Teachers’ Conceptions About the Genetic Determinism of Human Behaviour: A Survey in 23 Countries

0301 basic medicine [SHS.EDU]Humanities and Social Sciences/Education [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio] 4. Education [SHS.EDU] Humanities and Social Sciences/Education Teachers' conceptions international comparison innatism [SDV] Life Sciences [q-bio] 03 medical and health sciences genetic determinism sexism racism
DOI: 10.1007/s11191-012-9494-0 Publication Date: 2012-07-19T01:51:34Z
ABSTRACT
This work analyses the answers to a questionnaire from 8,285 in-service and pre-service teachers from 23 countries, elaborated by the Biohead-Citizen research project, to investigate teachers’ conceptions related to the genetic determinism of human behaviour. A principal components analysis is used to assess the main trends in all the interviewed teachers’ conceptions. This illustrates that innatism is present in two distinct ways: in relation to individuals (e.g. genetic determinism to justify intellectual likeness between individuals such as twins) or in relation to groups of humans (e.g. genetic determinism to justify gender differences or the superiority of some human ethnic groups). A between-factor analysis discriminates between countries, showing very significant differences. There is more innatism among teachers’ conceptions in African countries and Lebanon than in European countries, Brazil and Australia. Among the other controlled parameters, only two are significantly independent of the country: the level of training and the level of knowledge of biology. A co-inertia analysis shows a strong correlation between non-citizen attitudes towards and innatist conceptions of genetic determinism regarding human groups. We discuss these findings and their implications for education.
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