Creationism, Science and Religion: A Survey of Teachers’ Conceptions in 30 Countries

In 30 countries, we analyzed the teachers’ conceptions related to evolution and to their degree of agreement with a separation between science and religion, using a questionnaire validated by the project of research Biohead-Citizen, where 15 questions are dedicated to the topic Evolution. The sampling was the same in all the countries. We present here our main results. Teachers’ conceptions are very different depending on their country, the most creationist conceptions being observed in the less economically developed country, where teachers are the most practicing their religion, whatever is this religion. In 17 of the 30 countries, there is no difference in the answers of teachers having university diploma of biology and their colleagues. Inside the same country, there is generally no difference between the different religions of teachers, with some exceptions, mainly where fundamentalist Protestant teachers are more creationist than their colleagues. While there is a correlation between radical creationist answers, more practice of religion and disagreement with a separation between science and religion, there is in each country less teachers disagreeing than teachers practicing religion. All these results are briefly discussed.