‘Across multiple disciplines in the social sciences, the study of social inequality represents a prominent area of research.’
Social tolerance has commonly factored as a point of political study. This can be seen as a result of an increasingly pluralistic society, which encompasses vast elements of race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality and general diversity. Due to this greater emphasis has been cast upon the concept toleration. To a degree this can be perceived as a result of globalization, which has seen a vast influx of people from low income to high-income countries. Social intolerance can also be viewed within a historical context, for example a prominent area of study is the Nazi Germany treatment of the Jewish race, as well as modern day relations. Throughout my study, I am going to break down with the help of political research, what the main causes of social intolerance are, as the issue of social tolerance continues to be prominent within today’s societies across the globe. There are varying arguments regarding what is the root cause of such intolerance, however, we must recognize that the effects of social intolerance is one which is hard to quantify. This is because ‘how one responds to a survey question concerning attitudes toward a group will not accurately reflect how the respondent will react when encountering an individual from that group.’ Therefore it is questionable to what degree we can rely on surveys, as often people responses do not always reflect true attitudes, as people can be dishonest, or answer in ways they believe to be more appealing than their true feelings.
Social tolerance is a somewhat broad concept. As argued by Professor Popper, ‘Toleration is a necessary consequence of our being human we are all products of frailty: fallible and prone to error. So let us mutually pardon each other’s follies.’ Thus meaning that we are all subject to such a disposition. Susan Mendes defines