Arts-based pedagogy as epistemic mediation in early childhood environmental and sustainability education: A mixed research systematic review and research agenda

DEMİRTAŞ D., ACER ÇAKAR D.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH REVIEW, cilt.52, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)

Özet

Arts-based pedagogies have increasingly been mobilised in early childhood environmental and sustainability education; however, they are predominantly conceptualised as expressive activities, motivational tools, or instructional techniques aimed at predefined cognitive or behavioural outcomes. As a result, the epistemic roles of the arts in shaping how sustainability knowledge is produced remain under-theorised. This review reconceptualises arts-based pedagogy as a form of epistemic mediation, foregrounding how pedagogical configurations, material conditions, and relational encounters actively organise processes of meaning-making in early childhood sustainability education. Adopting a mixed research synthesis, the review integrates 32 qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies to examine how arts-based pedagogies mediate relationships between pedagogical forms, sustainability content, learning processes, and epistemic orientations. The synthesis demonstrates that arts-based pedagogies function not merely as representational or supportive practices, but as epistemic arrangements through which knowledge is constructed as embodied, affective, relational, and situated. Findings further reveal an ontological shift from learning about nature toward becoming-with human and more-than-human worlds, highlighting the centrality of affective and ethical orientations as well as children's agency in sustainability learning. Additionally, the review identifies digital and AI-mediated artsbased practices as an emerging area for future inquiry, raising critical questions regarding technological and algorithmic mediation, epistemic authority, children's agency, and pedagogical responsibility. By articulating arts-based pedagogy as epistemic mediation, this review advances a theoretically grounded framework that contributes to rethinking knowledge, learning, and pedagogy in early childhood environmental and sustainability education.