Tolerance as an imperative for higher education and democracy
Abstract
Beyond the noise and din of the numerous #feesmustfall campaigns, there arose deeper concerns of the lack of regard on display not only between protesters and institutional authorities, but between protesting and non-protesting students. Of course, protests by their nature are manifestations of perceivably unheard and unrecognised demands and plights, which make the flaring of tempers inevitable. But, perhaps, what defined the student protests most distinctly were not the impassioned calls for economic accessibility, transformation, and decolonisation, but its volatility, and, at times, sheer contempt. The concern of this article is to offer a conceptual consideration of tolerance as an educational imperative within higher education, and democracy. That is, if higher education is to fulfil its responsibility in relation to the public good, then it has to espouse those virtues that are most likely to contribute to peaceful and harmonious co-existence.
References
Aronowitz, S. & Giroux, H.A. 2000, The corporate university and the politics of
education. The Educational Forum, 64:332–339.
Badat, S. 2010. The Challenges of Transformation in Higher Education and Training Institutions in South Africa. Paper Commissioned by the Development Bank of Southern Africa. https://www.ru.ac.za/.../The%20Challenges%20of%20Transformation%20in%20High [Accessed on 13th June 2016].
Badat, S. 2016. Deciphering the Meanings, and Explaining the South African Higher Education Student Protests of 2015-16. wiser.wits.ac.za/.../Saleem%20Badat%20%20Deciphering%20the%20Meanings,%20a... [Accessed on 15th of June 2016].
Bauer-Wolf, J. 2017. The bias that a college ignores? Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/29/lawsuit-highlights-jewish-students-frustrations-san-francisco-state. [Accessed 20th January 2018].
Bothwell, E. 2017. Chinese students ‘use university education to justify intolerant views’. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/chinese-students-use-university-education-justify-intolerant-views. [Accessed on 21st January 2018].
Author 2016. Does caring about those we teach make a difference to violence in schools? Implications for democratic citizenship in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Studies, 3(2): 55 - 63.
Authors. 2017. Tolerance and Dissent within Education: On cultivating Debate and Understanding. New York & London: Palgrave MacMillan
Davies, L. 2015. Educating against extremism in higher education, University World News, Issue no. 381. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150908141823553
[Accessed 20 January 2018].
Dawes, S. 2014. Interview with Henry A. Giroux: The Neoliberalisation of Higher Education
https://smdawes.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/interview-with-henry-a-giroux-the-neoliberalisation-of-higher-education/. [Accessed 20 January 2018].
Department of Education. 2008. Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation
and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in Public Higher Education
Institutions. Pretoria: Government Printers.
.
Dreid, N. 2016. Muslim students are reportedly attacked on campuses in wake Religious Intolerance on Campus 21 of election. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/muslim-students-are-reportedly-attacked-on-campuses-in-wake-of-election/115475. [Accessed 20 January 2018].
Fiala, A.G. 2002. Toleration and pragmatism. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New
Series, 16(2):103–116.
Fosnacht, K. & Broderick, C. 2017. An Overlooked Factor? How Religion and Spirituality
Influence Students’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education
Researchers Association, San Antonio, TX, May 2017.
Gutmann, A. 1987. Democratic education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hall, M. 2016. South Africa’s student protests have lessons for all universities. Higher Education Network.
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/mar/03/south-africas-student-protests-have-lessons-for-all-universities. [Accessed 15th of June 2016].
Giroux, H.A. 1992. Educational leadership and the crisis of democratic government.
Educational Researcher, 21(4):4–11.
Giroux, H.A. & Samalavicius, A. (2016). Higher education and neoliberal temptation:
A conversation with Henry Giroux. www.eurozine.com/articles/2016-05-04-giroux-en.html. [Accessed 15th of June 2016].
Hughes, L, & Harley, N. (2015) Students clash with police during protest in central London over university fees
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11975489/student-protest-police-violence-latest-updates.html. [Accessed 20 January 2018].
Kim, H. 2011. South Korea: Tuition fees cut after protests, Issue No.117
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20110623153900892
[Accessed 19 January 2018].
Lukianoff, G. 2017. New Report: The Push Against Campus Speakers Is Getting More Intense
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/new-report-the-push-again_b_5417664.html
[Accessed 19 January 2018].
MacGregor, K. 2016. The human costs of student tumult – An untold story. University World News, Issue NO. 414, 21 May 2016.
MacIntyre, A. 1999. Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (London: Duckworth).
MacIntyre, A. 2006. What is wrong with weakness of will? The Journal of Philosophy,103(6):
–311.
Mouffe, C. 2000. The democratic paradox. London: Verso.
Mouffe, C. 2005. On the political. London, UK: Routledge.
Murphy, A.R. 1997. Tolerance, toleration, and the liberal tradition. Polity, 29(4):593–623.
Oshana, M. 1998. Personal autonomy and society. Journal of Social Philosophy, 29(1):81
Pring, R. 2103. What is an educated person? Address given to the Education Forum
NUI Maynooth, 20th June, 2013.
Reisberg, L. 2014. A Future of Growing Intolerance?
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/future-growing-intolerance
[Accessed 19 January 2018].
Sandalow, T. 1991. ‘The Moral Responsibilities of Universities’. In Moral Values and
Higher Education, edited by D. L. Thompson. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University,
Suttner, R. 2016. Op-Ed: Student protests, an indictment of “post-apartheid” South Africa. 11 February 2016. www.dailymaverick.co.za/.../2016-02-11-op-ed-student-protests-an-indictment-of-po. [Accessed 14th of June 2016].
Swingler, S. 2017. #FeesMustFall: Protests disrupt exam at UCT but varsity stays open
[Accessed 20 January 2018].
The Guardian (2015) Attempts to ban speakers 'put mission of universities at risk'
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/banning-shouting-down-speakers-universities-risk. [Accessed 20 January 2018].
Todd, S. 2011. Educating beyond cultural diversity: Redrawing the boundaries of a democratic plurality. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30(2), 101–111.
Todd, S. & Säfström, C.A. 2008. Democracy, education and conflict: Rethinking respect and the place of the ethical. Journal of Educational Controversy, 3(1):1–11.
Walzer, M. 1997. On toleration. New York: Yale University Press.
Copyright (c) 2019 Nuraan Davids
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
