Abstract
History of genetics begins at the end of 19th century, which makes it very youngscience fieldamongothersubdisciplines ofbiology. Therefore, itis possible toanalyseboth its evolution as a science and its growth as educational content in compulsoryeducation.Themainwitnesses ofthistransformation, whicharestillaccessible today,are biology textbooks.
Curricular changes relating to genetics unfortunately differedbetween western and former Eastern Bloc countries due to the ideological impact onboth science and education, with the Communist ideology largely undermining therelevance of genetics. On the other hand, the present-day Czech educational systemmay accentuate the relevance of genetics, yet there has been no broader analysis asto how and to what extent education might have been modified, nor how long ittook to re-establish genetics in the curriculum.
This work shows that even thoughthe content of genetics was rehabilitated in textbooks and curriculum already in the1980s, the current presentation of genetics in textbooks is still problematic. Contentof textbooksrelated togeneticslacks coherenceandit isscattered throughoutseveraldifferentgrades.Theinformation isnotsufficientlyinterconnectedwithrelated topics(such as reproduction and evolution) and has not been incorporated into a coherentand logical system that both students and teachers could navigate (mainly due tounclear explanation of formation of characteristics via process of gene expression).