Measuring College Students ’ Perceptions to Tolerance Dimensions : Socio-Anthropological Study at Cairo

The study aimed to exploring the level of tolerance of students towards certain social and religious factors such as gender, ethnicity, caste, religion and religious sects, Also this study focused on how the Tolerance statue can be reformed from being just a value to be a way of life or a way of thinking which transfer it from being emotions manner to be intellectual and rational manner. Due to this assumption, this study supposes that one of the most direct ways to improve such tolerance and co-existence is through education for tolerance by having such knowledge (cognitive competence) that will help especially youth to develop the conscious mind, be more tolerant and avoid prejudices and stereotypes. This paper identifies two keys educational challenges to learn and teach tolerance: (1) discuss the social and cultural determination of tolerance (socio-culture environment and background) (2) identifies the reason of tolerance change recently at the Egyptian society. For achieving that, this study will depend on focus group and Scale as analysis tools for discussion both determinations and obstacles of socio-culture tolerance. Also, it is important to reveal students’ perception about tolerance after participated in some academic program at the university. Also this study will depend on content analysis to university curricula and activities. It is concluded that there are still a gab inside higher education towards the relationship between youth cognitive competence and inter-ethnic tolerance.


Introduction
Egypt is a country that has special identity and has Middle Eastern customs.It is noticeable by the tolerance and co-existence values at all history, but this value may appear and increase in some periods and disappear in the other according to social and cultural determinations and factors.Recently many political events has happened after the Egyptian revolution and has some impacts on the tolerance value at Egypt society.According to that, this study supposes that there is still a gap inside the educational system towards the relationship between youth cognitive competence and inter-ethnic tolerance.Therefore, this study aims to address this gap among the university's students and also trying to put empirical solution to reduce this gap and transmit the concept of socio-cultural tolerance to the real Egyptian educational curricula.
Also, this study stresses on the attitude of Academic skills approach which is important within the curriculum and this perspective is supported by Wachter (2000) who argues that "part of the qualifications and skills passed by universities to the next generation will not only be 'international' but also 'intercultural'.Here, this research asserts of the importance of faculty of Education educational curricula in providing correct information and knowledge to deal with and eliminate students' misconceptions about the 'other' in order to achieve better inter-ethnic and social tolerance relationship.
According to that, the purpose of the study is to foster undergraduate students' intercultural competence by having them read articles on topics of their own culture and communicate their responses with speakers of another culture; Moreover, training them on how to use this interdisciplinary data in creating educational film about the intolerance topic and accidents.
According to that the research target is to highlight the Tolerance in Education not as a value but as a way of thinking which help young people develop their intellectual skills for independent judgment, raise the critical thinking , serve the Egyptian society by connecting with all the institutions and civil societies that working at this regard.We are all part of the solution.

Research Objectives
The current study is trying to answer these questions:-What is the student's vision of the social and culture Tolerance definition?What is the aspects of social and culture Tolerance among University students?How do the students reflect their perception of Tolerance in written and oral opinions?
What are the basic and sub-components to develop social and culture Tolerance among students ?What are the main opportunities and challenges do Egyptian education systems face in terms of educating for tolerance, respect for diversity and active citizenship?
Also the current research supposes that there is statically significance between male and female towards their views to some aspects of Tolerance , There is difference between lower grade and higher grade in their perception to the tolerance dimensions , The more self-confidence the students have in their life , the more ability to change the society to be peaceful status.

Hypothesis of the Study
1-There is a difference between male and Female Towards the concept of Tolerance and its applications.
2-There is a difference between the lower grade and the highest grade of students in respect to their perceptions for the tolerance.
3-The more feeling confidently, the more behave tolerantly.

Theoretical Framework and Related Literature
The English words 'toleration' is derived from the Latin terms 'tolerate' and 'tolerant' which imply enduring, and forbearance".The concept of tolerance has been highly studying by different disciplines such as psychology, anthropology and sociology because of its value.(Stephen Alfred, 2000& Fiala, Andrew, 2004).
The Oxford English dictionary defines tolerance as: 'The ability or the desire to tolerate the existence of ideas or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with'.'To tolerate' may defined as: '[to] allow the existence, or practice of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference'.Other definitions include 'interest in ideas, opinions, etc., foreign to one's own', 'a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint' and 'the act or capacity of enduring'.
Likewise, tolerance is to respect the rights of other people who have ideas and values that do not match with a person's own ideas and values (Kele, 1995: 73).Wilson (1991) defines tolerance as allowing many ideas that could be different to be expressed and as approaching other people within a worldwide goal, being self-govering of value differences.
It is important to acknowledge that the concept of tolerance has some restrictions, particularly in actions' (Hodge & Wolfer, 2008).One of the important difenation in that area is Locke's letter on toleration which consider one of the main view towards social and cultural tolerance, Although Locke gave us a widely describition for the need for tolerance , However he mentioned that that unrestricted Tolerance could destroy the tolerance process and the value inside any society , Here Locke refused to take into his account the "Taboo idea" mainly when the tolerance became absolute regime.(Burnham, 2004 PP11-12).So, According to him the tolerance concept itself as a value requires specific limitation and restrictions in its uses and functions, on the other meaning we must to tolerate with an justification way and with an acceptable way to other believers even if we couldn't agree with their habits , beliefs and so on .(see(Vetovec,Steven,1997&Rescher Qwen,1997).According to that, Williams called tolerance "an impossible virtue" because it is not only account as a hardly manner but it also explanation as essential part of living in peaceful conditions.(Williams, 1996) According to that, this study of tolerance emperically is defined as "low levels of bias towards gender, caste, ethnicity, other religions and religious sects.
The theoretical framework that influenced on the study's aims is also accessible to prove the necessity of developing faculty development programs to internationalize curriculum that integrate transformative, cross-disciplinary and intercultural relations perspectives as central components of the design.For some, the term "tolerance" may not truly express the multifaceted model of open-minded acceptance and gratitude that educational leaders progressively believe is a critical goal of higher education, for this purposes, however the "tolerance" defines as the ability to accept individuals for who they are (Chickering and Reisser, 1993).
In this 2002 book, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti examines the most difficulties which toleration meetings , she pointed that the problem is not religious or moral disagreement or disacceptance but the unsatisfactory status of different social groups.Galeotti proposes, consider toleration as recognition, which addresses the problem of according equal respect to groups as well as equal liberty to individuals.According to this revise in understanding toleration, this research will examine whether we should revise our thinking on toleration in the way that Galeotti proposes, so, the research defines the tolerance in the field work as a discipline moves towards sharing information, reaching comprehension, paying attention to the other and speaking frankly.It shows that each pattern of which incites emotions and wounding speech.It expresses uprightness in thought and ethics as people interact.It adheres to principles of justice and honesty.It provides the opportunity to correct ideas and examine distorted images of one another.Tolerance leads to trust and the establishment of relations of friendship in the community.Kathe Taylor also discuses the relationship between intellectual competence and tolerance exactly how educational system develop the tolerance value inside the educational system , he claims that this relationship became mandatory for our societies to be survive peacefully (Taylor, 1994)).
Also, there are many previous studies were discussed the relation between intercultural competence and learning tolerance, the literature demonstrates that culture affects the way students learn.On the whole, research shows that increased student tolerance is closely associated with providing more opportunities for students to develop interethnic friendships (Godwin, Ausbrooks and Martinez, 2001;Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006).There is strong evidence to support the fact that intergroup friendships much more likely in non-segregated environments reduce prejudice toward other racial and/or ethnic groups (Davies et al. 2011;Pettigrew and Tropp 2006;Hodson 2011;Paluck and Green 2009).However, it is too often assumed that simply bringing young people from different backgrounds together is sufficient to reduce prejudice and encourage intercultural relations.Existing research indicates that ethnic desegregation is insufficient to promote increased ethnic tolerance (Thijs and Verkuy-ten, 2014).Bobo and Licari (1989) found that higher education led to cognitive sophistication, which in turn resulted in tolerance for diverse groups, such as atheists, interracial couples, and communists.Astin (1977) found that college students undergo changes in their attitudes and values as they progress through their undergraduate education, and these changes continue long after the students have left college (Spaeth& Greeley, 1970).

Methodology
This study examined the relationship between tolerance and intercultural education as applied to undergraduates and graduate students at Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University using a Focus Group Guide as a Qualitative Method for undergraduate students.Respectively, the focus group interview was chosen to be the main method for collecting data concerning Students' perceptions, feelings and attitudes towards socio-cultural tolerance patterns and traits.In addition, this study aimed to find relationship between these inputs and its impacts on learning process and their progress they achieved through their studies at faculty of education at Ain Shams University in Cairo.This group was subdivided into two groups including equally 12 men and 12 women covering different grades, departments either humanity or scientific.The guide in Focus group interview was designed to address the following issues throughout close communication with undergraduates: Tolerance Manifestations, Tolerance Dimensions and the results of Tolerance on the student consciousness.The students were also asked a series of questions on how they would feel interacting with the others who are different in gender, religion and culture, What does "tolerance" mean?Why should we tolerate one another?How would you show tolerance in your college?What does it mean to tolerate people?Why do we need to be tolerant?What are the benefits of tolerating people who are different from us in culture and religion?
For the quantities method, Social and Religious Tolerance were examined using the scale with 23 statements, sample was drawn from undergraduates and graduate students from the Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University who registered and enlisted in governmental universities located in Cairo.Participants were selected purposefully to include the first, fourth grade and Master Degree students comprehensively covering first year students up to Master grade.A measure created for use in the present study, which asked individuals about their perception of their abilities to tolerate and communicate with the other people who are different in religion, culture, gender and thought.The content of the items was based on how individuals might perceive the physiological and behavioral tolerance, the study depended on Likert scale ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree", Or agree to some extent.The sample of this cross-sectional study consisted of 200 Egyptian college students selected using convenience sampling.Participants included 100 (50%) male and 100 (50%) female students, ranging in age between 18 and 28 years old.

1-students' perception for the definition of Tolerance based on Gender:
The statements of the scale was sitting to measure all the Tolerance definition and components as following: Tolerance is defined as the admiration of other view .
• The core of tolerance is the right of people to act according to their beliefs, even when there are others who disagree with that belief.
• Tolerance is not a cooperation, forgiveness behavior.In its essence, tolerance is an active attitude on the basis of recognition of the established universal human rights and freedoms.
• Being tolerant means not to apply any pressure on anyone to change his/her beliefs, to respect conflicting opinions and habits.
• Tolerance is generally understood as the willingness of individuals to accept the right of everyone to be different.It means to respect the opinions of others without being critical.According to the figure 1, It Was shown here that the female more tolerance 75% than male 68% but with a few percentages.Hence the first hypnosis was rejected that there is no difference between male and female and its application at the real life.
Some students who didn't agree about these statements , they prefer to avoid to get into any debate through the opinion discussion Or avoid the people who have different cultural and religious attitudes.Those students didn't agree that the meaning of tolerance is the recognition of the other beliefs , However they can only agree that the tolerance meaning could carry few kinds of accepting the other opinion in respect the common culture inside Egypt society.
According to that the study reaches to Galeotti definition for the tolerance as sharing information or recognition the other opinion.The results reveal that there is spastically relationship between the level of Tolerance and the university grade , Using this result, a clear relationship between educational level and tolerance for diversity has consistently been noted by previous researcher exactly how educational system affects tolerance and because the increasing need for intercultural competence to be able to survive in a tolerate society.

2-The relationship between Level of tolerance and College grade
It is shown that lower level students will have more negative attitudes towards some definitions and aspects of tolerance 66%, for example they have shown negative attitudes towards women working than upper-level students especially master students 76%.It has been found out those young students who are in the first grade are always trying and struggling to have good relationships with the others who are religiously different.It is also found that undergraduate students having less tolerant attitudes in comparison to those postgraduates who are more tolerant with others.
According to that, Some researches asserts that the toleration was extended to individuals by granting them rights to choose , this right gives them the high degree of confident and making them freely in acquiring some experience of the best ways to deal with the others.

3-The relation between high self-confidence and tolerance level
The majority of the students as represented in the scale felt that the more self-confinement they can get from the society, the more tolerance towards the others, These percentages were associated with a vast statements of their views towards the ability to deal with the other freely and confinement.Item 9 (The ability to choose my own friends freely) Item 18 (The ability of participating with society freely) Figure 3.The percentage of responses to the research sample with respect to high level of confidence and tolerance Most of students 75% agreed that having the right to choose their friends freely makes them more tolerant than the other who has some social and culture obstacles that preventing them from that right.It is concluded from the interview that Young youth are searching for new groups, new ideas and new values to adopt.They have also feeling to liberate themselves from the firm tides of school and family.Most of young youth, the object of sample, show real hope to leave their communities belonging to and looking for another communities to be part of their structure without having the requirements leading them to be active members of those communities.In fact, the lack of these requirements impact negatively of having rational choices between different alternatives.This understanding also leads them to fail to differentiate between what is fruitful and good for them comparing to other harmful things.That is why, we got a good reason of why some of young students intentionally and voluntarily involve in some of Islamic groups particularly in the first year of their academic life.
This target of the happiness and self confidence are agreeable with what Taylor called by recognition.If equal recognition of difference is to be genuine, we have to share some standards of value on which the identities concerned check out as equal.Without that, our assertion of the equal value of different identities will be empty and a sham (Honneth,1995).It has revealed from the scale in Table ( 5) that the majority of the students (97%) have more open and positive attitudes towards disabilities.

4-students' perception for the Dimensions of Tolerance:-
Respondents were asked to react to the claim that women have all the rights to be working after the marriage , by ranking their agreement on a scale , The percentage found here is much higher between female more than male.But in general, Egyptian students have very similar attitudes towards women who work to those of the older generations.There are significant differences between males' and females' perceptions towards women's roles and participation in society.The study showed that 88 percent of students believe that a woman's right in working became genuine right in the modern life.The study predicts that modernity may diminish patriarchal attitudes towards women in Arab societies.Egyptians have a genuine belief that women should perform all household tasks like cooking and cleaning, beside her working in the public sector.
In the other hand, the majority of students couldn't tolerate with the discriminated people 37.5%, couldn't respect the other opinion 47.5%, they refused to yield to the other opinion or even dealing with it as different thinking, Withdrawal from any debate around some general idea, haven't the negotiation skills 59.5%.
According to that rate, students responds was matching with Locke view for refusing the absolute virtue , They rejected all the statements which pointed the dealing with discrimination as kind of open minded , Instead of that they asserts that the tolerance with violence, terrorists and fanatic situations may destroying the tolerance itself.
It is concluded from the focus group interview that there are three patterns of student's view towards dealing with the other, The first group of students which I called them " Isolated group" who prefer to go beyond their reality or be entirely isolated and apart from their real society by adopting some forms of carelessness and submissive attitude regarding to any problem or issue relates to their society, This kind of transcendence may lead them to a pattern of alienation , the study revealed that This form of social alienation can be traced in different aspects such as avoiding any educational, cultural and social activities among different students in Race, religion and ideological approach, one of postgraduate students stated "I don't know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain an activate conversation".One of them stated through the interview "Communicating with the other culture and religion may effect on our identity and may change our moral".This group represented few percentages at the current study and most of them from the youngest students especially the first grade students.
According to that, It is found from the field work that great deal of students prefer living apart from the others and they have a belief that being away from others help both to reduce chances and possibilities of fanaticism and violent actions and then the more peaceful tone will be dominated between them.This form of social alienation can be traced in different aspects such as avoiding any educational and social activities with the other who is religiously different except a few cases.As a fact, we have not to astonish if we found that such speech could create the intolerance statue among students.
The second group of students who represented the majority of the sample " the willingness group" who have the desire to deal and knowing more people who are different from them , However they didn't practice well to play that role, it was revealed from the interview that the main challenge for them is not owning the real picture or sufficient knowledge and tools which assisting them to communicate with the other in the right way, this was obvious through the discussion with them as they always asked me "how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture, I didn't try it before", one of undergraduate students stated : "I haven't the chance to contact with the other culture, my family will not allow to me to make a relationship with the other people who are different from me in religious, culture and also in my social class which I belong to , and even they give me the freedom to do it , I afraid that I can't ", the problem is obviously stated at female , one of them stated" I can't talk or debate with my professor, most of them will not allow to us to discuss some sensitive issues , it will create many problems especially between Muslim and Christian students and the university system will not allow to give such a space for this conversation" .We can realize here that most of students couldn't choose the correct thinking because they didn't training on freely thinking and freely making decision.Egyptian adults were disappointed because of the fact that university and high institutes could not prepare them well to make good ties with different culture and different religious.
Also, It has been discovered from the interview that students believe in serious obstacles existed toward new social concept adjustment, Here, They have a common belief that the university neither adjust new modern techniques in their studies nor new modern forms of intellectual development to help them not to fail in adjusting these kinds of new and modern concepts.
There are another sort of students , the third group who I called them " the open minded group" as they have an open-minded tend to have cognitive flexibility in adapting new ideas and willingness to change.He or she is more likely to tolerate ambiguity of an unfamiliar situation.An open-minded person is receptive to different ideas and seeks to extend understanding of new and unfamiliar fields.Thus, open-minded students are willing to transform themselves to different ideas and approaches, cultures, religion and positively accept values that are different from their own.This group is representing in few cases, they realize that they have to go beyond the statue of negative coexistence with the other especially who is religiously different.One of the Master student stated: "I am interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a society and not only the dominant culture".Someone else in Master Degree stated "I know some important facts about living in the other cultures and about foreign countries and I am willing to travel and live with them for a while to extend my mind and my knowledge".This understanding forcedly led them to depend on their own thought and capabilities by participating in some conservation through the internet, Although this is available way for them, however some students point that this way having risk because they haven't such training about best ways of dealing with the other or how to deal with the other peacefully or even how can this dealing be done successfully.
Approximately 63.5% of the respondents agreed that the poverty and the poor circumstances may have impacts on the tolerance status of Egypt society , this result could meet with some Egyptian researches which studies the impacts of unemployment and the poverty on the violence in general.
Around 71.5% were willing to accept that the media playing an important role in decreasing the discrimination and the violence between people in society in respect to the vast used of modernistic technology and its influences especially among youth.
The vast majority (79.5%) of the students agreed with a statement indicating that the university activities and curricula playing an important role in raising the level of tolerance, They added from the interview that Intercultural education cannot be just simple adds some data to the regular curriculum, It needs to concern the learning environment as a whole, as well as other dimensions of educational processes, such as college life, teacher experience and training, languages of instruction, teaching methods, curricula activities, and learning materials This result is adopting with some related literature which indicated that the tolerance can be reformed through .the inclusion of multiple perspectives and voices (see: Livermore 1998and Elburn 1987), Also Taylor found a statistically significant, but small relationship between tolerance for diversity and intellectual development and intercultural competence (Taylor 1994).
The students asserts of the importance of the educational curricula reformation in order to provide correct information and knowledge to deal with and eliminate students' misconceptions about the 'other' and achieve better inter-ethnic and social tolerance relationship.There is empirical support that higher education leads to more open-minded persons.Hyman and Wright (1979) reported that higher education was related to a positive change in attitudes and values.Also Otten (2003), who acknowledges the Preparation of teacher to replace the traditional education to be intercultural education as it doesn't happen when adding some international data or setting the students between different cultures.
The study also shows that, for instance, negative opinions and negative perceptions towards the role of socialization (45.5%) in raising the tolerance level, due to new social changes and new reality emerged by the grace of both internal economical reformation policies from one hand and globalization policies from another hand, students have an internal conflict between what is dogmatically and traditional believe towards the other especially who is different in gender, culture and religion and due to communication revolution such as internet and what the international media broadcast which contradicts with what they strongly believe, The problem here is not to what extent is the clash between what is traditional accepted and what is global accepted which adult think but the problem is representing in lacking of tools which will help them to deal with the new global concepts, and this is was obvious when they start talking about some global concept such as tolerance, Democracy, Legitimacy of difference, reconciliation, social peace, co-existence, Freedom and human rights.Moreover most of undergraduate students haven't clear picture about the differences and similarities between some concepts like tolerance and Leniency, the relation between freedom and human rights and the other involved concepts in the interview guide.
So, most of cases having similar attitudes towards ignoring some socio-cultural concepts and submitted themselves entirely to such heritable concepts, so they stated that they prefer to adjust with traditional thought because they haven't enough knowledge about how to apply the tolerate thought, or how to use it in everyday life, Thus, those students depended totally on what they learned only from their parents, and they depend on maintaining and reproducing all the traditional and old fashion ideas and values which leading them to all forms of cultural and social submissive and sometimes discriminative issue.This situation has negative effects on some vital concepts like social tolerance between Muslims and christens students; As a result, there was no chance for serious clashes to be existed between Muslims and Christians students inside the university, However there is a form of hidden clash or an immanent clash that can be explored psychologically or a negative feeling could be emerged from time to time, so we can decide that the social tolerance as a way of life is not fully steady or rooted in its rank between students in the university.
This leads to the fact that this group have the particularly sub-cultural that give them the power and the ability to make adaptation between the real of their life in the society and their hopes in the future, also it provides them the mental capacity to select the features of identity which assist them to acclimatize with the dominated culture and make available to correspond with the global cultural and correlate with the modernization , they have faith that the modernization is not absolutely evil ,Because of the fact that they are continuously depending on technology.Here the educational system has impacts on their lives.Being an inevitable foundation, Educational system provides them with both creative and critical thinking leading them toward fruitful and productive interaction with others.
Most of cases refer to the university as a part of the holistic unified culture of society, university policies here used to reproduce submissive relationships between new generations and structure of university based on hierarchic discipline of family which similarly looks like social structure of both school and university that based on hierarchic authority as well.There is kind of similarity between school culture and university culture towards educational process and its contents which is normally based on memorizing and recalling what has been memorized before regardless practical and scientific skills that are eagerly wanted by modern markets and modern technical life, the other cases described it as obligated education and understanding it as courses "given" and requires some memorizing qualities only to achieve the success in the final exam.Here all cases were disappointed because of the fact that university could not well prepare them to encounter modern challenged emerged by new technological revolution.This understanding forcedly led them to depend on their own activities by learning new foreign languages and computer skills as basically source of enhancement their intellectual abilities.In that

Discussion
Students and socio-cultural Tolerance: alienation dimensions the study revealed that most of students inside the university frequently facing a high rank of hesitation toward what should they transmit to deal with each other in different situation because they themselves suffering from their choosing between the heritable tradition and modernization values especially in the last period which the whole society was influenced by the modernization, and these process of backing to heritable tradition and forward to the modern life gives us a clue of why the adults personality is always obedience, hesitating between the ancient and the modern and it reflects in general the way of dealing with other problems.

Table 1 .
Distribution of sample based on College grade and the Gender

Table 2 .
The relationship between The Tolerance level and the Gender

table Indication level 0.01 Gender and The Tolerance Level 198 0.432 0.181 indicator Figure
1. Percentage of male and female sample responses with respect to tolerance level

Table 3 .
The relationship between Level of tolerance and College grade Figure 2. Percentage of the responses of research sample in terms of university grade with respect to tolerance difination

Table 4 .
Indication of correlation between high self-confidence and tolerance level

Table 5 .
Dimensions of Tolerance