Images of twins and the notion of the genetic program in the school textbooks of biology: a comparative study held among 15 countries

Abstract

Genetic concepts have been strongly evolved during these last ten years, and have been found less connected to reductionist or hereditarist values. The aim of the specific research was to analyze and identify if the current school textbooks of biology ensue this progress, in the way the topic “human genetics” is taught in the textbooks of 15 different countries. Results show that the notion of the genetic program remained central in some countries, while it fades behind the notion of genetic information in some others. In addition, almost all the twins’ pictures demonstrate the following pattern: they are identically dressed and they have the same hairstyle, which gives evidence of a strong obstinacy of a determinist reductionist ideology.