A Systematic Literature Review on Ecological Transformation Education

Abstract

Objectives Since ‘Ecological Transformation Education’ was used in official documents of the Ministry of Education and provincial offices of education, studies related to the term are rapidly increasing. Therefore, this study was set with the purpose of systematically identifying the trend of domestic research related to ‘ecological transformation education’ and deriving educational implications.
 Methods The research method used in this study is a systematic literature review. Data search was conducted through the Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) of the Korea Education and Research Information Service, and academic papers published in academic journals were collected. The literature selection criterion was whether it deals with ecological transformation education in the general education category, and a snowballing strategy was used to ensure that no papers were excluded. The final selected literature contents were organized in a self-made coding table, and the research results were analyzed by comparing coding values.
 Results The results of this study are as follows. First, research related to ecological transformation education has been steadily progressing from the late 1990s to the early 2020s, and the focus of research was slightly different for each period, such as ‘holistic education’ and ‘sustainability education’. Second, studies related to ecological transformation education were relatively more active in early childhood education or elementary education than in secondary education, and it was found that there were not many studies on linkage between school levels. Third, studies related to ecological transformation education were conducted more through literature research methods than quantitative, qualitative, and mixed studies.
 Conclusions The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, this study is meaningful in that it identified domestic research trends related to ecological transformation education and derived educational implications through it. Second, based on this study, follow-up studies can be conducted to identify research trends by focusing on studies related to ecological transformation education published after the 2020s. Third, follow-up studies can be conducted to review literature using alternative keywords such as ‘sustainability’, ‘change’, and ‘transformation’. Fourth, follow-up studies can be conducted to identify research trends related to ecological transformation education by setting new standards or variables.