Background

Sustainable well-being is “happiness that contributes to individual, community and/or global well-being without exploiting other people, the environment or future generations” (O'brien, 2010). Sustainable well-being education can encourage environmentally sustainable behavior while also teaching people how to live happy and meaningful lives (Kjell, 2011). However, the current research and pedagogical structure of sustainable well-being education lacks a clear framework and actionable strategies for disseminating interventions (Pacis, & VanWynsberghe, 2020). Further, there have been no attempts to analyze the current progress in the field and offer advice for future directions. This gap inhibits the ability of researchers and community leaders to create and disseminate effective interventions. This review will help fill this gap by systematically assessing the available research on sustainable well-being education. 

Aims

The goal of this review was to analyze the current state of the research on sustainable well-being education and to assess needs for future research. Ultimately this review will provide a framework to help researchers and policy makers teach sustainable well-being more effectively in schools. 

Method

We reviewed the findings from existing articles on sustainable well-being education. We used PRISMA scoping review guidelines to enable an accurate assessment of existing research. These articles were independently assessed by two separate reviewers and then coded for inclusion. The nature of this review process allows for better representation of the current research and allows for the possibility of replication of this review. 

Results

Overall, past research has clearly articulated the theoretical need for sustainable well-being education, and researchers have designed several effective interventions. However, there is currently a lack of clearly defined terms and objectives in the research that hinders the necessary rapid dissemination. We offer a set of uniformly defined terms and an operational framework for creating and disseminating sustainable wellbeing interventions.

Conclusion

While the current research on sustainable well-being education is promising, more theoretically based quantitative research is needed to understand how best to communicate these principles.