The state of evolution education research in Brazil: A review of the national and international literature 2013-2025
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Pedro Leonardo Guarilha Colli 1 * , Rianne Pinxten 2 3 , Mariana Aparecida Bologna Soares de Andrade 1
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1 Biological Sciences Center, State University of Londrina, Londrina, BRAZIL2 Didactica Research Group, Antwerp School of Education, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, BELGIUM3 Behavioural Ecology and Ecophysiology Group, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, BELGIUM* Corresponding Author

Abstract

We provided an overview of the current state of evolution education research in Brazil, based on a systematic literature review of papers published in national and international journals from 2013 to 2025. We identified 301 papers, including 266 published in Portuguese (PT) and only 35 in English (EN), suggesting that Brazil can be considered a peripheral country regarding science education research. Although the yearly number of papers published in PT increased substantially during 2013-2025, the yearly number published in EN remained low. Most papers were published in high-quality A-journals, with a particular focus on upper secondary education. Papers published in PT focused mainly on didactic methods and evolution understanding, and to a lesser extent, acceptance, teaching resource analyses, discussions about history, philosophy, and sociology of science and literature reviews, while curricula and teacher education, acknowledged as critical problems concerning evolution education, were largely neglected. Papers addressing didactic methods and teaching resources analyses focused mainly on respectively, games and teaching sequences, and textbook analyses. By contrast, most papers published in EN focused on the understanding and acceptance of evolution, with only a few papers focusing on the other categories, indicating that evolution education research in Brazil available for international readers does not provide an adequate overview of the current state of research.

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Article Type: Literature Review

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 22, Issue 7, July 2026, Article No: em2858

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/18760

Publication date: 15 Jun 2026

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