolerance education. The proposed model focused on teaching tolerance to students/prospective teachers and teachers with tools to raise students’ level of tolerance in class and significantly diminish the risk of discrimination among young students. Čučković and Ohnjec (2020) focused on physical education to highlight the importance of values, attitudes, and skills for mutual respect. It is found that the designed curriculum in the educational practices plays the most crucial role in educating tolerance and universal values. Campbell (2013) explored the potential value of arts based on children’s rights and tolerance curricula in schools. The study examined effective ways for tolerance education in a democratic society. Participants, consisting of teachers and students, concluded that art effectively raises awareness of children’s rights and tolerance. Lazovsky (2007) investigated the effectiveness of an education program that aims to teach children tolerance and coexistence. The findings showed that this type of program could enhance interpersonal relationships. The study of Bleasdale (2014) became a reference in examining the role and experiences of school leaders in promoting community fairness in the transition from tolerance to participation. As a result, it is stated that it may be beneficial for school leaders, educators, and families to participate in education on diversity and inclusion areas and educate students fairly.
As for the different aspects of diversity like religion, gender, peace, age, respect, attitudes, and values, from the attitude perspective, Agafonov (2007) found that teachers who defend democracy and democratic values have opposite attitudes toward political, social, and moral diversity. In this respect, Afriadi (2020) revealed that attitudes toward differences in individuals have started at an early age within the framework of tolerance education. Additionally, Yousuf et al. (2019) stated that peace, compassion, and respect in society are possibly transferred through education, religious teachings, and citizenship education. As a result, it is stated that in the formation of contemporary society, the moral development of university teachers can guide the development of students’ tolerance toward social and religious behavior. Mousavi et al. (2020) investigated the relationship between female students’ emotional adjustment, frustration tolerance, and approval motivation. They found that reinforcement of approval motivation and frustration tolerance may be effective in the education of students with high emotional adaptability. Robinson et al. (2019) investigated the creativity and uncertainty tolerance levels of fashion design students. The result was that the lowest creativity group scored the lowest in tolerance to uncertainty. Juwita et al. (2018) conducted a qualitative study to investigate male and female students’ tolerance levels against differences and evaluate attitudes from a gender perspective in a religion-based school. As a result, it is concluded that female students are more sensitive and tolerant to diversity in the environment than male students.
Mameghani (2017) compared different variables in terms of the participants’ level of tolerance and happiness. According to the obtained results, it was found that the happiness and tolerance levels of the students differ according to the variables of gender, age, marital status, and educational status. However, there was no significant difference in forgiveness levels according to gender, age, marital status, and educational status variables. Wainryb et al. (2004) conducted a study on the diversity of beliefs of children in the early school years consists of 96 participants, ages 5, 7, and 9. The findings showed that children have much more and well-differentiated perspectives on belief diversity in the early years of school. On the other hand, Wijaya Mulya and Aditomo (2019) conducted a study on religious tolerance education using discourse analysis, which included a case study as a methodology in analyzing the religious tolerance education project.
Research Gap and Study Focus
Tolerance education can influence how a particular scenario could end up (i.e., ends toward peace and acceptance or conflicts). Specifically, peace-keeping strategies that aim to end conflicts and build a culture of tolerance can be regarded as some of the prominent components of tolerance education that seek to diminish aggression and violence at educational institutions (Sudarsana et al., 2018). United Nations (2015) further focused on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which were designed to be a “blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all.” These SDGs focused on promoting peace, justice, equality, and gender equity, which could be achieved through tolerance education.
Although several studies have focused on discussing tolerance education, most of them focused on a specific perspective, such as pedagogy or attitude (see section 1.2). However, tolerance education is considered a complex approach where different components should be analyzed together to understand better the evolving behaviors and practices among stakeholders (Oktariyati & Suyatno, 2019; Tlili et al., 2020). As tolerance education reflects social interaction and exchange of values in terms of universal values, technology becomes a medium to facilitate these values and learning. Therefore, relevant features and recommendations concerning the design, implementation, and outcome of tolerance education for diversity management can be identified through the lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to improve tolerance education for diversity management. CHAT provides a collection of interconnected components that could help to understand cultural activities and analyze human behavior (Engeström, 2001). These components are subject, object, tools, community, rules, and division of labor (Kuutti, 1996). As reviews on tolerance education remain scant, this study fills the gap by conducting a systematic review on tolerance education from the CHAT perspective. To the best of our knowledge, no study has focused on this area before. Specifically, this study answers the following two research questions:
Method
This study conducts a systematic review on tolerance education. This review follows the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines (Moher et al., 2009). PRISMA provides a standard peer-accepted methodology that uses a guideline checklist, which was strictly followed for this paper, to contribute to the revision process’s quality assurance and ensure its replicability. This study then analyzes the reviewed studies based on CHAT.
Search Strategy and Inclusion/Exclusion Process
The combination of the two search keywords “tolerance” AND “education” was used in six electronic databases, namely IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Taylor & Francis Online, Sciencedirect, Wiley Online Library, and the search engine Google. After searching the relevant databases, two authors analyzed the retrieved papers by titles, abstracts, and, if necessary, by full text, based on pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. An article was excluded if: (1) the full-text was not available online, (2) it was not in English, (3) it did not give enough details about each component mentioned in CHAT, and (4) it did not focus on education. This research yielded a total of 345 articles. After removing duplicated papers, 248 papers remained. Forty-nine papers were then omitted based on screening of title and abstract. The remaining 199 papers were considered and assessed as full texts. About 124 of these papers did not pass the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Thus, as a total number, 75 eligible research studies were included in the final review process. Figure 1 presents the study selection process as recommended by the PRISMA group (Moher et al., 2010).
PRISMA flowchart for the article search and selection process.
Using CHAT Framework to Analyze Tolerance Education Studies
This study applied the CHAT framework to analyze the reviewed papers on tolerance education research. Since the activity was characterized as a framework of deliberate behaviors driving recognizable changes in human hones (Kim, 2010), researchers inspected how tolerance education may advance behaviors and hones among the stakeholders through studies. As shown in Figure 2, the framework addressed how different tools and technologies were adapted for tolerance education and the obtained learning outcomes. It also shows how different stakeholders created and perceived the learning environment for tolerance education.
Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to analyze tolerance education.
Subject refers to those involved in tolerance education studies, including students, teachers, and other stakeholders; Tools refers to educational methods, learning activities, teaching methods to facilitate tolerance education. The object includes the focus of each study when discussing tolerance education. Rules include the accepted practices in implementing tolerance education, for example, training, procedures for evaluating learning outcomes; Community refers to the interaction among people involved in tolerance education (e.g., learners, family, teachers, professionals, school manager) and settings (e.g., schools, training centers, etc.) that supported the interventions. Division of Labor refers to distributing duties among students, teachers, unions, and other stakeholders in tolerance education practices. Outcome covers students’ and teachers’ performance in target skills as evaluated by performance measures.
Results
To address the first research question, findings, from the 75 reviewed studies, for each CHAT component were detailed. To address the second research question, recommendations on how to improve tolerance education was provided based on the identified gaps, strategies, challenges, under each activity component.
Object
Table 1 shows that the reviewed studies focused on six main areas when discussing tolerance education. The most researched area is Diversity (27.8%), followed by Psychological (22.2%), Educational (17.8%), Social (13.3%), Societal (12.8%), and Communicational (6.1%). Specifically, the highest research object, within the six areas was religious differences (9.4%), followed by culture and multi-culture environments (7.8%) and behavior (4.4%). It should be noted that some studies focused on more than one object (e.g., Aslan & Aybek, 2020; Fleming, 2019), which explains the reason for having a total of 180 (above 75, the number of the reviewed studies).
Distribution of Study Objectives.
Recommendations
It is seen that tolerance education was considered in numerous studies. However, the family perspective was less researched. Family education is crucial in promoting tolerance education within parents, which they could then teach their children. This could help create future kids who believe in tolerance and diversity at a very early age before going to school. Therefore, more research should be conducted to investigate how tolerance education could be taught at schools/universities and homes. In societal research focus, social support, social media, social disconnectedness are basic focuses to be investigated in the future. Particularly, with the rapid development of technology which became part of our daily life, it is seen that cyberbullying and hate on social media became a major issue. Therefore, more focus should be paid to how tolerance education could contribute to the acceptance of each others’ differences, not only in the physical environment but also in the virtual environment as well.
Subject
Table 2 shows the subjects targeted within the reviewed studies. It is found that students are the major subjects that the studies focused on (58.25%), followed by educators (25.24%), employees (8.74%), and worshipers of different religions (7.77%). Particularly, among students, most of the studies on tolerance education focused on primary school students (27.18%).
Distribution of Study Subjects.
Recommendations
In most tolerance education studies, students in different levels, academicians and teachers were the main focus. In this respect, there is an intensified need to investigate tolerance education from different stakeholders and parties. Tolerance education can only be effective when school managers, inspectors, and families become connected directly within the education process. To establish a culture of tolerance in school, participative management perspective and leadership are crucial. In tolerance education, leadership is important to motivate partners and key-role players in the education system. To achieve sustainable educational goals, there is a need to conduct strategic planning based on participative management to manage diversities and reinforce active role players such as students, teachers and managers in a collaboration (Guinot et al., 2021). In line with sustainability goals and education reforms, considering studies related to students with disabilities based on accessibility and inclusion and the role of participative management, leadership is highly needed.
Community
The community included state administrators, auditors, inspectors, teachers, students, families, teacher training institutions, academicians, government officials, religious leaders and followers, police, military, cultural and artistic institution employees, doctors, commentators, lawyers, writers, composers, directors, private sector employees, school counselors, and psychologists. Schools, cultural and artistic institutions, hospitals, courts, religious places are the context of tolerance education. Studies indicated that schools and religious places are the most considered places for the tolerance education (Buela et al., 2021; Edenheim, 2020; Paliy & Pronchenko, 2019).
Recommendations
Distinctive groups and places play an incredible part in tolerance education. In this regard, there is a requirement for more administration cooperation in schools. It is seen that school contexts are the most used place to promote tolerance education. Therefore, studies should investigate teaching tolerance education outside schools, such as in parks or at home. Informal education can also play an important role in promoting tolerance education by involving different communities with different perspectives.
Division of Labor
The division of labor component sheds light on the different role categories and responsibilities in tolerance education studies. State administration focused on explaining the government policies and regulations that are considered for tolerance and empathy as a solution. Teachers concentrate on teaching, designing tolerance-based activities and materials. They are also responsible for facilitating and increasing awareness and competence related to tolerance within students and families.
Recommendations
In most organizations, human resources and technology-related departments should take more active roles in tolerance education modules. There is a need for more collaborative roles to make better tolerance education (Gunawan et al., 2019; Liulka, 2019). Teachers in educational institutions should have enough knowledge on tolerance education, possess the necessary characteristics, and be able to shoulder the required responsibilities (Buela et al., 2021; Reardon & Cabezudo, 2002). To achieve well-being and sustainable educational goals, the school family interaction role is very important to manage risks and diversities through tolerance education (Hidayat & Nasution, 2020). The role of communication in fostering tolerance and democratic society, establishing dialog among students, inspector roles, showing tolerance in the classroom context, making projects are needed roles that should be investigated in the future (Zhazykova, 2019).
Tools
Different tools promote tolerance education, such as games, videos, smartphones, and e-books and electronic forms. Technology is medium as a tool for fostering tolerance. For instance, Suryoresmi and Syamsi (2020) used smartphone applications for learning and teaching tolerance. As the basis of tolerance, enthusiasm is a key concept. This study investigated smartphone applications to increase enthusiasm to encourage students to work on assignments digitally. Meindl et al. (2019) used games to measure the frustration of tolerance. Akcil (2018) investigated the use of mobile learning for visually impaired learners in tolerance education contents. Books are used as tools in facilitating learning tolerance (Ay, 2013). Educational programs and training are other tools to teach tolerance. Within the medium of educational programs and training, collaborative learning, personal social responsibility, and adaptation methods are important to facilitate tolerance education (Tagiyeva, 2021). Language is another tool for tolerance education. In this respect, language scenarios are mostly used in tolerance education (Fleming, 2019).
Recommendations
It is seen that the reviewed studies did not focus too much on making use of the power of digital tools and technology within tolerance education. Therefore, more research should be conducted to investigate how different tools and technology could be used to facilitate tolerance education. In this context, Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) could be both used to promote tolerance education. Those technologies could help learners experience vivid and authentic scenarios virtually, hence better understanding and feeling them rather than simply reading about them (theoretical knowledge). For instance, these technologies could provide virtual scenarios where a potential tension or conflict could occur (in the classroom or the streets), and see how the students would behave. Putting emphasis on digital transformation in education and giving importance to gamification, mobile learning, digital images in facilitating learning tolerance is needed. Additionally, technology could be used to facilitate different activities related to tolerance education. For instance, Vaiz and Guneyli (2018) pointed out that technology-assisted tolerance education should be considered related to inspectors’ qualifications.
Rules
Rules define regulations, norms, explicit and implicit conventions that constrain an activity within tolerance education. The reviewed studies followed some procedures, including (a) self-assessing creativity models, (b) assessing of presentations that are used for the elimination of fanaticism on cultural, gender, social, religious, ethnical differences, (c) training professionals for diversity management, (d) training students to be global citizenships, (e) establishing baseline conditions, (f) designing the experiment or case study, (g) implementing learning activities, and (h) evaluating the learners’ performance based on well-defined measures in tolerance education. Studies in tolerance education indicated that scales, surveys, interviews, observations are used assessment tools for monitoring rules in tolerance education and evaluating attitudes and awareness of participants in tolerance (Çelik, 2018; Mutluer, 2015; Sahin, 2011). Different scales are used for different focuses in tolerance education, as shown in Table 3.
Used Scales for Tolerance in Education Assessment.
Recommendations
From the obtained findings, it is seen that more focus should be paid to training different stakeholders (e.g., families, teachers, learners) about technology use and competencies, hence making use of the full potential of technologies in promoting and facilitating tolerance education (as discussed in section 4.5). Assessment is a crucial step in tolerance education to evaluate the attitudes and behaviors of the different involved stakeholders. From the obtained findings, it is seen that most of the studies used surveys to measure the collected data. Researchers, however, claimed that using surveys can be not motivating for learners since they are typically too long (Tlili et al., 2016). Additionally, learners may not reveal their accurate information and try to respond in a fashionable way when they feel that they are being assessed by others (Okada & Oltmanns, 2009). Therefore, with the rapid growth of technology and in the era of educational big data and learning analytics, researchers should focus more on using the rich generated log data of their learners to assess them and provide insights about the learning process, when discussing tolerance education.
Outcomes
Table 4 shows that four main outcome areas were identified from the reviewed studies, namely behavior and attitude change (38.05%), development needs (4.87%), promotion of ideas and values (27.43%), and training and education methods (29.65%). Among the sub-outcomes, the highest ones are increasing awareness related to tolerance and tolerance education (11.85%), multicultural aspects (7.96%), and awareness activities (7.08%). It should be noted that several studies investigated more than one outcome, such as appreciation, social well-being, promotion of solidarity, and social events (Baklashova et al., 2015; Islam, 2020; Schwecke, 2019).
Distribution of Study Outcomes.
Recommendations
Increasing awareness, multicultural and religious were the most investigated areas in tolerance education (Aslan & Aybek, 2020; Boghian, 2016; Dursun-Bilgin et al., 2018; Lazovsky, 2007; Sahin, 2011). In future studies, it is important to consider tolerance education in all education levels and increase and integrate different activities rather than mainly focusing on awareness. The area of development needs in tolerance education is less considered. It is seen that the internalization of tolerance should be conducted for further studies. Additionally, in the behavioral and attitude change area, social well-being should be studied in further studies. The promotion of solidarity is an essential area in tolerance education. In this respect, more research focusing on creative arts-based approach, social events, solidarity, global citizenship are highly needed.
Conclusion
In order to understand the process involved in tolerance education and the role played by its various stakeholders, this systematic review probed into the design, implementation, and outcome of tolerance education research through the perspective of Cultural Historical Activity Theory. Significant components of tolerance education system were analyzed. The analysis showed that researchers and practitioners need to involve more stakeholders, such as parents and administrators, within the process of tolerance education. Additionally, tolerance education should cover more focus, such as disability, inclusiveness, and cyberbullying and hate. Furthermore, the researcher should harness the power of technology to promote teacher education effectively. This connection among the CHAT components would create more effective learning and generate more significant benefits for learners and other stakeholders. The review further provided recommendations based on each activity component so that existing challenges, gaps, and contradictions can be minimized in future design and implementation of tolerance education.
Several limitations should be acknowledged. For instance, the review results are limited by the used search keywords and databases. However, despite this limitation, this study provided a solid ground to summarize the current progress and gaps related to tolerance education. Future directions could further investigate how the use of technology, such as AR/VR, could help in teaching tolerance education, as well as assessing students.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethics Statement
Approval was obtained from the Near East University ethics committee for this research: YDU/EB/2020/488
