Creationist and / or evolutionist teachers' conceptions in 19 countries

NAFADISE med Pierre Clément, Université de Lyon

Abstract

Radical creationist conceptions are found all over the world - however, the ratio compared to evolutionist conceptions differ strongly from country to country. In my presentation of the research project "Biology, Health and Environmental Education for Better Citizenship" I will try to explain the underlying factors affecting the predominant teachers' conceptions, based on i.a. an analysis of school textbooks and teachers conceptions related to 6 topics. The conceptions are analysed as interactions between scientific knowledge, values and social practices (the KVP model).

This research concerned until now 19 countries (why not, now, an extension to Denmark?): 13 in Europe, 5 in Africa and one in Middle East: 7050 teachers filled out a questionnaire. Half of them are in-service teachers, the others being at the last year of University before teaching. They are teaching in Primary Schools as well as in Secondary Schools (Biology, or Language).

I'll present some results related to the topic Evolutionist / Creationist:

The percentages of teachers' radical creationist conceptions differ strongly from one country to another (from 2% to 90%) but not or very few among religions inside each country. There are some differences between biology teachers and other teachers. The teachers' conceptions also differ with the level of teachers' training: the more they are instructed (in any respect), the more they are evolutionists.

Arrangementet er gratis. Der er adgang for alle interesserede. Foredraget holdes på engelsk.