'To tolerate or not to tolerate?'

Abstract

Introduction and Discussion 1.1 Research objectives 1.2 Theoretical and empirical background 1.3 Research contexts 1.4 Overview of the empirical chapters 1.5 Insights 1.6 Discussion Chapter 2 Tolerance of minority practices: The roles of deprovincialization and identity continuity concern 2.1 14 CH A P T ER 1relation between tolerance and these three aspects by looking at the extent to which majority group members: 1) endorse a deprovincialized, nuanced perspective of their ingroup; 2) display outgroup respect for outgroup members as equal citizens; and 3) consider it important that the ingroup and outgroup harmoniously coexist.16sometimes the focus is on immigrant groups in general and specific practices of these groups (e.g., raising children with own cultural traditions); sometimes on religious minority practices (e.g., ritual slaughter, which can be a Jewish or a Muslim tradition); and sometimes on Muslim minorities specifically (e.g., a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf ). Each study has a particular focus which will be explained per chapter, but as a whole the dissertation covers a diversity of minority groups and practices in order not to limit the study of tolerance to one target-group and one practice only. This makes it possible to examine whether explanations for tolerance generalize across target-groups (i.e., Western immigrants, non-Western immigrants, Muslim immigrants: see Chapter 3) and different type of actions (e.g., enacting a practice or mobilizing others: see Chapter 4). In this synthesis I summarize these under the header 'minority practices', and will specify the focus in the respective chapters.The remainder of this Introductory chapter is structured as follows. First, I will discuss the theoretical and empirical background of tolerance, and its relation to the explanatory and conditioning factors described above. Second, I will elaborate on the research contexts of the Netherlands and Germany, and third, I will present the data and methods used for the empirical studies in this dissertation. Fourth, I will synthesize the insights from the four empirical studies. Finally, the contributions of this dissertation, its implications, limitations, directions for future research and overall conclusions are discussed. Theoretical and empirical background 1.2.1 Intergroup toleranceTolerance is a concept widely used and in various ways, as well as in different scientific fields. However, in the literature two main understandings of tolerance are proposed and examined. First, in the social psychological literature, starting with the seminal work of Allport (1954), tolerance is often understood in its modern sense as openness, and the full acceptance and appreciation of diversity: tolerance as the opposite of prejudice (Hjerm et al., 2021;Verkuyten et al., 2021). Much of the psychological and social science research on intergroup relations and many international policy documents consider modern tolerance, such as UNESCO's Declaration of principles on tolerance (1995), 20 CH A P T ER 1 outgroup prejudic...