Trends in Ecological Civilization Education Research in Japan in the Twenty-First Century: A Knowledge Mapping Approach

Japan took the lead in proposing a proposal on education for sustainable development (ESD) at the United Nations and actively implements ecological civilization education domestically. This article uses knowledge-mapping approach to analyze 681 papers on environmental education and ESD in J-STAGE database since 2000 to clarify publication trends, core authors, major journals, keyword co-occurrence, research hot spots, and emerging themes. This article finds that these papers mainly involve forest environmental education, energy environmental education, life cycle assessment, life cycle thinking, and consumer education as the contents, and also involve experiential activities in “Period for Integrated Studies” through school–community cooperation as the practical methods. The increasing specialization of themes, diversification of research subjects and methodologies signifies both the maturing of Japan's ecological civilization education research and the continued enrichment of its practice.