This paper looks into the concept of toleration that underlies the
educational project of the European Union. First, it discuss the main
institutional initiatives of the Union against recurrent attitudes of
intolerance, as well as the activity in the field of education,
specially the recent Resolution of the Council on Responses of
Educational Systems to the Problems of Racism and Xenophobia. The
author argues that many difficulties for a firmer action are due to the
principles regulating educational policy set up by the Treaty of the
European Union, namely the principle of respect to cultural diversity
and the principle of subsidiarity. The trouble is that each of these
principles can denote not only two distinct political stands, but also
two different notions of tolerance: the liberal concept and the
communitarian one. Finally, an attempt of joining these two different
perspectives is located in the idea of human rights as substantive
content of a moral education for toleration. Gonzalo Jover Olmeda
Key words: Toleration, Xenophobia, European Union, Human Rights.
El autor mantiene que ciertas dificultades para una acción más decidida
en este terreno, son debidas a la posible colisión entre los dos
principios de la política educativa que estableció el Tratado de la
Unión Europea, esto es, el principio de respeto a la diversidad
cultural y el principio de subsidiariedad. Ambos principios no denotan
sólo dos posturas políticas diferenciadas, sino que implican también
dos conceptos diferentes de tolerancia: el liberal y el comunitario.
Finalmente, se propone una posible vía de conciliación de estas dos
perspectivas en la idea de los derechos humanos como contenido moral
sustantivo de educación para la tolerancia. Gonzalo Jover Olmeda
Descriptores: Tolerancia, Xenofobia, Unión Europea, Derechos humanos.
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