Examination of democratic attitudes and tolerance levels of university students according to different variables

This study aims to determine the democratic attitudes and tolerance levels of university students. For this reason, firstly, a literature review was conducted and the conceptual and theoretical framework of the study was established. Based on the conceptual and theoretical framework, it was tried to determine to what extent university students have democratic attitude and tolerance levels. In the field research section, scale application was applied on 694 students who were studying in different faculties and departments of a province in the Central Blacksea 2016-2017. As data collection tools, 'Democratic Attitude Scale' adapted by Gözütok (1995) and 'Tolerance Scale' developed by Ersanlı (2014) and personal information form were used. Some of the data obtained as a result of the scale application are evaluated only descriptively and contain general information about the student. Other data are related to the socio-economic and socio-cultural characteristics of the students and provide opportunity to make a comparison with their political attitutes and behaviours. The findings of the study are based on the assumption that the democratic attitudes and tolerance levels of university students vary according to the effects of many economic and social variables such as education, basic sciences, gender, family, and settlement. Suggestions were made in the light of the findings. The data obtained through the scale were analyzed and tabulated using SPSS package program. As a result, it has been studied whether there is a difference about the democratic attitudes and tolerance levels of the students depending on their gender, the classes they study, the departments and the educational status of their mothers and fathers.