An investigation of landscape of environmental education (EE): A bibliometric and systematic literature review

The literature concerning the determinants, pedagogical approaches, and impacts of EE is growing rapidly across multiple disciplines, encouraging researchers to critically review existing research to enrich our understanding and identify research gaps. However, past review studies focused more on topical, regional and(or) intradisciplinary research, while largely ignoring interdisciplinary studies and the recent and growing literature on climate change education. This paper addresses this gap by offering a systematic and interdisciplinary review of the EE literature through a quantitative bibliometric analysis and a qualitative thematic analysis of 399 open-access journal articles published in English across multiple disciplines between 2019 and 2023. The articles were selected from the Scopus database following the PRISMA guidelines. The findings of the study enrich the current body of knowledge by a) reporting the recent evolution of the literature cutting across multiple disciplines; b) identifying four broad emerging themes in EE research: HEI as a change agent; curriculum and pedagogical integration; impact measurement and competency development; and foundations of environmental identity and behaviour; and c) suggesting several areas for future research. The findings also highlight that “educators” symbolise the principal thread that connects the broad themes identified in this research and determine the success or failure of EE in HEIs. However, the existing literature, across disciplines, offers a limited understanding of the role of environmental literacy training (or the lack thereof) for educators, which significantly affects various aspects of EE and facilitates (or impedes) educators in developing and delivering effective EE to students. This study has implications for understanding the role of educators and their capacity building within the HE sector, offering valuable insights for researchers exploring what works best in teaching environmental education.