Primary school students’ conceptions of sustainable mobility – a systematic literature review

Abstract

Sustainable mobility is an urgent topic to discuss in the primary school classroom, given the challenges in the mobility sector regarding sustainability issues and children’s embeddedness in these circumstances. Therefore, it seems fruitful to address the topic within the approaches of Education for Sustainable Mobility (ESM) or Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), both of which strongly focus on students’ reflection on their knowledge and actions. For the adaptive design of personalised learning environments that integrate such reflection processes, it is necessary to know primary school students’ conceptions of sustainable mobility. Since research in the field of mobility education has so far mainly focused on road safety education, this Systematic Literature Review (SLR) aims to determine whether and to what extent studies on mobility education pursue objectives that correspond with ESM and ESD. Furthermore, this SLR identifies primary school students’ conceptions of sustainable mobility. The analysis of 18 studies published between 2010 and 2023 shows that objectives corresponding to the instrumental approach of ESD dominate and that students’ conceptions of sustainable mobility mainly relate to ecological aspects, while social and economic changes are less important. Implications such as the lack of interventions focusing on an emancipatory and transformative ESM are discussed.