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.

In Greece, since 2000, the teaching of evolutionary theory is restricted solely to lower (junior) high school and specifically to ninth grade. Even though the theory of evolution is included to the 12th grade biology textbook, it is not taught in Greek upper (senior) high schools. This study presents research conducted on the conceptions of Greek students regarding issues set out in the theory of evolution after the formal completion of the teaching of the theory. The sample comprised 411 10th grade students from 12 different schools. The research results show that the students appear to have a positive view of the idea of evolution, the evolution of man, and the common origin of organisms. However, they have retained many alternative views, or else they are completely in ignorance of basic issues in evolutionary theory regarding: what is considered evolution in biology, the main mechanism of evolutionary changes in what is considered natural selection, what the theory of evolution actually explains, and what the word theory means in science. At least in Greece, these views still prevail because the theory of evolution is marginalized in the teaching of biology in Greek schools, and biology education does not help students formulate overall conceptual structures to enable them to understand the question of biological change.

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