International Journal on Lifelong Education and Leadership (2018), 4(2)

International Journal on Lifelong Education and Leadership (2018), 4(2) 
3 
In the multicultural society, tolerance is an essential precondition for intercultural cooperation and 
peacekeeping. The research carried out by European Commission in 2015 (
Special Eurobarometer 437 – 
Discrimination in the EU in 2015
) highlights that two out of three Europeans have friends with different 
religions or beliefs (73% of respondents) (total number of respondents 27,718), but three out of five 
Europeans have friends with different ethnic origins (67% of respondents). The most widespread forms of 
discrimination in the European Union are ethnic origin - 64%, sexual orientation - 58%, and attitudes 
towards transgendered persons - 56% (European Commission, 2015). 
In the process of tolerance formation, personal development is promoted and person`s emotional 
intelligence is developed. It must be admitted that individual tolerance criteria that promote active civic 
position and individual's psychological readiness to be tolerant and create positive interactions when a 
person comes into contact with the different, are different: (I) stability of personality; (II) empathy - an 
adequate understanding of what is happening in the inner world of another person; (III) thinking 
divergence - the ability to deal with common tasks in an unusual way; (IV) elasticity of behavioral patterns 
- the ability to change the tactics depending on the situation; (V) social activity - an individual activity for 
building constructive relationships in society (Osis, Ose, 2006). 
The acquisition of civic education at school boosts social capital (Heggart, 2015), promotes capacity of 
democracy (Martens, Gainous, 2012), promotes collective action (Kanter, Schneider, 2013) and the 
preparedness of schoolchildren for multicultural democracy (Macedo, 2003), creating tolerant student 
attitudes in the existing pluralism (Wolf, Macedo, 2004) and understanding of democratic values (Kuran, 
2014). In a complex and multi-faceted pedagogical process, the implementation of civic education cannot 
be disconnected from the existing changing reality and the content of the common education: "the process 
of learning has to work with the realities, then it will be possible to educate people to be people" (Šteiners, 
2007, p. 42). As the educator D. Prets stresses, "education is not the process of filling the vacuum or 
correcting the deficiencies, but providing the conditions in which the opportunities included in a person 
develop in their entirety. Learning, on the other hand, is a moral achievement when a person chooses 
altruism instead of self-interest, reconciliation rather than conflict, excellence rather than mediocrity, 
work rather than laziness, justice rather than repression" (Prets, 2000, p. 21, p. 36). One of the aims of 
civic education is to create a civically active person's position to take the responsibility for his/her life and 
the life of others. Promoting tolerance is important pedagogical value in the process of acquisition of civic 
education, because tolerance is a prerequisite for people's mutual understanding (Ильин, 2009). It is the 
ability of a person to understand different looking for peaceful resolution of conflicts, reducing and 
eliminating various barriers. 
The quality of the content and acquisition of civic education directly affects the quality of life of each 
person and society. Personality traits such as self-confidence, ability to influence one's destiny, social and 
civic competence, obligation consciousness, tolerance, altruism and empathy are no less important than 
cognitive abilities. Cultural education, as described by the educational researcher T. Erlih, is a combination 
of knowledge, skills, values and motivation that allows the quality of society to be promoted, while in the 
center of civic education there is a tolerant, moral and civic citizen (Ehrlich, 2000). Thus, civic education 
can be characterized, among other things, as one of the preconditions for the development of tolerant 
attitude of young people towards themselves, their peers and the environment. 
The knowledge and experience of world history allows us to be aware of the possible consequences of 
intolerance, which has become an extremeness of national chauvinism, which served as one of the causes 
for both the First World War and the Second World War. In order to prevent and mitigate possible 
geopolitical provocations of the 21st century and ensure the coexistence of different people, thinking 
about common future challenges and finding common elements in the common history, more attention 
needs to be paid to the issues of tolerance in school education. It should be noted that in the preamble of 
tolerance of The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (
UNESCO
), the most 
effective means of promoting tolerance and reducing intolerance is education (UNESCO, 1995).