Khyzhniak O. Social tolerance in theoretical and sociological dimension.

Object: tolerance as a social phenomenon; Goal: working out of theoretical methodological bases of sociological studying of social tolerance and specificity of its displays in a modern society; definition of essence and functions of social tolerance, its institutional and personal aspects; Research methods: the analysis and synthesis, unity of historical and logic approaches, the system analysis, generalisation and comparison; interrogations (biographical, interview); an index method, the correlation analysis, categorical analysis of the data; Theoretical and practical results: the periodization of sociological approaches to definition of the concept of tolerance and theoretical model of institutional application to studying of tolerant social interactions in a modern society are offered; Novelty: multidimensionality of tolerance is proved; the sociological concept of social tolerance is developed; Degree of application: positions and research conclusions can be used for working out of programs of assistance of social tolerance in the Ukrainian society; for perfection of teaching and educational process in higher education system; for working out new institutional mechanisms of maintenance of tolerance and perfection of the existing ones etc.