Sociological Explanation of Challenges and Opportunities Related to Social Tolerance of Tehran’s Citizens

Since Social tolerance is viewed as a fundamental and essential concept in social interactions, many researchers claim that constructive and positive interactions play a fundamental role in social processes. When such interactions fail to be present, society will experience substantial problems so that violence may be considered as a single way to deal with differences by people. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the construct of social toleration in Tehran city where religious, cultural and ethnic diversity exist. A survey and researcher-made questionnaire were applied to collect data. The sample size consists of 384 Tehran’s citizens aged from 18 to 70 years old and chosen using Cochran formula and multi-stage stratified sampling method.The data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 21). The findings revealed that there were significant relationships between religiosity variables, social trust, self-expression values and social security feeling as opportunities for social tolerance. However, there were not any significant relationship between individualism and dogmatism of citizens as a challenge to social tolerance.Religiosity, social trust, self-expression values and social security feeling were recognized as the strongest predictive variables of social tolerance among Tehran’s citizens.