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Article

A Retrospective Approach to Pro-Environmental Behavior from Environmental Education: An Alternative from Sustainable Development

by
Ruth Zárate Rueda
1,*,
Yolima Ivonne Beltrán Villamizar
2,* and
Luis Eduardo Becerra Ardila
3
1
School of Social Work, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga 680006, Colombia
2
School of Education, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga 680006, Colombia
3
School of Industrial and Business Studies, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga 680006, Colombia
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 5291; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065291
Submission received: 9 February 2023 / Revised: 24 February 2023 / Accepted: 6 March 2023 / Published: 16 March 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Education and Approaches)
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Abstract

:
This paper is a retrospective over a 20-year period that aims to show the research techniques on pro-environmental behavior and the incidence of Sustainable Development (SD) in Environmental Education (EE). Network bibliometrics was conducted, integrating social media analysis through the implementation of the tools VOSviewer, UCINET and the Biblioshiny application of the R-tool, together with the analysis of content of the documents cited and co-cited in the literature. The findings signal influential authors in citation and co-citation networks; they also point to topics developed emerging in the co-words network. The conclusion shows there is a gap between the acquisition of pro-environmental knowledge and behavior, a fact that shows the need to create pedagogical and participatory alternatives in EE for the resolution of ecological dilemmas. Likewise, with the incorporation of SD in education, it is inferred that higher education is fundamental in guaranteeing sustainability.

1. Introduction

The emergence of Environmental Education (EE) dates back to the 1960s, specifically in 1968, when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO revealed the need to include aspects related with the study of the environment in the curricula at all levels of education and promote ecological awareness on environmental issues [1,2]. That is, the first approach to the concept of EE is recognized as an alternative for action “aimed at creating a citizenship with knowledge on their biophysical surroundings and the problems associated with them, who can help solve these problems, and is motivated to work toward their solution” [3].
International support by the United Nations Organization through international conferences in the 1970s provided EE and its objectives with a higher profile [4,5]. To this end, the Stockholm Declaration Principle 19 states: “Education in environmental matters is essential (for both younger generations and adults) in order to broaden the basis for (…) responsible conduct in protecting and improving the environment in its full human dimension” [6].
According to Suárez-López et al. [7], these declarations focus only on the environmental perspective and are in a certain way naive, since EE’s nature is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, as it gathers several disciplines with scientific rigor [8,9]; consequently, EE integrates aspects such as environmental awareness, ecological knowledge, attitudes, values, commitment for action and ethical responsibilities regarding the rational use of resources [10]. It is worth highlighting that, in order to interpret the actions of EE, there exist several approaches and discourse related with practicing ecological education and analyzing its influence on pro-environmental behavior [11,12]; the latter consolidates responsible environmental practices, strengthened by behavioral patterns, attitudes, interests and emotions [13,14].
Indeed, it is essential to understand that the relationship of human beings with nature is dynamic, and the interpretation of an ecological dilemma does not instantly guarantee its solution [15]. However, EE provides the opportunity to know about scientific topics and acquire useful social and cognitive skills [16,17]. With these ideas, it is possible to reach a more equitable development with respect to the care of nature and the prevention of socio-environmental disasters [18]. Thus, environmental education transversely can be associated through the insertion of high-priority topics and acting in articulation with different disciplines [19,20].
Consequently, the consolidation of EE in the scientific setting has led several researchers to interpret the relationship between EE and pro-environmental behavior from the analysis of variables that define this concept and explain its complexity [21,22,23,24,25]. However, the solution to current environmental problems is not only a matter of technical and pedagogical aspects, and broader educational spaces can be considered in this process [26]. Therefore, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are fundamental with respect to teaching, research and outreach, contributing to the training of different professionals and also creating and transferring knowledge for social interest [20,27].
On the other hand, the EE approach has added two fundamental components to its evolution: Sustainable Development (SD) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). In 1987, SD was defined for the first time in the Brundtland report “Our Common Future” by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development [28]. In 1992, the Agenda 21 program was adopted, taking education for sustainability as reference [29], and in the 2002 World Summit on SD, the Decade for Education on Sustainable Development was declared (2005–2014) [30]; ESD was presented as the possibility for students to “take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity” [30].
The emergence of ESD has sparked several academic debates on the implications of incorporating SD into EE; however, these have gradually led to consensus on the transformations of teaching–learning, the development of competencies and complementarity [31,32,33,34,35]. Likewise, it drew criticism among the scientific community, thus turning into a support for the proposal of new perspectives in environmental education [36], with projections that involve sustainability through innovative pedagogical proposals from the school [37] and higher education [38]. According to this, two guiding questions emerge:
Q1: How can EE facilitate the construction of pro-environmental behavior for the promotion of actions geared to the resolution of environmental problems from the individual and collective spheres?
Q2: Which methodological and practical transformations emerge when incorporating SD into EE to face present and future ecological challenges?

2. Materials and Methods

Bibliometrics is a technique used in scientometrics which refers to the quantification, evaluation and estimation of scientific development in a specific field of knowledge [39]; consequently, it makes it possible to analyze scientific literature through the use of mathematical and statistical approaches, and it introduces the mapping of knowledge from the objectivity standpoint with the implementation of data mining, scientific measurement and graphing [40,41]. In this sense, networks bibliometric analysis is a tool combining bibliometrics and Social Media Analytics Techniques [42,43]. SMAT comes from the field of sociology, and it is established as an interdisciplinary technique with a prominent influence from mathematics and computer sciences [44]; as a result, quantitative elements alluding to relationship patterns among different network structures are obtained [45] when defining key actors and structural links in a specific field of science [46]. These components represent the research trends in the global scientific community.
As a complement to the quantitative method, a content analysis was performed on the selected literature sources) [47] since, from the perspective of the researchers, it makes it possible to interpret the consolidation of knowledge and its contribution while questioning the following: Where and by whom was the knowledge produced? Who exchanged and debated this knowledge? Which other concepts are linked to it? [48].

2.1. Search Criteria

The period 2000–2020 was selected as the start of the 21st century marked a precedent to discuss the environmental crisis at world level and favor the incorporation of EE into the classroom [49], emphasizing on the challenges posed by the effective and efficient management of cities based on sustainability [50]. This discourse was consolidated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development in 2002 [51].
Later on, the following stages were followed: (a) The Web of Science Core Collection database was selected, as it was the pioneer in coverage of the main citation databases on all domains of science since the development of the Science Citation Index (SCI) in 1963, in addition to the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) [52,53]. (b) The keywords searched in the UNESCO specialized thesaurus were defined; (c) the search equation ((“environmental education”) OR (“environmental awareness”) OR (“behavior”) OR (“attitudes”) OR (“education for sustainable development”)) was entered. (d) Papers, reviews, books and book chapters in English and Spanish were included, for a total of 4525 records.
However, the set of documents indexed in the category Education and Educational Research de Web of Science (WoS) was identified, for a total of 2106 records. The criteria established made it possible to include the largest number of documents in order to analyze a considerable collection of scientific literature from the networks bibliometrics perspective.

2.2. Procedure and Analysis of Data

In order to characterize the flows of knowledge, cocitation, citation and the co-occurrence of keywords were selected. Likewise, for the visualization of networks, the tools VOSviewer, UCINET and the R tool application Biblioshiny were implemented.
(a)
Cocitation occurs when a document simultaneously includes two documents in its references list [54], thus making it possible to monitor the trends in research topics and their evolution within a knowledge domain [55].
An identical citation element is simply a new paper that has cited two previous articles; hence, cocitation is the frequency with which two papers from the previous literature are cited together by the most recent literature. For the citation to be strong, many authors should cite the two previous works. Hence, cocitation is a relationship established by the authors citing it [56].
Nodes with a high level of interrelation within a cocitation network regulate the amount of information that is transmitted and, consequently, play the role of connectors and intermediaries of knowledge to identify the main theories, models and methodologies [57].
(b)
The citation analysis is implemented to quantify the impact of a scientific document within a certain period of time, reflecting the number of citations received from its publication [58]; likewise, it is important to identify the influential bibliographical sources within an established field of study [59].
(c)
In order to map the networks of words and terms, the co-ocurrence of words measurement was implemented, defined as the coincidence in the appearance of two terms within the list of keywords in two papers [60]; that is, co-words identify the topics that appear together in several documents. To this end, the visualization of networks of co-occurrence of keywords makes it possible to reveal the emerging topics related by their joint occurrence in the documents selected, thus minimizing the level of subjectivity of authors in defining the research domains [61,62].
In order to visualize the network of word co-occurrences, duplicity generated by the appearance of acronyms was corrected (e.g., “environmental education” and “EE”), (e.g., “behavior”, “behaviour” and behavioral”). Likewise, the factorial analysis technique (data reduction) was applied to identify groups and subfields within a research dominion [63]; consequently, the combined use of network maps and factorial analysis is called a mixed approach, taking as the starting point a network of topics illustrated in a bidimensional matrix graph [64]. Indeed, to observe the evolution of the conceptual structure of the subject of study, the term selected was divided into two decades, 2000–2009 and 2010–2019, by using bidimensional matrix maps built with the Biblioshiny application from the R tool Bibliometrix library.
The visualization software VOSviewer makes it possible to conduct an analysis based on cocitations, which allows us to directly identify the correlation among references [56]. Since the cocitation is built from the perspective of the scientific community (citers), it is considered a measure of influence in the literature related with the subject of study at global level; hence, as it is built up by references, a retrospective view emerges within the field of research [65]. The network analysis includes the following measures for centrality: (i) closeness, related with the connection among the different nodes. The shorter the distance between individual nodes, the more feasible the connection will be [57]; (ii) degree is related with the “number of links related with a node, which makes it possible to determine the most important actors in a network as compared with the rest”; (iii) betweenness “expresses the level of influence a node exerts within the context of the network and the control in the information flow through all the paths that connect it to other nodes” [66].

3. Results

3.1. Cocitation Analysis

Table 1 lists the 20 nodes representing the cited references with the highest level of influence on the network. It provides a general view of the indicators of centrality of degree, intertwining and closeness. Likewise, it is observed that Kollmuss and Agyeman [67] receive the highest scores regarding centrality in the network of reference citations: degree 730, intertwining 62.872 and closeness 0.990. Hence, centrality responds to the interest of the scientific community referred to in the discussion on the models of pro-environmental behavior and the different factors that influence it. They are followed by Jensen and Schnack) [68], with intertwining 59,753 and closeness 0.980, who propose a model of competency for action within the framework of pro-environmental behavior and EE.
With the VOSviewer tool, 58,533 cited references were found. The 139 most cocited references were detected when deleting references prior to 1990 and establishing a minimum threshold of 20 citations; however, the cocitation network in Figure 1 shows 100, showing direct citations among them. The most widely cocited references are Kollmus and Agyeman) [67] with 106 citations, Hungerford and Volk [69] with 105 citations, and Jickling and Wals [70] with 96 citations.
In the green cluster, authors with publications between 1986–1999 stand out, representing the origin of models and theories that analyze pro-environmental behavior from EE and are related with the evolution of the field of study from a retrospective vision [13,67,68,69,71,74,76,81,89,90].
The blue cluster represents the researchers who base their studies on models and theories from their colleagues, showing specific education alternatives with pedagogical components. On the other hand, the red cluster shows the authors who have researched on SD, its influence on education and contributions to environmental transformation at global level [11,70,77,78,79].

3.2. Citation Analysis

Although cocitation linkages make it possible to detect the scientific relations among documents with a retrospective view from the academic community, the citation analysis identifies the contributions of authors having an influence on the knowledge domain. Table 2 shows the 10 most cited articles on the subject of interest. The results of the cocitation and citation analysis are complementary, as cocitation is based on interpreting (links/bonds) in a set made up of citations (references) and the literature found; in parallel, citation focuses on a subset of documents delimited by the search strategy and it tends to favor studies with a wide trajectory since their publication. However, research conducted by Lozano et al. [91] and Dickinson et al. [92] stand out, as they are characterized by their higher scientific impact as compared with documents with a considerable dissemination time.

3.3. Analysis of Co-Occurrence of Words

According to Figure 2, a node represents a keyword plus, its size being proportional to the co-occurrence frequencies for keywords, leading to the following classification: green cluster: environmental education (critical thinking, development of skills, conservation); blue cluster: environmental behavior (behavior models, psychosocial factors, environmental actions); red cluster: education for sustainable development (key competencies in sustainability, structural changes in environmental education).
As a fundamental principle of bibliometrics, Zipf’s law states that there is a minimum of vital words within a research domain that reflect the essence of its content, highlighting the natural trend to use simple, frequent or commonly used words [98]. To correct the bias, it implements the correlation matrix for the strength of co-word bonds [99], as words are not prioritized according to a raw count of frequency, but through a normalized estimator called strength of linkage. According to Zipf’s Law, Equation (1) synthesizes the expression that estimates the indicator for the strength of linkage among nodes through the relation between the weight in the number of linkages of a node ai,j, and the expected number of linkages of all nodes in network ei,j.
Strength   of   association   i , j = Sij = a i , j e i , j
This indicator measures the relationships among nodes, as well as Pearson, Jacard coefficients or the cosine [100]; additionally, their use is complementary to the co-occurrence frequency count, as it relativizes the importance of a theme based on its linkages with the other topics in the network [101]. The results of the co-occurrence analysis of the strength correlation matrix are shown in Table 3, which shows that the highest level of relationships occurs between the topics environmental education and education, with a value of (101). In descending order, the strongest linkages occur among the topics: environmental education and attitudes (97); environmental education and education for sustainable development (96). Although this result does not seem to be new, the absence of linkage between the topics science and knowledge with sustainable development stands out.
The visualization of superposition maps of networks of keywords is used to analyze the development of an area of study [102]. Figure 3 shows the evolution of EE from the perspective of visualization in function of the co-occurrence of terms, interpreted by the color of nodes representing an attribute of the word in the timeline (colors bar, bottom-right corner); classifying the nature of the topics into two categories: emerging/developing (red) and developed (blue). This distribution is based on the average year of publication of the articles referenced by each word.
According to the color code in Figure 3, an advanced status for three subjects is identified: (i) environmental education, (ii) education for sustainable development and (iii) higher education. Further, an emerging status is identified for the following subjects: (i) environmental behavior, (ii) ecological behavior and (iii) eco-schools.
In the word co-ocurrence analysis, WoS offers three alternatives for the selection of keywords: those provided by the authors, words indexed by WoS (keywords plus) and the sum of the two sets. The VOSviewer software makes it possible to process keyword plus in a differentiated manner for the construction of co-occurrence networks; therefore, they were selected as units of analysis to contrast the author-centered view and the content of the most influential references and data mining of the words indexed by the data base. In this way, 345 keywords were identified, implementing the threshold of the five or more minimum appearances to indicate the relevant topics.
When contrasting the results of network and superposition visualizations, Figure 4 and Figure 5 show a longitudinal analysis based on the bidimensional matrix. Words were categorized into four quadrants and the topics are described clockwise: top-right corner (driving topics), bottom-right corner (cross-sectional topics), bottom-left corner (emerging topics) and top-left corner (developed and isolated).
Figure 4 (topics map) reflects the clusterization of subfields in EE in the period 2000–2010. It includes 250 most frequently found words. Every bubble represents a thematic cluster [64]; the vertical axis shows density and the horizontal axis measures the importance of every field of study. In the lower-right corner are sustainability, environmental education and education, the most influential and cross-cutting area. Then, the most relevant topic is environmental education, according to the centrality granted to it due to the position of the bubble in the map, towards the right end of the horizontal axis. Likewise, on the top-left corner of the vertical axis, the bubbles represent the topics environmental management and outdoor education, categorized as developed topics. Finally, due to their closeness to the origin, the most common and frequent topics related with sustainability during this period were identified.
Figure 5 shows eight bubbles or thematic clusters within the map of research topics for 2011–2020. In the lower-right corner, education for sustainable development is positioned, and environmental education stands out for its high centrality in this quadrant. Based on the shift of the horizontal axis between the two periods analyzed, it may be inferred that the importance (centrality) of environmental education as a cross-sectional topic increased. However, according to the size of the bubble, the relevance of this topics shows a decreasing trend; further, it can be observed that a portion of the topics related with development and learning are categorized as emerging. On the top-left corner of the vertical axis, topics such as communication and climate change stand out. In addition, due to their closeness to the origin, topics associated with development are the most common and frequent in the field of research, leading to the displacement of sustainability, which occupied that position in the period 2000–2010.
In parallel, Figure 6 synthesizes the evolution of EE by means of Sankey’s diagram, which places root topics on the left end and emerging topics on the right end. The threads or strings connect root and emerging topics, revealing their diversification in the periods of the analysis [64]. The evolution in the 2000–2020 period can be seen from left to right; likewise, every thematic component contains the time range that characterizes its predominance during the past two decades. The root topics (left side) are related with basic elements in environmental education, including the influence of sustainability between 2000 and 2010. At the center, the expansion and diversification of the topic in the 2010–2015 period are made evident, with subjects such as climate change, development, SDE, learning and communication. Finally, on the right side, two emerging themes appear: knowledge (associated with environmental education) and partnership (diversification of the climate change topic); the topics education, EE, SDE and development continue to evolve.

4. Discussion

According to the two guiding questions posed in the introductory phase, the content analysis to “study any type of communication in an objective and systematic way” [103] allows us to identify the models and theories that relate EE as a facilitator in the construction of pro-environmental behavior for the promotion of actions towards the resolution of environmental problems from an individual and collective standpoint. Likewise, the methodological and practical transformations that result from the incorporation of SD into EE to face present and future ecological challenges are identified. It is worth mentioning that the content analysis included the most cited (24 papers) and more cocited (23 papers) documents found in the network bibliometrics.

4.1. EE and Pro-Environmental Behavior

According to the results of the co-citation and citation analysis, researchers who have put forth theories and models to explain pro-environmental behavior to individuals and their relation with EE are predominant [67,68,69,71,74,76,90,92]. In this way, congruence with the analysis of co-occurrence of keywords is made evident, as the strength linkages demonstrate the level of association between EE-attitudes, added to the emerging topics environmental-ecological behavior; and the developed topics environmental management and outdoor education.
Pro-environmental behavior refers to the “behavior which consciously aims to minimize the negative impact of a person’s actions in the natural and in the built world” [67]. Traditional thinking considers that a change in behavior occurs when a human being knows the environment and its problems in depth; consequently, an awareness is built from knowledge which motivates responsible action and leads to structuring a pro-environmental behavior [69,84].
Hungerford and Volk [69] and Bamberg and Möser [90] based their research on a prior study conducted by Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera [81] on a meta-analysis related with responsible environmental behavior. Based on the above, the responsible behavior model suggests that students learn to identify environmental issues from the raising of questions, skills to obtain information from secondary sources, the application of questionnaires with population samples, analysis and the construction of involvement [69].
Conversely, the integrated psychosocial model for determinants of pro-environmental behavior becomes a replication and an extension of the meta-analysis proposed by Hines et al. [81], 20 years after its publication. The model integrates education (knowledge) and the moral rules (conscience) as elements determined by the combination of cognitive and social factors that contribute to the prediction of the moral standard [90]. Likewise, it takes as reference Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) [104], which assumes that decision making is guided by a rational assessment on the consequences of behavior as people are motivated to avoid punishment and obtain rewards; hence, the sum of negative and positive consequences determines one’s attitude towards a behavioral option (intention) [67,74,90].
According to the two models, it is valid to reaffirm that education implies more knowledge, but this does not necessarily lead to pro-environmental behavior [67]. It follows that, within the framework of classical conservation behavior, communication and education promote certain cognitive behaviors related with emotions, attitudes and intentions [74].
Stern et al.’s Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory of support for social movements: The Case of Environmentalism [105] is linked to the Value Theory [106], Norm Activation Theory [107] and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) [108] through a chain of five variables that correspond to the theories mentioned and lead to pro-environmental behavior: (i) personal values, regarding altruistic motivation; (ii) the NEP (interpreted below); (iii) personal norms for environmental protection, activated by beliefs regarding the condition of the biophysical environment; (iv) awareness of adverse consequences (AC), which supports the idea that altruistic thinking occurs in response to moral norms activated in individuals who believe that certain conditions represent a threat to other people; (v) the attribution of responsibility to oneself (AR) regarding actions that could be undertaken to prevent certain consequences [76].
The ‘New Ecological Paradigm Scale’ (NEP) focuses on the “beliefs on the human capacity to alter nature’s balance, the existence of growth limits for human societies and the right of humankind to govern the rest of nature” [72]. The scale was proposed in 1978 with 12 items in the psychosocial field (attitudes, beliefs, values, cosmo-vision) and redefined in the year 2000 with 15 items focused on the ecological crisis haunting mankind on topics including climate change, the depleting of the ozone layer and global environmental changes [72,93].
According to Guagnano, Stern, and Dietz [109], some scientists have incorporated external and internal variables to the models of behavior change, which in practice show inconsistencies due to their impartiality and the poor critical perception on the behavior of human beings. As an alternative, Stern [105] theorized on three domains (personal, behavioral, contextual) for behavioral phenomena in individuals that lead to environmentally meaningful behavior [76]; on the other hand, Kollmuss and Agyeman [67] describe three factors influencing pro-environmental behavior models (demographic, external, internal) and affirm its complexity, as behavior is made up of structural elements.
Following the models and theories referenced, intentions are a function of individuals’ attitudes towards the performance of a particular action; hence, beliefs, motivation to comply with social expectations and knowledge are fundamental because they possess a pro-environmental behavior [110]. In this respect, Jensen and Schnack [68], propose an action competency approach which associates competency with being capable and willing to be a qualified participant, while action is related with behaviors, habits and, hence, actions performed consciously and preceded by experience [87]. Therefore, in EE, the transmission of knowledge is not the only motivation for pro-environmental behavior [88].
The complexity of interpreting behavior to transcend the linear pattern of individuals’ actions is apparent. According to Zsóka et al. [111], the relationships between knowledge, attitudes and parameters for action have been analyzed; however, the acquisition of pro-environmental behavior has been interpreted in an intermittent manner. There has been no deep analysis on the cultural differences related with factors generating environmental behaviors, and the processes that have historically been references exclusively in theoretical frameworks have not been analyzed [90].
In consequence, it is inferred that there exist several alternatives to understand in practice pro-environmental behavior that is constructed at school, at university, in daily life and in the individuals’ surroundings. To Stevenson [80], EE starts with the promotion of nature and outdoor education, and so, ecological experiences should be promoted from childhood [84]. Likewise, from childhood through adulthood, it is necessary to continue to promote pro-environmental behavior through non-conventional interactions with nature outside the classroom [88,89]. In consequence, it is essential that teachers modify traditional perceptions on the transmission of knowledge so that they can exploit settings for the construction of pro-environmental behavior which is not forced and turns into a conscientious lifestyle [111].
Thus, some alternatives have emerged to promote the preservation of landscapes and urban settings to increase the participation of the public and preserve biodiversity [95,97]; the construction of routines to prevent wasting food at home [112]; the design of programs on legal matters and environmental impact of groups that introduce exotic species into habitats which are not adapted to them [113]); the implementation of augmented reality technologies with hand devices and environmental probes [114]; the administration of the countryside and environmentally sensitive areas as schemes that contribute to modify the way in which farmers perceive the environment [115]; the activation of ecosystems (e.g., peatlands) as an ecological and an awareness resource [116]. Likewise, genuine interest in ecological literature may pave the road for discussion groups and it has a clear role as a predictor of political orientation in making environmental decisions, especially among the young [117].
To Şekercioğlu et al. [118], Turkey’s inhabitants possess a traditional knowledge on the biocultural diversity of their nation; however, these authors indicate that EE at schools and universities shows weaknesses, and the historical and cultural bonds are underused when raising awareness on preservation. In consequence, critical pedagogy challenges the suppositions and practices assumed by conventional education; likewise, it shows a connection with place-based education, which integrates EE with experimental learning and holds a direct relationship with ecological and rural contexts [73]. From this perspective, conservation social sciences defined as “a subset of basic disciplines applied to social sciences focused particularly on the preservation of environmental management” [119] and citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public participation [92] are fundamental to apply EE and build pro-environmental behaviors.
In addition to the approaches mentioned, research and action cooperative processes on environmental processes, connected to the knowledge of legal–political processes [80]), reveal the importance of democratizing ecological research with respect to the decisions on the management of resources, access to information and involving the population directly affected by environmental implications [92]. To do this, scientists who delve deeper into this area must acquire the capacity to communicate their findings to a non-scientific audience [120].
In this sense, critical thinking must be undertaken in order to build causal environmental behaviors through conservation actions which are conscious enough to identify activities that may, or should be modified when circumstances change [74]. In the same way, there is connectivity with political action that stems from a collective action represented in community projects and comprises the functioning of the local government. It is necessary to clarify that all of these aspects make up the EE political model [71].
Hence, it is our responsibility to educate students to establish ecological commitments through experiences that transcend the observation of tragedies, and to reconsider the idea that the classroom is the only fundamental setting to teach and to learn [68,73]; likewise, it is necessary to understand that processes of change should lead us to obtain a larger environmental benefit and to understand that knowledge on its own does not result in a specific behavior [96]. It is pertinent to incentivize EE research at schools, universities, community settings and other institutions in order to promote understanding of environmentalism [89]); improve the quality of urban life [97]; acquire skills in data collection and data interpreting through tools and techniques available outside the classroom [114], working with local and community groups with an interdisciplinary approach in natural and social contexts [119]; and involve case studies in fields of action [118].
In short, the research component in and out of the classroom is essential for scientific participation so that people understand and support science with critical research thinking that will allow them to make informed decisions [92]. This compendium of possibilities engages and challenges teachers to explore environmental settings and issues through new curricula for the construction of pro-environmental syllabi for the construction of a pro-environmental behavior that leads to action [73,80].

4.2. EE and Sustainability

In line with the results of the co-citation and citation analysis, authors approaching SD in EE from the perspective of SDE stand out. This take implies methodological and practical challenges for their implementation [70,77,78,79,91,121,122,123,124]. Likewise, word co-occurrence networks reveal a conceptual evolution from the bidimensional matrix and Sankey’s diagram.
Based on how complex it is to integrate sustainability and EE, a number of researchers prioritize the development of competencies from higher education, as sustainability is an active part of undergraduate and graduate programs at prominent universities around the globe [77]. Consequently, it is necessary to promote participation processes in decision making, communicative skills [122] and learning to face adverse environmental issues [123]. These competencies are the following:
Educational competencies: these involve having the skills, competencies and knowledge to change economic, economic and social behavior without these changes being a reaction to existing problems [122]. In a complementary manner, Rieckmann’s study [123], conducted with SDE experts and Wiek at al.’s analysis, highlight a set of significant competencies from sustainability: systemic thinking and management of complexity (collectively analyzing complex systems); anticipatory thinking (evaluating and creating future “stories” related with sustainability); regulatory (collectively reconciling and negotiating sustainability principles and objectives); strategic (designing and implementing transforming governance strategies); interpersonal (motivating and facilitating the solution of sustainability problems) and critical thinking.
The complexity and uncertainty of changes taking place in the globalized world, with tangible socioenvironmental problems, leads us to face challenges by learning in meaningful contexts, relating knowledge with real applications that promote students’ autonomy [122,123] and contributing to the educational transformation that integrates sustainability [125].
In this regard, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) should implement environmental management systems, lead the commitment of local authorities with interest groups in society [124] and support students and researchers in sustainability interdisciplinary studies when proposing a new research agenda [126,127]. In addition, the concept of SD offers them the opportunity to face and understand its complexity [123], with the purpose of exchanging ideas and giving way to replicating new approaches in curricula that guide educators with respect to sustainability concepts, values and tools [94,121].
In this line, academic recognition and commitment to SD by HEIs is reflected in the institutional framework from research and daily experiences on campus [94]; and in the community (reach) when closely participating with local stakeholders to self-organize in facing regional sustainability challenges [124]. The above- mentioned is configured as a basic principle to lead present and future generations when tackling sustainability [91].

5. Conclusions

There is a clear gap between possessing knowledge, skills and competencies in the ecological field and demonstrating through actions a pro-environmental behavior which adjusts itself to the environmental changes prevailing in the world context. From a retrospective take on the question, it was found that pro-environmental behavior from EE is subject to the pedagogical, practical and participative alternatives that motivate interaction with nature as the basis to acquire critical thinking on ecological issues and integrate scientific research in and out of the classroom. In this context, this article presents a broad analysis from a bibliometric perspective regarding research techniques on pro-environmental behavior with respect to SD in EE, finding influential authors on the subject and the development of the topics.
In parallel, incorporating SD into EE in the past two decades (2000–2020) has sparked criticism on the immersion of currents from the prevailing economic system on education for a sustainable future. However, the scientific community is emphatic in promoting research from higher education to redefine the object of SDE; in other words, communicating knowledge, developing competencies and reforming methodologies and curricular practices, added to relating with peers from local and regional communities.

Author Contributions

Methodology, R.Z.R. and Y.I.B.V.; Software, L.E.B.A.; Validation, L.E.B.A.; Formal analysis, Y.I.B.V.; Investigation, R.Z.R., Y.I.B.V. and L.E.B.A.; Data curation, L.E.B.A.; Writing–original draft, R.Z.R., Y.I.B.V. and L.E.B.A.; Writing–review & editing, R.Z.R. and Y.I.B.V.; Supervision, R.Z.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This study was financed by Universidad Industrial de Santander, the research group INNOTEC and the Educational Research Group Atenea. Project “Innovation in geo-education: a proposal for sustainable development in the area of influence of the Santurban moorland ecosystem, based on the social and practical representations of geo-conservation”. Code number 2398. The APC was funded by the own authors.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This research was carried out with the express authorization of the Industrial University of Santander, and of the Ethics Committee designated to endorse the proposal: Committee on Ethics in Scientific Research of the Universidad Industrial de Santander, CEINCI.

Informed Consent Statement

No applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Network visualization of the most widely cocited references [1,11,13,30,67,70,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90].
Figure 1. Network visualization of the most widely cocited references [1,11,13,30,67,70,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90].
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Figure 2. Visualization in the co-occurrence of keywords network.
Figure 2. Visualization in the co-occurrence of keywords network.
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Figure 3. Visualization map focused on the evolution of the topic of study.
Figure 3. Visualization map focused on the evolution of the topic of study.
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Figure 4. Map of topics associated with environmental education (2000–2010).
Figure 4. Map of topics associated with environmental education (2000–2010).
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Figure 5. Map of topics associated with environmental education (2011–2020).
Figure 5. Map of topics associated with environmental education (2011–2020).
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Figure 6. Longitudinal analysis map of the evolution of topics associated with environmental education (2010–2020).
Figure 6. Longitudinal analysis map of the evolution of topics associated with environmental education (2010–2020).
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Table
Table 1. The 20 most influential references cited in the network.
Table 1. The 20 most influential references cited in the network.
ReferenceCitation FrecuencyCo-Cit. DegreeBetweeneessCloseness
Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to proenvironmental behavior? [67].10673062.8720.990
Changing Learner Behavior Through Environmental Education [69].10559242.1920.900
Globalization and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable development [70].9640127.9150.780
The Action Competence Approach in Environmental Education [68].8448159.7530.980
Learners and Learning in Environmental Education: A critical review of the evidence [13].8236447.3050.925
Education for strategic environmental behavior [71].7443051.7320.943
Measuring Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised NEP Scale [72].5827825.8920.786
Environmental Education in the 21st Cent [1].5520835.7270.846
The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place [73].5414614.0350.673
Understanding behavior to understand behavior change: a literature review [74].5336141.5870.892
Ecological literacy: educating Our Children for a Sustainable World [75].5211638.3720.868
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development [30].5220530.1730.798
New Environmental Theories: Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior [76].5034333.7270.846
Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development [77].50141 0.692
Education for sustainable development (ESD): the turn away from ‘environment’ in environmental education [78].4924728.6130.792
Environmental Education for Sustainability: defining the new focus of environmental education in the 1990s [79].4923933.6450.832
Schooling and environmental education: contradictions in purpose and practice [80].4819923.8530.744
Currents in Environmental Education: Mapping a Complex and Evolving [11].4724234.8160.835
Analysis and Synthesis of Research on Responsible Environmental Behavior: A Meta-Analysis [81].4624219.5550.717
Knowledge, Action and Pro-environmental Behaviour [82].4626331.2930.818
Table
Table 2. The 10 most cited documents on the subject of interest.
Table 2. The 10 most cited documents on the subject of interest.
TitleAuthorsSourceYearReferences
Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviourBamberg and Möser Journal of Environmental Psychology2007[90]
Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program developmentWiek, Withycombe, and RedmanIntegrated Research System for Sustainability Science2011[77]
The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagementDickinson et al.Frontiers in Ecological Environment2012[92]
The New Environmental Paradigm Scale: From Marginality to Worldwide UseDunlapFrontiers in Ecological Environment2008[93]
Declarations for sustainability in higher education: becoming better leaders, through addressing the university systemLozano et al.Journal of Cleaner Production2013[94]
Motivations for Conserving Urban BiodiversityDearborn and KarkConservation Biology2010[95]
Environmental knowledge and conservation behavior: exploring prevalence and structure in a representative sampleFrick, Kaiser and WilsonPersonality and Individual Differences2004[96]
A habitat island approach to conserving birds in urban landscapes: case studies from southern and northern EuropeFernández-Juricic and JokimäkiBiodiversity and Conservation2001[97]
Globalization and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable developmentJickling and WalsJ. Curriculum Studies2008[70]
Understanding behavior to understand behaviour change: a literature reviewHeimlich and ArdoinEnvironmental Education Research2008[74]
Table
Table 3. Matrix for co-words formed by the linkage of strength among keywords.
Table 3. Matrix for co-words formed by the linkage of strength among keywords.
Environmental EducationESDEducationKnowledgeAttitudesSustainable DevelopmentScience
Environmental Education 9610185978182
ESD96 3520215519
Education10135 23243324
Knowledge852023 39029
Attitudes97212439 1826
Sustainable Development815533018 0
Science82192429260
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Zárate Rueda, R.; Beltrán Villamizar, Y.I.; Becerra Ardila, L.E. A Retrospective Approach to Pro-Environmental Behavior from Environmental Education: An Alternative from Sustainable Development. Sustainability 2023, 15, 5291. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065291

AMA Style

Zárate Rueda R, Beltrán Villamizar YI, Becerra Ardila LE. A Retrospective Approach to Pro-Environmental Behavior from Environmental Education: An Alternative from Sustainable Development. Sustainability. 2023; 15(6):5291. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065291

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Zárate Rueda, Ruth, Yolima Ivonne Beltrán Villamizar, and Luis Eduardo Becerra Ardila. 2023. "A Retrospective Approach to Pro-Environmental Behavior from Environmental Education: An Alternative from Sustainable Development" Sustainability 15, no. 6: 5291. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065291

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