The Inability of Primary School to Introduce Children to the Theory of Biological Evolution

Abstract

A great number of research papers in the English literature of science education present difficulties pupils have in understanding natural selection. Studies show that children have essentialist and teleological intuitive ideas when dealing with organisms and that these biases hinder their ability to understand the theory of evolution by natural selection. Consequently, it is interesting to ascertain if and how the school education offered today deals with the problem, i.e., helps the children confront these biases. To that purpose, this study answered the two following research questions: (a) How is biological evolution presented - from the past to the present day - in the official documentation of primary school education, namely the science curricula and the textbooks of Greece? and (b) what are the conceptions held by Greek primary school teachers of the concepts of evolutionary theory and relevant issues that they have to teach? Our research found that not only are the intuitive ideas not "confronted" but they are also "affirmed" in Greek primary education. This phenomenon, as some other international studies have shown, must not be only a Greek one. A drastic change in the content and structure of primary school curricula and the training of educators is necessary in order to improve and facilitate the teaching of biological evolution. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC