A systematic literature review on STEAM pre- and in-service teacher education for sustainability: Are teachers ready?

Educational interest in sustainable development (SD) and sustainability has increased over the last fifteen years, promoted by international guidelines and agencies such as the UN or UNESCO, or the Incheon Declaration. While the current state-of-art discloses plenty of student-centered proposals in these fields, there is scarce evidence on how these are being addressed in pre- and in-service teacher education programs combining science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM). Searching to tackle this gap, we performed a systematic literature review based on 207 studies retrieved from the databases Scopus, WoS, and ERIC through PRISMA guidelines. The outcomes foremost reveal the following: (1) Pre-service programs lack courses or subjects that allow integrating sustainability and STEAM areas in an interdisciplinary approach. (2) Interventions for STEAM teacher education are focused on mathematics and statistics typically for the pre-service stage only with a proposal for rural teachers. (3) In-service teachers manifest difficulties in linking theoretical concepts with real-world experiences in classrooms. And (4) educational strategies employ problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, escape rooms, robotics, or flipped classrooms. The implications of this study can help researchers, teachers, or stakeholders in the co-design of initiatives or methodologies that improve pre- and in-service teacher education programs to cope with STEAM education, sustainability, and SD, highlighting the importance of the teachers’ role.