An Investigation of Landscape of Environmental Education (EE): A bibliometric and Systematic Literature Review

Environmental Education (EE) has emerged as a crucial tool for fostering sustainability competencies and addressing global environmental challenges. While its early focus was on environmental conservation, emphasizing public awareness and problem-solving skills related to biophysical environmental issues (Stapp et al., 1969), the field has significantly expanded to include interdisciplinary approaches encompassing sustainable development and climate literacy (Molthan-Hill et al., 2019; Leal Filho et al., 2019, 2021). However, EE literature remains fragmented, with limited synthesis of interdisciplinary research (Machado and Davim, 2022; Rohrich and Takahashi, 2019; Varela-Losada et al., 2022). Guided by methodologies from Tranfield et al. (2003) and Lim et al. (2021), this study conducts a bibliometric and thematic analysis to map the intellectual evolution of EE and highlight key trends and themes in recent literature, focusing specifically on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The research addresses two questions: a) How has the literature concerning EE evolved across disciplines over time, and what are its intellectual foundations? b) What are the recent and future research trends in EE?