Evolution in European and Israeli school curricula – a comparative analysis

Mavrikaki, Evangelia; Realdon, Giulia; Aivelo, Tuomas; Bajrami, Ani; Dilek Bakanay, Çiçek; Beniermann, Anna; Blagojević, Jelena; Butkevičienė, Eglė; Cavadas, Bento; Cossu, Costantina; Cvetković, Dragana; Drobniak, Szymon M.; Özgür Durmuş, Zelal; Marta Dvořáková, Radka; Eens, Marcel; Eret, Esra; Eroglu, Seckin; Anna Gazda, Małgorzata; Georgiou, Martha; Gostling, Neil J.

doi:10.1080/09500693.2023.2293090

Use this url to cite publication: https://cris.mruni.eu/cris/handle/007/47424

Evolution in European and Israeli school curricula – a comparative analysis

Type of publication

Straipsnis Web of Science ir Scopus duomenų bazėje / Article in Web of Science and Scopus database (S1)

Author(s)

Author	Affiliation
Mavrikaki, Evangelia

Title

Evolution in European and Israeli school curricula – a comparative analysis

[en]

Publisher

Routledge

Date Issued

Date	Volume	Issue
2024	00	00

Extent

p. 1-27.

Is part of

International journal of science education.

Description

This work was supported by Australian Research Council: [Grant Number DE180100202]; European Cooperation in Science and Technology: [Grant Number 17127]; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia: [Grant Number 2020.05634.BD,SFRH/BD/141159/2018]; Hungarian Academy of Sciences [János Bolyai Fellowship Number BO/00555/22; Narodowe Centrum Nauki: [Grant Number UMO-2020/39/B/NZ8/01274]; National Development, Research and Innovation Office, Hungary: [Grant Number K139021]; ELTE Thematic Excellence Programme 2020 supported by the National Research, Development, and Innovation Office of Hungary [Grant Number TKP2020-IKA-05]; Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia: [Grant Number 451-03-47/2023-01/ 200178,451-03-47/2023-01/200007]; Univerzita Karlova v Praze: [Grant Number HUM/024].

The contribution of school curricula to public understanding and acceptance of evolution is still mostly unknown, due to the scarcity of studies that compare the learning goals present in different curricula. To overcome this lack of data we analysed 19 school curricula (18 European and one from Israel) to study the differences regarding the inclusion of learning goals targeting evolution understanding. We performed a quantitative content analysis using the Framework for the Assessment of school Curricula on the presence of Evolutionary concepts (FACE). For each country/region we analysed what this educational system considered the minimum evolution education a citizen should get. Our results reveal that: (i) the curricula include less than half of the learning goals considered important for scientific literacy in evolution; (ii) the most frequent learning goals address basic knowledge of evolution; (iii) learning goals related with the processes that drive evolution are often not included or rarely mentioned; (iv) evolution is most often not linked to its applications in everyday life. These results highlight the need to rethink evolution education across Europe.

Field of Science