Changes and Stabilities in the Views of German Secondary School Students on the Origin of the World and of Humans from the Ages of 12 to 14 and 16: First Results of a Qualitative Empirical Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Based on the empirical data, I describe some changes and stabilities in the views of students in secondary schools in Germany on the origins of the world and of humans. In these views, religious as well as scientific perspectives interact: the belief in God as creator on the one hand and the trust in the theories of big bang and evolution on the other. The longitudinal study presents different ways in which two students, Nico and Lena, combine these two perspectives and examines how their combinations changed across the ages of 12, 14, and 16. The comparison of these two cases brings up the problem of explaining the shown differences which will have to be researched further.