Untangling the Roots of Tolerance: How Networks, Voluntary Associations, and Personal Attributes Shape Attitudes toward Ethnic Minorities and Immigrants.

Past research suggests that tolerance flows from personal characteristics (especially education), from diversified networks, and from participation in voluntary associations. But earlier work does not include all of these in the same study, so we have not been able to explore alternative theoretical accounts of how these possible causes of tolerance connect to each other and to tolerance. For example, does education lead to tolerance because education opens minds, or because more educated people develop more diversified networks and are more active in associations? Do association members have more tolerance because association activities meet the conditions for the "contact hypothesis," or because members are well educated, or because association activity widens one's networks? Further, both associations and social networks vary in the extent to which they provide the experiences theoretically linked to tolerance, so types of associations and types of networks should have different effects on tolerance. Exploring such variations provides an enriched test of theoretical conjectures. This paper is based on a national study of the Canadian federal election of 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]