The Evolution of Educating for Sustainable Development in East Asia: A Bibliometric Review, 1991–2023

Abstract

This systematic review addressed the need for documentation and analysis of the scope and topical foci of research on education for sustainable development (ESD) in East Asia. The review used descriptive, content, and keyword co-occurrence analyses to synthesize features of 1915 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 1991 and 2023. The authors found that research interest in ESD in East Asia has grown rapidly, accelerated by the pronouncement of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in 2005 and the Sustainability Agenda 2030 in 2015. Researchers in China, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand have been the leading contributors to this regional knowledge base. Consistent with global ESD reviews, content analysis revealed that this literature emerged from studies of environmental education and gradually expanded to include sociocultural, economic, and integrated perspectives on sustainability. Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed three thematic clusters: Environmental Sustainability in Education, Social Sustainability in Education, and Teaching and Learning for Sustainability. Temporal co-word analysis highlighted the research front, which includes environmental research focusing on carbon/energy issues, technology-enhanced learning for sustainability, empirical research methods for studying ESD, and, to a lesser degree, studies of the economic pillar of sustainability in education. Recommendations are offered for future research.