Relationships between the Religious Backgrounds and Evolution Acceptance of Black and Hispanic Biology Students

Abstract

An evolution education study spanning 77 courses and 17 states found that Black and Hispanic students’ stronger than average religiosity explains their lower evolution acceptance. This indicates a need to take into account students’ religious culture and background to teach evolution in an inclusive way.

A New Measure of Students’ Perceived Conflict between Evolution and Religion (PCoRE) Is a Stronger Predictor of Evolution Acceptance than Understanding or Religiosity

“…In this study, we also found that Muslim students and Christian students who were not Catholic had the highest perceived conflict with their belief in God and evolution, which suggests that these students could benefit the most from reducing their perceived conflict. Non-Catholic Christian students are approximately one-quarter of introductory undergraduate biology students (Barnes et al, 2020b), suggesting that reducing perceived conflict among this group could impact a sizable proportion of undergraduate biology students and their acceptance of evolution. These results corroborate past studies demonstrating that Muslim individuals may experience high perceived conflict with their religions and evolution (Dagher and BouJaoude, 1997;BouJaoude et al, 2011;Deniz et al, 2008;Yousuf et al, 2011;Asghar, 2013;Athanasiou and Papadopoulou, 2015;Yok et al, 2015;Stears et al, 2016;Rachmatullah et al, 2018;Unsworth and Voas, 2018;Barnes et al, under review).…”

“…In this study, we also found that Muslim students and Christian students who were not Catholic had the highest perceived conflict with their belief in God and evolution, which suggests that these students could benefit the most from reducing their perceived conflict. Non-Catholic Christian students are approximately one-quarter of introductory undergraduate biology students ( Barnes et al. , 2020b ), suggesting that reducing perceived conflict among this group could impact a sizable proportion of undergraduate biology students and their acceptance of evolution.…”

“…, 2017 ; Sbeglia and Nehm, 2018 ; Barnes et al. , 2019 , 2020b ). All survey questions analyzed, in the order they were presented to students, are in the Supplemental Material.…”

“…Students were instructed that they could check more than one box if they held multiple identities, and those students who did choose more than one box were categorized as multiracial. We also asked students to report gender, age, and parents' highest level of education to control for potentially confounding demographic factors related to evolution education outcomes (Dunk et al, 2017;Sbeglia and Nehm, 2018;Barnes et al, 2019Barnes et al, , 2020b. All survey questions analyzed, in the order they were presented to students, are in the Supplemental Material.…”

Randomized Controlled Trial of a Cohesive Eight-Week Evolution Unit That Incorporates Molecular Genetics and Principles of the Next Generation Science Standards

“…What evidence do these discussions provide about the progression of students’ evolutionary reasoning? What is the instructional experience of students who are members of groups that are underrepresented in evolutionary science ( Mead et al , 2015 ; Barnes et al ., 2020 )?…”