The project’s findings, the events it organised, and the 56-page handbook it produced to deal with potential conflicts can all help improve everyday life in plural communities. “We looked how tolerance is practiced in everyday life and at the workplace,” she adds. “We examined issues like training teachers to be sensitive to the different cultural and religious points of view, and we gave examples of what different solutions might be available when conflicts arise,” comments Triandafyllidou.

The guide, entitled ‘Handbook on Ideas of Tolerance and Cultural Diversity in Europe’, is targeted at schools. It is expected to raise the awareness of teachers, students and local policymakers or civil society actors about the conflicts that ethnic and religious diversity bring and the ways to solve them.

The researchers also produced a Tolerance Indicators Toolkit to score country performances, evaluating the policies and practices to deal with cultural, religious and ethnic diversity challenges – thus providing a way to compare EU member states. The results are expected to help policymakers, local and regional authorities, NGOs, media and schools.

Furthermore, the project team looked at the meanings of tolerance in a variety of contexts. The researchers not only reviewed past empirical research and scholarly theoretical literature, but they also conducted original research in 15 countries. The results revealed the complexity of the issue. “It is not always clear what is or is not tolerable in any given context,” explains Triandafyllidou. “The different histories of different groups and countries lead to multiple understandings about what is acceptable”, she adds.

The project was particularly focused on rising tensions with marginalised Muslim communities. “There is an increasing intolerance, in particularly towards Muslims. There is a view that liberal societies need protection against religions, particularly Muslims,” says Triandafyllidou. In addition to Muslims, the project looked at two other minority groups: the Roma and blacks. Triandafyllidou notes that “while each of these groups is very diverse, they all felt stigmatized.”

The project team found, for example, that the communities that protested the loudest about immigration were sometimes those with the fewest immigrants. Indeed, there is even a rising fear of immigration in parts of Eastern Europe where there is a net migration loss. “This counters the thesis that there is a threshold on how much immigration a community can have,” says Triandafyllidou. “The issue, for many people, is more about the religious or cultural traditions, and we found that if a community is ethnically more homogenous, then it is harder to accept newcomers,” she concludes.