Outdoor Education for Sustainable Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Education is the foundation of sustainable development, and the world is in the practice period of sustainable development education (ESD). Even though ESD is widely accepted in principle, there has not been much “structural change” in practice. Given the significant advantages that outdoor education provides in cultivating future sustainable leaders, it appears that outdoor sustainable development education (OESD) has a lot of space to expand. This study employs bibliometric and coding analysis to examine the features of 40 works that are indexed in Web of Science and Scopus between 2005 and 2024. It also conducts a systematic evaluation of the research emphasis and development trend of OESD. The study revealed that research has gone through a process of initial exploration, significant growth, and then decline and reflection. The study identifies the main countries and institutions active in the field of OESD and their co-operation with each other. Finally, the development path analysis reveals four key research topics and three research changes in OESD.