The Influence of tolerance on the Learning Processes in Project Group Work: Tolerance, Learning rights and participation

This paper presents a moral perspective on group work in higher education by addressing tolerance as a moral value of practice which is intertwined with learning of disciplinary knowledge. The relevance of tolerance among students is discussed in relation to Dewey's ideas of learning through participation. A link between morality and learning via knowledge production is to be found in the concept of participation due to an understanding of education as constitutive for a democratic society.The aim is to sharpen and discuss the concept of tolerance with respect to both strength and limits of the concept. Project group work is an example of a social setting in an educational context where collaboration between students on the one hand is seen as a way to stimulate processes of learning  and on the other hand to strengthen social and moral competences. To be discussed in the paper is how group work offers various challenges on a social, moral and intellectual level and how tolerance might play a role in the processes of learning.