TEACHING IN MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENT: DEVELOPMENT OF ETHNOTOLERANT BEHAVIOUR IN FRESHMEN

Ethnic tolerance is one of the major phenomena in ethnopsychology which is appealing to both researchers and broader public. The authors specify that the ongoing condition of society is marked by a notable escalation in the level of interethnic xenophobia and religiousethnic extremism. The decrease in the level of intolerance of interethnic and social nature, in general, seems to be feasible in case of applying an appropriate system of young people upbringing. This system should presuppose availability of a required level of mutual understanding, reasonable attitudes to different ways of life, cultural patterns of behavior, and formation of tolerant consciousness as an intrinsic and consistent personal feature. Accordingly, formation and development of students’ skills of tolerant behavior towards ethnic «others» should be considered as a vital part of the teaching and educational process.

The object of the research paper is the study of ethnic tolerance in students. The subject of the research is the development of ethnic tolerance in freshmen in the process of training sessions. The goal of the research is the observation of the specifics of ethnic tolerance enhancement in students and the subsequent development of a program of training sessions on teaching skills of constructive intercultural understanding and interaction.

The objectives of the empirical study are:
(1) the selection of a set of methods aimed at studying ethnic tolerance of the students and the diagnosis of the initial level of ethnic tolerance;
(2) the development and approbation of the program of training sessions aimed at enhancing ethnic tolerance of the students;
(3) the recognition of the dynamics of ethnic tolerance of the students.

The authors conducted the empirical part of the research on the basis of two universities-playgrounds: Ogarev Mordovia State University and Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. 90 freshmen participated in the study voluntarily. The authors selected and deliberately applied a set of techniques: the methodology "A scale questionnaire for the study of ethnic identity of children and adolescents", the methodology "Express Questionnaire" Index of Tolerance", the methodology "Diagnosis of Tolerant Behavior. Incomplete Sentences". In the research stage the method of mathematical data processing was used: φ – angular Fisher transformation. The findings indicated that students of both universities tend to manifest cultural prejudices, negative ethnic stereotypes and ethnic intolerance within the multicultural university environment.

At the formative stage of the research the authors elaborated a program for development of ethnic tolerance in freshmen which was implemented throughout 11 tutorials. At the control stage of the research repeated diagnostics were conducted by means of the diagnostic techniques that were used at the summative stage of the study. The results of diagnostics and mathematical processing of the data being analysed, they have shown the development of skills of intercultural understanding and interaction of those freshmen who completed the training stage of the research. After the program implementation the number of freshmen with a high level of ethnic tolerance markedly increased and the number of those with a low level of ethnic tolerance decreased in both of the universities.