43

The conceptions of teachers, especially related to the biological evolution, have been analyzed in thirty countries, chosen for the diversity of their religions. All in all, 10,651 teachers have been surveyed according to the same questionnaire, designed and validated by the project BIOHEAD-Citizen, and in each country the same types of primary and secondary school teachers (biology or language of the country) have been targeted. The results show important differences between countries, the percentage of radical creationists-conceptions ranging from 2% to 84%. Within the same country, when the comparison between religions is possible, there is no difference between the teachers, with the exception of protestants (evangelicals) who are more creationists that their colleagues in four countries. For Muslims, only the Sunnis are a little more creationists that their colleagues in Lebanon, but they are a little less in Burkina Faso. In all the countries, a high proportion of religious teachers responded on the origin of life through an evolutionary item or both a creationist and evolutionary one, showing that for them, there is compatibility between their faith and the acceptance of scientific knowledge about evolution. Finally, the complexity of sociological parameters which could explain the observed variations is debated.