Can Tolerance Be Taught? Adult Civic Education and the Development of Democratic Values Can Tolerance Be Taught? Adult Civic Education and the Development of Democratic Values Civic Education and the Development of Political Tolerance

Introduction Can individuals in emerging democracies learn democratic values and skills through participation in civic education programs? Certainly the U.S. government expects the answer to be yes. The State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID) and other governmental organizations spend tens of millions of dollars annually on civic education programs as part of their efforts to support democracy abroad (Carothers 1999). Part of the rationale for funding civic education is to strengthen the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the host countries that conduct such programs, as the existence of strong secondary associations may be beneficial to consolidating democracy and implementing democratic reforms. Yet the goals of USAID go beyond the fortification of NGOs in fledgling democracies. Indeed, the agency's own strategic framework states explicitly that it seeks, through its civil society programs such as civic education, to " strengthen democratic political culture, " to promote " acceptance by both citizens and political elites of a shared system of democratic norms and values, " and to encourage citizens " to obtain knowledge about their system of government and act upon their values by participating in the political and policy process " (USAID Democracy Strategic Framework 1998). Clearly, USAID and other sponsors believe that the programs they support have the potential to shape the democratic skills, values, and behaviors of ordinary citizens. Surprisingly, until recently little effort has been made to assess the impact of civic education programs on their target populations. There is an extensive literature on the effectiveness of school-based civics education among children and young adults (e. Slomcynski and Shabad 1999). Among adult programs, however, nearly all evaluations of civic education have looked exclusively at implementation and management issues such as the numbers of people trained, the quality of teachers and trainers, the quality of materials and whether the programs 2 achieved their stated organizational goals (e.g. USAID 1992, 1989). Only in the last several years have efforts begun to evaluate the impact of civic education on the democratic values, attitudes and activities of ordinary citizens who take part in these programs (Bratton et al. 1999; Finkel et al., 1998; Finkel et al., forthcoming). In this paper I examine the effect of adult civic education programs on the core democratic value of political tolerance. Political tolerance, or the willingness to extend procedural liberties such as free speech and association to unpopular or disliked individuals or groups, has long been viewed …