A recently published study on student attitudes focused on three measures of student tolerance (1) interpretation of the motivation behind diverse views (questionnaire tested), ability to tolerate opposing statements from other students (questionnaire tested), and ability to “share” the discussion space in small discussion groups (direct observation). Students in medicine, engineering and hard science programs such as chemistry and physics were less likely to claim opposing views were racist, homophobic, intolerant, gender-driven,etc than their age and race matched peers in ethnic and gender studies programs. They were far more able to tolerate opposing views without feeling anger or engaging ininterruptive behaviors in direct observations. Make of this what you will. Sorry I did not store the reference.
