A Decade of Earth in the Mix: A Bibliometric Analysis of Emergent Scholarly Research on Sustainability Education and Ecopsychology in Higher Education

Abstract

As part of understanding methodological approaches which aim to integrate the topic of sustainability in the curriculum of universities, the intersection of ecopsychology with education for sustainable development marks an emergent methodological and curricular bridge. Using Bayesian probablistic modeling of related topics, called latent Dirichlet allocation, an analysis of theses and dissertations published since the advent of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development revealed a substantial volume of higher education research regarding ecopsychology and sustainability education in higher education (using Proquest Database). Within that larger field, several hundred works existed at the intersection of ecopsychology and education for sustainable development/sustainability education. This research reported on findings from analyzing titles, abstracts and keywords of this data set of theses and dissertations to identify emergent trends in topics within the research scholarship. Initial findings indicated directions for viable inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in order to extend and integrate the reach of sustainability education across the university curriculum. Research from the field suggested such inter- and transdisciplinary curricular approaches to the “wicked” problems of sustainability are requisite to cultivate the next generation of sustainability innovators and educators.