Recognition and Toleration: Conflicting approaches to diversity in education?

Abstract

Recognition and toleration are ways of relating to the diversity characteristic of multicultural societies. The article concerns the possible meanings of toleration and recognition, and the conflict that is often claimed to exist between these two approaches to diversity. Different forms or interpretations of recognition and toleration are considered, confusing and problematic uses of the terms are noted, and the compatibility of toleration and recognition is discussed. The article argues that there is a range of legitimate and importantly different conceptions of both toleration and recognition that are often not clearly distinguished, and that compatibility varies across this range and depending on what one considers the conceptions in relation to.