Acceptance of Evolution by Israeli Students from Diverse Religious Groups

This study explores the challenges of teaching evolution in religiously diverse societies. It aims to underpin students’ perspectives from diverse religious and ethnic groups in Israel regarding the theory of evolution. The study included 1028 secondary school students from the public Israeli education system, including Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian students with religious, traditional and non-religious affiliations. Data were collected using the MATE (Measure of the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution) questionnaire, revealing four primary categories for analyzing attitudes toward evolution: (1) Acceptance of evolution, (2) Rejection of evolution, (3) Perception of “no contradiction” between evolution and faith, and (4) Acceptance of the scientific age of the Earth. The findings indicated significant differences across school streams, religiosity, and grade levels. Non-religious Jewish students showed significantly higher acceptance of evolution and the scientific age of Earth, compared to the other groups. More religious students, compared to non-religious students, thought there was no contradiction between evolution and faith, yet their acceptance of evolution was low. We suggest that these insights emphasize the importance of understanding students’ perspectives to create culturally responsive learning materials. Such resources may help to reduce tensions in religiously diverse classrooms and improve learning outcomes when teaching evolution.