Volume/Issue :

Article type :

Original article

Page No :

21-44

Abstract :

While plants are an integral part of terrestrial ecosystems, little attention is given to them in environmental education (EE) research and conservation debates. There is growing awareness of a general lack of plant recognition and appreciation among people that has become a central issue of botanical literacy, contributing to the phenomenon of plant blindness. Despite growing scholarly interest, no comprehensive bibliometric study has yet mapped the intellectual structure, geographical distribution, and thematic development of research focused on plants within the EE domain. This study presents an evidence-based and systematic summary of peer-reviewed research on plants in environmental education from 2006–2026. The Scopus database was searched using a keyword search with the term “plants” AND “environmental education,” and then Web of Science was used for a parallel cross-validation search to evaluate the extent of the coverage robustness. After subjecting the literature to systematic inclusion and exclusion criteria, 93 English-language peer-reviewed journal articles were gathered. To ensure that the coding was reliable, two independent coders were used (κ = 0.91). Keyword co-occurrence, country co-authorship mapping, citation, and co-citation analyses were conducted using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20). There was an overall annual increase in the corpus from 2006 to 2026, peaking in 2019. The main substantive keywords identified were: plant blindness, biodiversity, nature-based learning, outdoor education, and sustainability, all of which were grouped into six thematic clusters. The USA, Germany, and Brazil were the most productive countries. The most influential scientists were Prokop, Strgar, Fančovičová, Tunnicliffe, and Patrick. The journal in the corpus that was most cited was Environmental Education Research. EE with a plant focus is a relatively small yet emerging field, defined by strong theoretical coherence around plant blindness but notable geographic and epistemological narrowness. Gaps found are the lack of studies in the early childhood perspective, Global South perspective and indigenous knowledge perspective, and an emerging, but as yet insufficiently evaluated field of technology-mediated plant education.

Keywords :

bibliometric analysis; environmental education; plants; plant blindness; Scopus; two-decade review

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Cite as :

Usak, M., & Kubiatko, M. (2026). An overview of studies on plants in environmental education: A bibliometric analysis over two decades (2006–2026). Švietimas: politika, vadyba, kokybė / Education Policy, Management and Quality, 17(1), 21–44. https://doi.org/10.48127/spvk-epmq/26.17.21